For Himmler, the SS is an order of knights. He considers himself a descendant of Henry the Fowler, the Saxon king who, by repelling the Magyars in the tenth century, laid the foundations of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, and who then spent most of his reign exterminating Slavs. With his claims to such a lineage, the Reichsfuhrer needed a castle. When he found this one, it was a ruin. He had to bring four thousand prisoners from Sachsenhausen, nearly a third of whom died during the renovations. Now, however, it towers imperiously over the Alme, which flows through the valley. Its two towers and its dungeon, connected by battlements, form a triangle whose point, turned toward the mythical land of Thule, birthplace of the Aryans, represents the
Here in the heart of the dungeon, in a former chapel renamed Obergruppenfuhrersaal, Himmler is holding a meeting that Heydrich has been unable to get out of. In the middle of this great circular room, the highest SS dignitaries are gathered around an enormous oak table. It is round and seats twelve, of course, because Himmler wanted to reproduce the symbolism of the Arthurian legend. But the Reich’s quest for the Grail in 1941 is a little different from Perceval’s. “The final confrontation between two ideologies… the need to seize new
Heydrich does not let his irritation show. He stares at the magnificent black sun inlaid with runes on the marble floor. Military actions… problems of supply… could they be any more evasive? Heydrich is well aware that with certain sensitive subjects one must not be too explicit, but a moment always comes when you have to call a spade a spade—and it seems reasonable to think that this moment has now arrived. Otherwise, through a lack of clarity in their orders, there is a risk that the men will mess things up. And he is the one who’s responsible for this mission.
When Himmler ends the meeting, Heydrich hurries through corridors cluttered with suits of armor, coats of arms, and paintings. He knows that there are alchemists, occultists, and magi here working full-time on esoteric problems, but he pays no mind to any of this. Two days he’s been stuck in this lunatic asylum! He wants to get back to Berlin as soon as possible.
But outside the clouds are massing in the valley, and if he waits too long his airplane won’t be able to take off. They escort him to the parade ground, where he has the honor of reviewing the troops. He dispenses with the long speech and dashes past the assembled ranks, hardly even glancing at the gang of assassins chosen to go and exterminate subhumans in the East. There are nearly three thousand of them and they are turned out impeccably. Heydrich dives into the plane that idles at the end of the runway. It takes off just before the storm breaks. In the sudden downpour, the troops of the four Einsatzgruppen start to march.
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In Berlin, there is no round table and no black magic. The atmosphere is bureaucratic, and Heydrich studiously writes his directives. Goring has asked him to keep them short and simple. On July 2, 1941, two weeks after the launch of Barbarossa, the following note is sent to SS commanders behind the front line:
“To be executed: all Komintern functionaries, Party functionaries, people’s commissars, Jews occupying positions in the Party or the State, other radical elements (saboteurs, propagandists, irregular soldiers, murderers, agitators).”
Simple indeed, but also quite cautious—curiously so. Why specify that Jews occupying positions in the Party or the State should be executed when all such functionaries were to be executed anyway, Jewish or otherwise? Heydrich didn’t know then how ordinary soldiers would react to the demands of his Einsatzgruppen. It’s true that the famous directive signed by Keitel on June 6, 1941, and thus approved by the Wehrmacht, authorizes the massacres, but officially this is limited to political enemies. In other words, Soviet Jews are targeted only because of their politics. The redundant meaning in this note is like a trace of one final scruple. Naturally, if the local people want to organize pogroms, that will be discreetly encouraged. But at the beginning of July, there is still no question of openly pursuing the extermination of Jews simply because they are Jews.
Two weeks later, swept along by the euphoria of their victories, this embarrassment will have disappeared. While the Wehrmacht routs the Red Army on all fronts, while the invasion progresses even more easily than the most optimistic forecasts, and while 300,000 Soviet soldiers are taken prisoner, Heydrich rewrites his directive. The main points are reprised, the list lengthened, and a few details added (former Red Army commissars are now included, for instance). And finally Heydrich replaces “Jews occupying positions in the Party or the State” with “all the Jews.”
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Hauptmann Heydrich is on board a Messerschmitt 109 whose cabin is embossed with the initials
Today, however, what Heydrich sees below him is not a column of foot soldiers but a Yak. The Soviet plane’s plump silhouette is easily recognized. In spite of the enormous number of enemy planes destroyed on the ground by German bombers at the beginning of the offensive, the Soviet air force has not been completely eliminated, and there are still pockets of resistance: this Yak is proof of that. But the German planes are obviously superior, both in quality and quantity. No Soviet fighter in the current situation can hope to hold its own against the Me109. Imperious and vain, Heydrich orders his squadron to remain in formation. He wants to give his men a demonstration by shooting down the Russian plane on his own. He descends to the Yak’s height and glides along in its vapor trail. The Yak’s pilot hasn’t seen him. The object of the maneuver is to get closer to the target so that he can open fire at a distance of about five hundred feet. The German plane is much faster. The gap closes. When he can clearly make out the Russian’s tail in his sights, Heydrich shoots. The Yak beats its wings like a terror-stricken bird. But the first salvo hasn’t touched it, and in truth the pilot is not terror-stricken. He sends the plane into a dive. Heydrich tries to follow, but his turn is hopelessly wide in comparison. That idiot Goring claimed Soviet aviation was obsolete, but in that, as in almost all the Nazis’ assumptions about the Soviet Union, he was wrong. Admittedly, the Yak doesn’t measure up to the German fighters in terms of speed, but its relative slowness is balanced by an astonishing maneuverability. The little Russian plane keeps descending while continuing to twist and turn ever more tightly. Heydrich follows but can’t fix the enemy in his sights. It’s like a hare being pursued by a greyhound. Heydrich wants to claim a victory and paint a little plane on the fuselage of his aircraft, so he persists. What he doesn’t realiae is that the Yak, while constantly changing direction to evade his pursuer’s salvos, is not flying randomly but heading toward a precise location. Only when the explosions echo all around him does Heydrich understand: the Russian pilot has led him over a Soviet antiaircraft battery and he—the imbecile—has thrown himself into the trap.
A violent impact shakes the cabin. Black smoke pours from the tail. Heydrich’s plane crashes.
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Himmler looks like someone’s just smacked him in the face. The blood rises to his cheeks and he feels his brain swell inside his skull. He’s just heard the news: during an air battle over the Berezina, Heydrich’s Messerschmitt 109 has been shot down. If Heydrich is dead, it is of course a terrible loss for the SS: brilliant man, dedicated colleague, et cetera. But the real worry is if he’s still alive: that could spell catastrophe. Because the plane crashed
