HHhH

by Laurent Binet

  During the training, he showed himself to be talented, clever and cheerful, even in the most difficult situations. He was open, warm-hearted, enterprising and resourceful. A natural born leader. He overcame all the difficulties of training without ever complaining and with excellent results.

  About Kubiš, on the other hand, Moravec confirms that he was

  slow in his movements, but with great stamina and perserverance. His instructors noted his intelligence and imagination. He was very disciplined, discreet and reliable. He was also very calm, reserved and serious—the complete opposite of Gabčík’s merry, outgoing personality.

  This book, Master of Spies—picked up at the clearance sale of a bookshop in Illinois—is one of my most cherished possessions. Colonel Moravec had a real story to tell. If I’d followed my instincts, I’d have copied out the whole thing. Sometimes I feel like a character in a Borges story. But no, I’m not a character either.

  130

  “If you’re lucky enough to escape death during the assassination attempt, you will have two options: try to survive inside the country, or attempt to cross the border and make your way back to the base in London. Both possibilities are extremely risky, considering the likely reaction of the Germans. But to be perfectly honest, the most probable outcome is that you will be killed on the spot.”

  Moravec summons the two men separately, in order to give them the same speech. Neither shows any emotion.

  For Gabčík, the mission is a war operation, and the risk of being killed goes with the job.

  Kubiš thanks the colonel for having chosen him for such an important mission.

  Both men say they would rather die than fall into the hands of the Gestapo.

  131

  You are Czech or Slovak. You do not like it when they tell you what to do, nor when they hurt people—that’s why you decide to leave your country and join up elsewhere with your compatriots who are resisting the invader. You go north or south, through Poland or the Balkans, and—after numerous complications—you reach France by sea.

  When you get there, things become even more complicated. The French make you join the Foreign Legion and send you to Algeria or Tunisia. But you do finally end up with a Czechoslovak division formed in a town full of Spanish refugees, and you fight alongside the French when they in turn are attacked by the Nazis. You fight courageously and take part in all the retreats and defeats. You cover the never-ending retreat while planes roar through the skies. You suffer through this long agony, which the French call La Débacle, and for you it is both the first defeat and the last. In the conquered south of France everything is in chaos, but you manage to take off again and this time you land in England. In recognition of your courage in heroically resisting the invader and redeeming March 1939, President Beneš decorates you in the middle of a field. You are exhausted, and your uniform is crumpled, but you are standing next to your friend when Beneš pins a medal to your coat. And then it’s Churchill himself, leaning on his walking stick, who inspects you and your comrades. You have fought the invader and in doing so saved your country’s honor. But you are eager for more.

  You join the special forces and are trained in various grandly named castles all over Scotland and England. You jump, you shoot, you fight, you throw grenades. You’re good. You are extremely charming. You’re a good soldier and the girls love you. You flirt with the young women. You drink tea at their parents’ houses, and their parents think you’re wonderful. You continue to train for the most important mission that any country has ever entrusted to only two men. You believe in justice and you believe in vengeance. You are brave, willing, and gifted. You are ready to die for your country. You are becoming something that grows inside you, and that begins, little by little, to be bigger than you, but at the same time you remain very much yourself. You are a simple man. You are a man.

  You are Josef Gabčík or Jan Kubiš, and you are going to make history.

  132

  Each London-based government-in-exile has its own reconstituted army, and each army its own football team, and these teams play regular friendly matches. Today it’s France versus Czechoslovakia. As always, there is a large crowd, made up of soldiers of all ranks from many different countries. The atmosphere is relaxed; men in colored uniforms shout encouragements. On the terraces, in the middle of this noisy crowd, we can see Gabčík and Kubiš, wearing brown army hats and talking animatedly. Their lips move quickly, as do their hands. Their conversation, you guess, is technical and complicated. Only half watching the match, they stop talking whenever a dangerous move gets the crowd on its feet. They follow the action to see what happens, then resume their discussion with the same gusto as before, surrounded by shouting and singing.

  France opens the score. The French supporters celebrate noisily.

  Perhaps our two heroes’ behavior contrasts so markedly with the engrossed spectators around them that people take notice of them. In any case, they are already the subject of gossip among the soldiers of the free Czechoslovak forces. Their special mission, prepared in the greatest secrecy, gives Gabčík and Kubiš a mysterious prestige that is intensified by their refusal to answer any questions about it—even when the questioners are their oldest comrades from the evacuation of Poland or the French Foreign Legion.

  Gabčík and Kubiš undoubtedly discuss their mission. On the pitch, Czechoslovakia presses for an equalizer. The number 10 gets the ball near the penalty spot and pulls his foot back to shoot, but is blocked by a French defender. The center forward, lying in wait on the left, picks up the loose ball and fires a powerful drive under the bar. The beaten goalkeeper rolls in the dust. Czechoslovakia has equalized—the stadium explodes. Gabčík and Kubiš stop talking. They are happy. The two teams leave the pitch after the game ends in a draw.

  133

  On November 19, 1941, at a ceremony that takes place amid the golden splendor of St. Vitus cathedral in the heart of Prague’s Hradčany district, President Hácha solemnly presents the seven keys of the city to his new master, Heydrich. These grand, finely worked keys are kept in the same room as St. Wenceslas’s crown, the Czech nation’s most precious jewel. There is a photo of Heydrich and Hácha standing in front of the crown, which sits on a finely embroidered cushion. It’s said that on this occasion, Heydrich couldn’t resist placing the crown on his head. And according to an old legend, whoever wrongfully wears the crown will die within the year, along with his eldest son.

