rack their brains. There are a few high-ranking Waffen-SS leaders who might be suitable for organizing a good slaughter, but they’re on the Eastern Front—and in the spring of 1942 they’ve got their hands full. In the end, they fall back on Kurt Daluge because he happens to be in Prague already, for medical reasons. Ironically, Daluge—the chief of the Reich’s regular police, and just promoted to Oberstgruppenfuhrer—is one of Heydrich’s direct rivals, although he has nothing like the same stature. Heydrich refers to him only as “the moron.” If the Blond Beast regains consciousness, he is not going to be pleased. As soon as he’s back on his feet, they must think about promoting him.
He regains consciousness. The operation has gone well. The German surgeon is quietly optimistic. It’s true that they had to remove the spleen, but there are no apparent complications. The only slightly surprising discovery was some tufts of hair, which were inside the wound and all over his body. It took the doctors a while to figure out where they came from: the Mercedes’s leather seats, ripped open by the explosion, were stuffed with horsehair. In the X-ray department, they were worried that there might be small fragments of metal lodged in some vital organs. But there’s nothing, and the German elite in Prague can begin to breathe again. Lina, who wasn’t told about the attack until three p.m., is at his bedside. Still groggy, he speaks to her in a weak voice: “Take care of our children.” Right now, he doesn’t seem very sure about his future.
Aunt Moravec is ecstatic. She bursts into the concierge’s apartment and asks: “Have you heard about Heydrich?” Yes, they’ve heard: it’s all they’re talking about on the radio. But they have also broadcast the serial number of the second bicycle, abandoned at the scene of the crime.
All over town, they are plastering the bilingual red posters to the walls—the posters they use whenever they need to proclaim something to the local population. There are many such posters, but this one will undoubtedly remain the highlight of the collection. It says:
1. IN PRAGUE ON MAY 27, 1942, THERE WAS AN ATTACK ON THE INTERIM REICHSPROTEKTOR, SS OBERGRUPPENFUHRER HEYDRICH.
For information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators, there will be a reward of ten million crowns. Whoever shelters these criminals, or helps them, or who, having any knowledge of them, does not denounce them, will be shot, along with his entire family.
2. A state of emergency has been declared in the Oberlandrat region of Prague. The state of emergency will be proclaimed by the reading of this declaration on the radio. The following measures have been decided:
1. All civilians, without exception, are forbidden to go out on the streets between 9:00 p.m. on May 27 and 6:00 a.m. on May 28;
2. All bars and restaurants, all cinemas, theaters, and other places of entertainment are to be closed, and all traffic on public highways stopped during these hours;
3. Whoever, in contradiction of this order, is found on the street between these hours will be shot if they do not stop at the first command;
4. Further measures are anticipated and, if necessary, will be announced on the radio.
At 4:30 p.m. this declaration is read out on German radio. From 5:00, Czech radio begins to broadcast it every thirty minutes; from 7:40, every ten minutes; and from 8:20 until 9:00, every five minutes. I suppose anyone who lived through this day in Prague—if they are still alive—would be able to recite the entire text by heart. At 9:30 the state of emergency is extended throughout the Protectorate. Meanwhile, Himmler has called Frank to confirm Hitler’s new orders: the hundred most important people imprisoned as hostages since Heydrich’s arrival the previous October are to be executed.
In the hospital, they are emptying the cupboards of all the morphine they can find for the relief of their most important patient.
That evening, an insane raid is organized. The city is invaded by 4,500 men from the SS, the SD, the NSKK, the Gestapo, the Kripo, and other Schupos, plus three Wehrmacht battalions. Add to this the Czech police, who must help them, and there are more than 20,000 men taking part in the operation. All access routes are cut off, all main roads blocked, streets closed, buildings searched, people checked. Everywhere I look, I see armed men jumping from uncovered trucks, running in columns from one building to the next, filling stairwells with the pounding of boots and the clanking of steel, hammering on doors, shouting orders in German, dragging people from their beds, turning their apartments upside down, pushing them about and barking at them. The SS in particular seem to have completely lost control: they pace up and down the streets like angry madmen, shooting at lighted windows or open windows, expecting at any moment to be the victims of snipers waiting in ambush. This is not a state of emergency—it’s a state of war. The police operation plunges the entire city into indescribable chaos. That night 36,000 apartments are visited—for a meager yield, compared with the means deployed. They arrest 541 people—of whom three or four are tramps, one a prostitute, one a juvenile delinquent, and one a Resistance leader with no link whatsoever to Anthropoid—and immediately release 430 of them. And they do not find a single trace of the parachutists. What’s worse, this is only the beginning. Gabcik, Kubis, Valcik, and their friends must have had a strange night. I wonder if any of them managed to sleep? I would be very surprised. As for me… I’m sleeping very badly these days.
223
On the hospital’s second floor, emptied of all but one of its patients, Heydrich is lying in bed. He is weak, his senses are numbed, his body aching, but he’s conscious. The door opens, and the guard lets his wife, Lina, into the room. He tries to smile at her—he’s happy she’s here. She, too, is relieved to see her husband alive, albeit very pale and bedridden. Yesterday, when she saw him just after his operation, all white and unconscious, she thought he was dead. Even after waking up, he looked barely any better. She didn’t believe the doctors’ reassuring words. And if the parachutists had trouble sleeping, Lina’s night wasn’t very pleasant either.
This morning she brings him hot soup in a thermos flask. Yesterday: victim of an assassination attempt. Today: already convalescent. The Blond Beast has thick skin. He’ll be fine, as always.
224
Mrs. Moravec goes to fetch Valcik. Her husband, the kindhearted railway worker, does not want to let Valcik leave in his current state. He gives him a book to read on the tram, so he can hide his face:
225
A crisis meeting is taking place behind the black walls of Pecek Palace, Commissioner Pannwitz summing up: after studying the clues gathered at the crime scene, his initial conclusion is that the attack was planned in London and executed by two parachutists. Frank agrees. But Daluge, named as interim Protector the day before, believes the attack points to an organized national uprising. As a preventive measure, he orders that lots of people be shot and every policeman in the region rounded up to reinforce the city’s police presence. Frank looks like he’s going to
