HHhH

same sofa, accept politely. They’ve suffered so many hardships in the past that they never pass up the opportunity to eat and drink. They let the biscuits melt in their mouths. Suddenly, the doorbell rings. Mrs. Ellison gets up, but the door opens before she can get there and two young women appear. “Come in, darlings, I’ll introduce you!” Gabcik and Kubis stand up. “Lorna, Edna, this is Josef and Jan—they’re going to live here for a while.” The two young girls move forward, smiling. “Gentlemen, allow me to introduce my daughters.” At this moment the two soldiers must say to themselves that sometimes, after all, there is a bit of justice in this mean, cruel world.

135

My mission involves being sent to my native country with another member of the Czechoslovak army in order to commit an act of sabotage or of terrorism in a place and according to methods which will depend upon the circumstances that we find there. I will do all that is in my power to obtain the results desired, not only in my native country but also beyond it. I will work with all my heart and soul to be able to successfully complete this mission, for which I have volunteered.

On December 1, 1941, Gabcik and Kubis sign what looks like a standard document. I wonder if it was used for all the parachutists of all the armies based in Great Britain.

136

Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and the minister of armaments, should have been Heydrich’s kind of man. Refined, elegant, charming, intelligent, he operates at a cultural level markedly higher than most Nazi dignitaries. He is neither a chicken farmer like Himmler, nor a crank like Rosenberg, nor a fat pig like Goring and Bormann.

Speer is passing through Prague. Heydrich shows him around the city in his car. He takes him to the Opera House, where Mendelssohn’s statue is no longer on the roof. Speer shares his taste for classical music. In spite of this, the two men don’t like each other. Speer, a distinguished intellectual, sees Heydrich as a cultivated thug who unblinkingly carries out Hitler’s dirty work. As for Heydrich, he regards Speer as a competent man whose qualities he admires but who is nonetheless a snobbish, pampered civilian. What bothers him about Speer is that he doesn’t get his hands dirty.

Speer, in his capacity as minister of armaments, has been sent by Goring to demand that Heydrich supply sixteen thousand extra Czech workers for the German war effort. Heydrich does his best to fulfill this request as quickly as possible. He explains to Speer that the Czechs have already been tamed—in contrast with France, for example, which is overrun by Communist Resistance fighters and saboteurs.

The line of official Mercedes cars crosses the Charles Bridge. Speer goes into raptures over the tracery on the Gothic and Baroque buildings. While the streets rush past, the architect in Speer gets the upper hand over the minister. He dreams of various urban developments: this vast unexploited area in the Letna district, for instance, could be used to build a new headquarters for the German government. Heydrich doesn’t say a word, but he’s not keen on the idea of being forced to leave the castle, where he can think of himself as a monarch. In Strahov, near the monastery, which houses one of the most beautiful libraries in Europe, Speer envisions a great German university rising from the earth. He has many ideas for completely redeveloping the banks of the Moldau, and he recommends that the replica of the Eiffel Tower—which sits imposingly on Petrin, the highest hill in Prague—be demolished. Heydrich tells Speer of his desire to make Prague the cultural capital of the German Reich. He can’t resist mentioning, with pride, the piece of music he has chosen to open the coming musical season: an opera composed by his father. “Excellent idea,” Speer says politely. (He’s never heard any of Papa Heydrich’s works.) “And when will that happen?” May 26. Speer’s wife, in the second car, examines Lina’s appearance. The two spouses give each other the cold shoulder, apparently. For two hours, the black Mercedeses continue to crisscross the city’s main streets. By the end of his visit, Speer has already forgotten the date of Heydrich Senior’s opera.

It’s May 26, 1942. The day before…

137

Gabcik the Slovak and Kubis the Moravian have never been to Prague, and in fact this is one of the reasons they were chosen. If they don’t know anyone, they won’t be recognized. But their lack of local knowledge is also a handicap, so part of their intensive training involves studying maps of their beautiful capital.

Gabcik and Kubis pore over a map of Prague, memorizing the main squares and streets. At this point, they have never set foot upon the Charles Bridge or the Old Town Square, the hills of Petrin and Strahov, the banks of the Vltava, Wenceslas Square or Charles Square, the courtyard of Hradcany Castle, or the cemetery of Vysehrad Castle, where Vitezslav Nezval—author of the immortal collection of poems Prague with Fingers of Rain—is not yet buried. They have never laid eyes on the sad islands in the river with their swans and ducks, nor the bluish towers of Tyn Church, nor the Astronomical Clock on City Hall with its little automated figures that move every hour. They still haven’t drunk a hot chocolate in the Cafe Louvre or a beer in the Cafe Slavia. They have not been eyed scornfully by the statue of the iron man in Platnerska Street. For now, the lines on the map evoke nothing more than names learned as children or military objectives. To see them studying the city’s topography, you might easily believe them—were it not for the uniforms—to be vacationers, planning their trip with particular care.

138

Heydrich receives a delegation of Czech yokels. He is not very welcoming. He listens in silence to their groveling promises of cooperation, then explains to them that Czech farmers are saboteurs. They fiddle with their inventories of livestock and grain. To what end? For the black market, obviously. Heydrich has already begun executing butchers and wholesalers, but to have any real effect in combating this scourge that starves the people he must gain total control of agricultural production. So Heydrich threatens them: all farmers who fail to give a precise account of their production will have their farms confiscated. The yokels are stunned. They know that if Heydrich decided to burn them alive in the Old Town Square, no one would come to their aid. To be complicit in the black market is to take food from the mouths of the people, and on this point the people support Heydrich’s laws. The Hangman of Prague thus achieves a political masterstroke: creating a reign of terror and applying a popular law at the same time.

As soon as the yokels have gone, Karl Hermann Frank—his secretary of state—wants to start drawing up a list of farms to be confiscated. Heydrich tells him to calm down. The only farms that will be confiscated are those run by farmers judged unfit for Germanization.

Come on—this isn’t the Soviet Union, you know!

139

Perhaps the scene took place in Heydrich’s wood-paneled office. Heydrich is busying himself with his dossiers, when there’s a knock at the door. A man in uniform enters the room—an expression of terror on his face, a piece of paper in his hand.

“Herr Obergruppenfuhrer, the news has just arrived! Germany has declared war on the United States!”

Heydrich doesn’t blink. The man hands him the message. He reads it in silence.