HHhH: A Novel

by Laurent Binet

  One of the intentionalists’ main pieces of evidence is this phrase of Hitler’s, taken from a public speech made in January 1939: “If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” Conversely, the most revealing clue in support of the functionalists is that, for a long time, the Nazis were genuinely seeking out territories to which they might deport the Jews: Madagascar, the Arctic Ocean, Siberia, Palestine. On more than one occasion, Eichmann even met with some militant Zionists. But the hazards of war would force them to abandon all these plans. Most notably, the transportation of the Jews to Madagascar could not take place until the Germans had control of the seas—in other words, until the war with Great Britain was over. The search for more radical solutions would finally be precipitated by the turning of the war in the East. Even if they didn’t admit it, the Nazis knew their eastern conquests were in peril. They did not fear the worst—because nobody in 1942 imagined that the Red Army would one day invade Germany and penetrate all the way to Berlin—but the powerful Soviet resistance forced them to acknowledge that they might lose the occupied territories. Consequently, they had to move quickly. So it was, one thing leading to another, that the Jewish question took on an industrial dimension.

  162

  A freight train screeches to a halt. At the end of the tracks is a gate surmounted by a tower, with a brownstone wing on either side. Above, you hear the cawing of crows. The gate opens. You are now entering Auschwitz.

  163

  This morning, Heydrich receives an indignant letter from Himmler. It concerns some five hundred young Germans arrested by the Hamburg police because they were fans of swing, that degenerate foreign dance accompanied by Negro music.

  I will oppose any half measures in this matter. All the ringleaders are to be sent to a concentration camp. First of all, these youths will get a good thrashing there. They will stay in the camp quite a long time—two or three years. Obviously they will no longer have the right to study. Only through brutal actions can we stop the spread of these dangerous Anglophile trends.

  Heydrich will actually deport about fifty of these youngsters. Just because the Führer has entrusted him with the historic task of getting rid of every single Jew in Europe does not mean he’s going to neglect his other duties.

  164

  Goebbels’s diary, January 21, 1942:

  Heydrich has now installed his new government of the Protectorate. Hacha has made the declaration of solidarity with the Reich that was requested of him. Heydrich’s policy in the Protectorate is truly a model one. He mastered the crisis there with ease. As a result, the Protectorate is now in the best of spirits, quite in contrast to other occupied or annexed areas.

  165

  Hitler is giving another of his interminable political soliloquies to a servile, silent audience. His diatribe touches on the situation in the Protectorate:

  The Czechs were taking Neurath for a ride! Another six months of that regime and production would have fallen by twenty-five percent! Of all the Slavs, the Czech is the most dangerous—because he’s a worker. He is disciplined, methodical; he knows how to conceal his intentions. But they will knuckle down now because they know we are violent and merciless.

  It’s his way of saying that he is very pleased with the job Heydrich is doing.

  166

  Not long afterward, Heydrich goes to see Hitler in Berlin. So Heydrich finds himself in the presence of the Führer—or perhaps it’s the other way around. Hitler declares: “We will clean up the Czech mess if we stick to a consistent policy with them. A lot of Czechs have Germanic origins, so it’s not impossible to re-Germanize them.” This speech, too, is a way of complimenting Heydrich on his work. The Blond Beast is—along with Speer (though for very different reasons)—the colleague Hitler most respects.

  With Speer, the Führer can talk of things other than politics, war, Jews. He can discuss music, painting, literature, and he can give substance to Germania—the future Berlin whose plans they’ve drawn up together, and which his brilliant architect is responsible for building. For Hitler, Speer is a breath of fresh air, a window in the National Socialist labyrinth (the Führer’s creation and now his prison), giving him a view of the outside world. True, Speer is a card-carrying and utterly devoted Nazi. Since being named minister of armaments (in addition to his title of official architect), he uses all his intelligence and talent to improve production. His loyalty and efficiency are above suspicion. But that’s not why Hitler prefers him. If it were only a matter of loyalty, then Himmler would be unbeatable. In fact, he’d be unbeatable if it were just a matter of efficiency too. But Speer, in his well-cut suits, has so much more class and style. He is one of those intellectuals whom Hitler, the failed artist and former Munich tramp, ought to loathe. But Speer gives him something that no one else has given him: the friendship and admiration of a brilliant man at ease in any social situation.