  If you look carefully at the photo, though, you’ll see that Hácha, resembling an old bald owl, is staring at the crown mistrustingly, while Heydrich appears to be putting on a show of somewhat forced respectfulness. I suspect that he’s not really awed by what he might very well regard as a quaint ornament of little value. In short, I wonder if this ceremony isn’t a bit of a bore for him.

  There is no proof that Heydrich really did put the crown on his head. I think people wanted to believe this story because it suggested, restrospectively, an act of hubris that could not go unpunished. But I doubt whether Heydrich suddenly believed himself to be in the middle of a Wagnerian opera. As evidence, I offer the fact that Heydrich handed three of the seven keys back to Hácha: a show of friendship designed to give the illusion that the Germans were prepared to share the government of the country with the Czechs. An empty symbolic gesture, to be sure, but the halfhearted nature of this exchange means that the scene loses its potential outrageousness. This is diplomacy at its most formal and least meaningful. Heydrich probably can’t wait for the ceremony to be over so he can go back home and play with his kids or work on the Final Solution.

  And yet… if you look more closely at the photo, you’ll see Heydrich’s right hand, partially masked by the cushion on which the crown rests. Heydrich has removed his glove—his right hand is bare, while his left is still gloved. The right hand is moving toward something. In front of the crown, half concealed by the cushion, is a scepter. Now, even if we can’t see it clearly, there are strong reasons to believe that his hand
is touching, or about to touch, the scepter. And this leads me to reinterpret the expression on Heydrich’s face. Perhaps it is not boredom but covetousness. I don’t believe he put the crown on his head, because we’re not in a Charlie Chaplin film, but I’m equally sure that he did pick up the scepter—to weigh it casually in his hand. A less demonstrative gesture, but symbolic all the same. And Heydrich, though pragmatic, also had a pronounced taste for the trappings of power.

  134

  Josef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš dunk biscuits in the tea made for them by their landlady, Mrs. Ellison. The English all want to help with the war effort in any way they can. So when it was suggested to Mrs. Ellison that she put up these two boys, she agreed with pleasure. Particularly as they’re so charming. I don’t know how or where he learned the language, but Gabčík is fluent in English. Talkative and outgoing, he leads the conversation, and Mrs. Ellison is enchanted. Kubiš is more reserved and less at ease with the language, but his good-natured smile and his kindness go down well with the hostess. “You’ll have a bit more tea?” The two men, seated side by side on the 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!” Gabčík and Kubiš 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, Gabčík and Kubiš 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 Göring 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 Göring 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 Petřín, 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

  Gabčík the Slovak and Kubiš 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.

  Gabčík and Kubiš 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 Petřín and Strahov, the banks of the Vltava, Wenceslas Square or Charles Square, the courtyard of Hradčany Castle, or the cemetery of Vyšehrad 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 Týn 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 Café Louvre or a beer in the Café Slavia. They have not been eyed scornfully by the statue of the iron man in Platnéřská 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 Obergruppenführer, 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.

  A long moment passes.

  “What are your orders, Herr Obergruppenführer?”

  “Take a detachment of men to the train station and remove the statue of Wilson.”

  “…”

  “I don’t expect to see that piece of crap there tomorrow morning. Do it, Major Pomme!”

  140

  President Beneš knows that he will have to face up to his reponsibilities. Come what may, he must prepare for the mass reprisals that the Germans will undoubtedly unleash if Operation Anthropoid succeeds. To govern is to choose, and the decision has been made. But making a decision is one thing; taking responsibility for it is something else. And Beneš—who founded Czechoslovakia with Tomáš Masaryk in 1918 and who, twenty years later, was unable to avoid the disaster of Munich—knows that the pressure of history is enormous, and that the judgment of history is the most terrible of all. All his efforts from now on are aimed at restoring the integrity of the country he created. Unfortunately, the liberation of Czechoslovakia is not in his hands. The RAF and the Red Army will decide its fate. Admittedly, Beneš has been able to provide seven times more pilots for the RAF than the French have. And the record for the highest number of enemy planes shot down is held by Josef František: the ace of British aviation is a Czech. Beneš is more than a little proud of this. But he also knows that in times of war, the power of a head of state is measured only by the numbers of his divisions. For this reason, his activities have been almost entirely reduced to a humiliating diplomacy: he must give pledges of goodwill to the only two powers still resisting the Germans, without any certainty that those two powers will end up victorious. It’s true that, confronted by German bombardments in 1940, Britain was able to ride the blow and win the air battle—for the moment at least. It’s also true that the Red Army, having been pushed all the way back to Moscow, was able to stop the enemy advance just before it reached its goal. Britain and the USSR, having each barely avoided collapse, are today in a position to fight back against the Reich. But this is late 1941. The Wehrmacht is almost at the zenith of its power. It still hasn’t suffered any significant defeat to dent the myth of its invincibility. Stalingrad is still far off—we are a long way from seeing images of defeated German soldiers, eyes lowered to the snow. All Beneš can do is gamble on an uncertain outcome. The entry of the United States into the war is naturally a source of great hope, but the GIs have yet to cross the Atlantic and they are still so busy fighting the Japanese that they pay no attention to the fate of a small country in central Europe. Thus Beneš makes his own version of Pascal’s wager: his god is a god with two heads—Britain and the USSR—and he bets on their survival. But to keep two heads happy at the same time is not easy. Britain and the USSR are, of course, allies. And Churchill, despite his inborn anticommunism, will show an indestructible loyalty to the Soviet Union, in military terms, throughout the war. As for what happens after the war—if the war ends and if the Allies win—well, that is obviously another story.