Thus it is a French poet who pronounces, almost performatively, the death sentence of Czechoslovakia, the country I love most in the world.
65
At his hotel in Munich, a journalist asks him:
“But, Mr. Ambassador, in the end this agreement must be a great relief, no?”
Silence. Then the Foreign Office secretary sighs:
“Oh yes, a relief … like when you do it in your pants!”
This belated truthfulness, coupled with a clever joke, is not enough to salvage his reputation. Saint-John Perse acted like a big shit. Or, as he would have said—with the ridiculous affectation of a stuffy diplomat—an “excrement.”
66
The Times wrote of Chamberlain: “No conqueror fresh from victory on the field of battle has come back adorned with more noble laurels.”
67
Chamberlain, on a balcony in London: “My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time.”
68
Krofta, the Czech foreign minister: “They have put us in this situation. Now it’s our turn; tomorrow it will be their turn.”
69
Out of some kind of childish pedantry, I have scrupulously avoided using the most famous French quotation to come out of this whole sad affair. But I can’t not cite Daladier, who after getting off his airplane, cheered by the crowd, said: “Oh, the fools! Those fools, if they knew what was coming…”
Some people doubt whether he actually spoke these words, whether he had enough clarity of mind, or enough wit. In fact, this apocryphal quotation became widely known because of Sartre, who used it in his novel The Reprieve.
70
Churchill’s words, spoken in the House of Commons, are distinguished by their greater perceptiveness and, as always, their grandeur:
“We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat.”
(Churchill has to stop speaking for some time while he waits for the whistles and shouts of protest to die down.)
“We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude. The road down the Danube Valley to the Black Sea has been opened. All those Danubian countries will, one after another, be drawn into this vast system of power politics radiating from Berlin. And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning…”
Not long afterward, Churchill sums it all up with his immortal phrase:
“You had to choose between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor. You will have war.”
71
It rings, it rings, the bell of betrayal.
Whose hands set it swinging?
Gentle France, faithful Albion,
And we loved them.
(FRANTIŠEK HALAS)
72
On the half-corpse of a nation betrayed, France went back to belote and Tino Rossi.*
(MONTHERLANT)
73
Faced with Germany’s arrogant pretensions, the two great Western democracies keep their mouths shut—and Hitler can gloat. Instead of which, he goes back to Berlin in a really bad mood, cursing Chamberlain: “This person deprived me of my triumphant entry into Prague!” By forcing the Czech government to make all their concessions, France and Britain—these two cowardly countries—briefly prevented the German dictator from realizing his true goal: not only taking a slice of Czechoslovakia, but “wiping it off the map.” In other words: turning it into a province of the Reich. Seven million Czechs, seventy-five million Germans … to be continued …
74
In 1946, at Nuremberg, the representative for Czechoslovakia will ask Keitel, the German chief of staff: “Would the Reich have attacked Czechoslovakia in 1938 if the Western powers had supported Prague?” To which Keitel will reply: “Definitely not. Militarily, we weren’t strong enough.”
Hitler can curse all he likes. The truth is that France and Britain opened a door to which he did not have the key. And, obviously, by displaying such servility, encouraged him to start again.
75
This is where it all began, exactly fifteen years before, at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich. But tonight, for once, the three thousand people gathered here have not come to celebrate the past. The speakers have taken their turn onstage and all of them have screamed for vengeance. The day before yesterday, in Paris, a seventeen-year-old Jew killed a German ambassadorial secretary because the Germans had deported his father. This is no great loss, as Heydrich is well placed to know: as a staunch anti-Nazi, the ambassadorial secretary was under Gestapo surveillance. But there is an opportunity here and it must be seized. Goebbels has entrusted him with a great mission. While the evening is in full swing, Heydrich gives his orders: there will be spontaneous demonstrations during the night. All police stations must immediately contact the commanding officers of the Party and the SS. The demonstrations will not be suppressed by the police. All the police need do is ensure that there is no danger to German lives or goods (for example, synagogues will be set on fire only if there is no risk to the neighboring buildings). Jewish shops and private apartments may be destroyed, but not pillaged. The police must arrest as many Jews, especially rich ones, as the prisons can hold. As soon as they are under arrest, officers are advised to make immediate contact with the appropriate concentration camps so that they can be sent away at the earliest possible moment. This order is transmitted at 1:20 a.m.
The SA is already on its way, with the SS following. In the streets of Berlin, and all the other cities of Germany, the windows of Jewish shops are turned to flying shards of glass. Furniture is thrown from the windows of Jewish apartments, and the Jews themselves are arrested, beaten up, or even shot. Typewriters, sewing machines, even pianos, are seen smashed to pieces on the ground. The honest folk stay in their houses; the more curious go out to watch, careful not to get involved, like silent ghosts. Not that we can ever know the true nature of their silence: complicit? Disapproving? Incredulous? Satisfied? Somewhere in Germany, an eighty-one-year-old lady hears a banging at the door. When she opens to the SA, she sniggers: “Oh, what important visitors I have this morning!” But when the SA tell her to get dressed and follow them, she sits on the sofa and declares: “I won’t get dressed and I won’t go anywhere. Do with me what you will.” And when she repeats, “Do with me what you will,” the squad leader draws his pistol and shoots her in the chest. She collapses on the sofa. He puts a second bullet in her head. She falls off the sofa and rolls over on the carpet. But she is not yet dead. Her head turned toward the window, she emits a quiet groan. So he shoots her again—in the middle of her forehead this time, from four inches away.
Elsewhere, an SA guard climbs onto the roof of a sacked synagogue, brandishing scrolls of the Torah and yelling: “Burn yourselves with these, Jews!” And he throws them like carnival streamers. Already, we see the inimitable Nazi style.
In a report written by the mayor of a small town, we read: “The acts against the Jews occurred promptly and without any particular tension. Following the measures taken against them, a Jewish couple threw themselves in the Danube.”
All the synagogues are burning, but Heydrich, ever the professional, has ordered that any official records to be found in them must be sent to SD headquarters. Boxes of documents arrive at Wilhelmstrasse. The Nazis love burning books, but not files. German efficiency? Who knows if the SA didn’t wipe their asses with some of those precious archives …
The next day, Heydrich sends the first confidential report to Göring: the scale of destruction is not yet measurable in terms of numbers. According to the report, 815 shops have been destroyed, 171 houses burned or destroyed, but this is only a fraction of the actual damage. One hundred and nineteen synagogues have been set on fire, another 76 completely destroyed. Twenty thousand Jews have been arrested. The number of deaths is reported as 36. The number of serious injuries is also 36. All the dead and injured are Jewish.
Heydrich has also been informed about a
ll rapes: in these cases, the Nuremberg racial laws apply. Anyone guilty of having sex with a Jew will be arrested, kicked out of the Party, and handed over to the courts. Those who have committed murder, on the other hand, have nothing to worry about.
Two days later, Göring chairs a meeting at the Air Ministry to find a way of making the Jews bear the costs of all the damage. As the spokesman for the insurance companies points out, the price of broken windows alone comes to five million marks (this is why it’s called “Crystal Night”). It turns out that many of the Jewish boutiques are owned by Aryans, which means they must be compensated. Göring is furious. Nobody had thought about the economic implications, least of all the finance minister. He shouts at Heydrich that it would have been better to kill two hundred Jews than to destroy so much valuable property. Heydrich is upset. He replies that they did kill thirty-six Jews.
As solutions are found to make the Jews themselves pay for the damages, Göring calms down and the atmosphere lightens. Heydrich listens as Göring jokes with Goebbels about the creation of Jewish reservations in the forest. According to Goebbels, they ought to introduce certain Jewish-looking animals—like the moose, with its hooked nose. Everyone present laughs heartily, except for the representative of the insurance companies, who’s unconvinced by the field marshal’s finance plan. And Heydrich.
At the end of the meeting, when it has been decided to confiscate all Jews’ goods and to forbid them from having businesses, Heydrich decides it would be useful to refocus the debate:
“Even if the Jews are eliminated from economic life, the main problem remains. We must kick the Jews out of Germany. In the meantime,” he suggests, “we should make them wear some kind of sign so they can be easily recognized.”
“A uniform!” shouts Göring, always fond of anything to do with clothing.
“I was thinking of a badge, actually,” Heydrich replies.
76
The meeting, however, doesn’t end on this prophetic note. Henceforth, the Jews are excluded from public schools and hospitals, from beaches and swimming pools. They must do their shopping during restricted hours. On the other hand, following objections from Goebbels, it is decided not to make them use a separate carriage or compartment on public transport: What would happen during rush hour? The Germans might be packed like sardines in one carriage while the Jews had another carriage all to themselves! And so on—you get the idea. Let’s just say that the debate scales new heights of technical precision.
Heydrich suggests yet more restrictions on the Jews’ movements. Then Göring—completely recovered from his brief loss of temper—raises, out of the blue, a fundamental question. “But, my dear Heydrich, you will have to create ghettos in all our cities, on an enormous scale. It’s unavoidable.”
Heydrich replies brusquely:
“As far as ghettos are concerned, I would like to define my position straightaway. From a policing point of view, I believe it’s impossible to establish a ghetto in the sense of a completely isolated district where only Jews may live. We cannot control a ghetto where a Jew can melt into the rest of the Jewish population. That would provide shelter for criminals, and also a breeding ground for diseases. We don’t want to let the Jews live in the same buildings as Germans, but at the moment—whether in whole districts or in individual buildings—it is the Germans who force the Jews to behave correctly. Surely it would be better to keep them under the watchful eyes of the whole population than to cram them in their thousands into areas where I cannot adequately control their daily lives with uniformed agents.”
Raoul Hilberg sees in this “policing point of view” the prism through which Heydrich views both his job and German society: the entire population is considered a sort of auxiliary police force, responsible for surveying and reporting any suspect behavior among the Jews. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943, which will take the German army three weeks to crush, proves Heydrich right: you can’t trust those Jews. He also knows, of course, that germs do not racially discriminate.
77
Physically, Monsignor Jozef Tiso is small and fat. Historically, he belongs with the biggest collaborators—his role as the Slovak version of Pétain being determined by the hatred he feels for centralized Czech power. The archbishop of Bratislava has worked his whole life for his country’s independence and today, thanks to Hitler, he achieves his goal. On March 13, 1939, as the Wehrmacht’s regiments prepare to invade Bohemia and Moravia, the chancellor of the Reich invites the future Slovak president into his office.
As always, Hitler talks and the other person in the room listens. Tiso isn’t sure if he should be happy or fearful. His long-held wish is finally coming to pass—but why must it come in the form of blackmail and an ultimatum?
Hitler explains: were it not for Germany, Czechoslovakia would have been much more badly damaged. By contenting itself with the annexation of the Sudetenland, the Reich has made a great show of leniency. But are the Czechs grateful? Not in the slightest! In recent weeks the situation has become impossible. Too many provocations. The Germans who live there are oppressed and persecuted. It’s the spirit of the Beneš government come back to haunt them. At the mention of his name, Hitler becomes heated.
The Slovaks have disappointed him. After Munich, Hitler fell out with his Hungarian friends because he wouldn’t let them take over Slovakia. He was under the impression that the Slovaks wanted their independence.
So, yes or no, does Slovakia want its independence? It is a question not of days but of hours. If Slovakia wants its independence, Hitler will help: he will take the country under his protection. But if the Slovaks refuse to be separated from Prague, or if they even hesitate, he will abandon Slovakia to its fate: the country will be at the mercy of events for which he will no longer be responsible.
At this precise moment, Ribbentrop enters and hands Hitler a report, claiming it has just arrived. The report reveals the movements of Hungarian troops at the Slovak border. This little scene allows Tiso to comprehend the urgency of the situation—if he hadn’t already. It also makes his choice quite clear: either Slovakia declares its independence and its allegiance to Germany, or it is swallowed up by Hungary.
Tiso replies: the Slovaks will show themselves worthy of the Führer’s kindness.
78
In return for the transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany, the integrity of Czechoslovakia’s new borders was guaranteed at Munich by France and Britain. But Slovakia’s independence alters the deal. Is it possible to protect a country that no longer exists? The commitment was made to Czechoslovakia, not to the Czechs alone. This, at least, is how the British diplomats reply when their counterparts from Prague come to ask for their help. We are now on the eve of the German invasion, and it turns out it is perfectly legal for France and Britain to act like cowards.
79
On March 14, 1939, at 10:40 p.m., a train coming from Prague arrives at Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin. An old man dressed in black gets off the train: balding, dull-eyed, droopy-lipped. President Hácha, who replaced Beneš after Munich, has come to beg Hitler to spare his country. He didn’t take the plane, because he has a heart condition. He is accompanied by his daughter and by his foreign minister.
Hácha is fearful of what awaits him here. He knows that German troops have already crossed the border and that they are massing around Bohemia. The invasion is imminent, and he has come all this way only to negotiate an honorable surrender. I imagine he would be willing to accept similar conditions to those imposed on Slovakia: independent nationhood but under German protection. What he fears is nothing less than the total disappearance of his country.
So how surprised he must be, as soon as he sets foot on the platform, to be welcomed by a guard of honor. The foreign minister, Ribbentrop, has come in person. He gives Hácha’s daughter a beautiful spray of flowers. The procession that accompanies the Czech delegation is worthy of a head of state—which he still is, of course. Hácha breathes more easily. The Germans have put him in the bes
t suite of the luxurious Hotel Adlon. On her bed his daughter finds a box of chocolates: a personal gift from the Führer.
The Czech president is taken to the chancellery, where the SS forms a guard of honor. By this point, Hácha is feeling much better.
His impression changes slightly when he enters the chancellor’s office. Hitler is flanked by Göring and Keitel, the heads of the German army, and their presence is not a good sign. Hitler’s expression, too, is not what Hácha might have hoped for after his lavish welcome. The little serenity that he had managed to recover quickly vanishes, and Emil Hácha finds himself sinking into the quicksand of history.
“I can assure the Führer,” he says to the interpreter, “that I have never got mixed up in politics. I have never had any involvement, so to speak, with Beneš and Masaryk, and whenever I’ve been in their company I’ve found them disagreeable. I have never supported the Beneš government, indeed I have always opposed it, so much so that after Munich I wondered if it was even a good idea to remain as an independent state. I am convinced that Czechoslovakia’s destiny is in the Führer’s hands, and that it is in good hands. The Führer, I am certain, is precisely the right man to understand my point of view when I tell him that Czechoslovakia has the right to exist as a nation. We have been blamed because there are still too many Beneš partisans, but my government is doing all it can to silence them.”
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