  Hitler likes Heydrich for very different reasons. Just as Speer is the embodiment of the “normal” elite world to which Hitler has never belonged, Heydrich is the perfect Nazi prototype: tall, blond, cruel, totally obedient, and deadly efficient. It is an irony of fate that, according to Himmler, he has Jewish blood. But the violence with which he fights against and triumphs over this corrupt part of himself is proof—in Hitler’s eyes—of the superiority of the Aryans over the Jews. And if Hitler really believes in these Jewish origins, then it is all the more satisfying for him to turn Heydrich into the Angel of Death for the people of Israel by making him responsible for the Final Solution.

  167

  The images are well-known: Himmler and Heydrich, wearing civilian clothes, conversing with the Führer on the terrace of his eagle’s nest, the Kehlsteinhaus—the gigantic luxury bunker built on the side of an Alpine peak in Bavaria. What I didn’t know was that they had been filmed by Hitler’s mistress. I learn this during an “Eva Braun evening” organized by a cable TV station. This is a real treat for me. I like to delve as deeply as possible into the private lives of my characters. So I take pleasure in rewatching these images of Hitler welcoming the blond, hook-nosed Heydrich, a head taller than everyone around him, smiling and relaxed in his beige suit with its too-short sleeves. Frustratingly, there is no sound. But the producers have done things properly: they’ve hired the services of lip-reading experts. So now we know what Himmler said to Heydrich, standing by the low stone wall that overhangs the sunlit valley: “Nothing must divert us from our task.” So there you go. Clearly they had the next step in mind. I’m a bit disappointed by this, but happy at the same time. It’s better than nothing. And besides, what was I hoping for? He was hardly going to say: “You know, Heydrich, I reckon little Lee Harvey Oswald is going to make a very fine recruit.”

  168

  Despite being increasingly weighed down by the enormous responsibilities of organizing the Final Solution, Heydrich does not neglect the Protectorate’s internal affairs. In January 1942, he finds time for a ministerial reshuffle of his Czech government, effectively suspended since his sensational arrival in Prague last September. On the nineteenth, the day before the conference at Wannsee, he names a new prime minister—although that doesn’t mean much, since this position no longer carries any real power. The two key posts in this puppet government are those of finance minister, given to a German whose identity is irrelevant to this story, and minister of education, given to Emanuel Moravec. By appointing a German as finance minister, Heydrich imposes German as the language of government. By naming Moravec as the head of education, he assures himself of the services of a man he recognized as an eager collaborator. The two ministers are united by the same objective: to maintain and develop an industrial production that satisfies the Reich’s needs. The role of finance minister consists in forcing all Czech companies to help the German war effort. As for Moravec,
his role is to create an education system whose sole aim is to train workers. Consequently, Czech children will now learn only what is necessary for their future profession. Mostly this means manual abilities, with a bare minimum of technical knowledge.

  On February 4, 1942, Heydrich gives a speech that interests me because it concerns my own honorable profession:

  It is essential to sort out the Czech teachers because the teaching profession is a breeding ground for opposition. It must be destroyed, and all Czech secondary schools must be shut. The Czech youth must be torn away from this subversive atmosphere and educated elsewhere. I cannot think of a better place for this than a sports ground. With sport and physical education, we will simultaneously guarantee their development, their education, and their reeducation.

  I think that covers all the main points.

  The possibility of reopening the Czech universities—hit by a three-year ban in November 1939 for political agitation—is not even considered. It’s up to Moravec to find an excuse for prolonging their closure when the three years are up.

  Reading Heydrich’s speech, I have three comments:

  1. In the Czech state, as elsewhere, the feeblest defender of the values of national education is the responsible minister. Having been a virulent anti-Nazi, Emanuel Moravec became, after Munich, the most active collaborator in Heydrich’s Czech government and the Germans’ preferred Czech representative—much more so than senile old President Hácha. Local history books tend to call him “the Czech Quisling.”

  2. The staunchest defenders of the values of national education are teachers because, whatever we might otherwise think of them, they have the authority and the will to be subversive. And they deserve praise for that.

  3. Sport? What a load of fascist rubbish it is.

  169

  Once again I find myself frustrated by my genre’s constraints. No ordinary novel would encumber itself with three characters sharing the same name—unless the author were after a very particular effect. Me, I’m stuck not only with Colonel Moravec, the brave head of Czech secret services in London, but with the heroic Moravec family who are part of the internal Resistance, and with Emanuel Moravec, the infamous collaborationist minister. And that’s without even counting Captain Václav Morávek, the head of the Tri kralové Resistance network. This must be tiresome and confusing for the reader. In a fiction, you’d just do away with the problem: Colonel Moravec would become Colonel Novak, for instance, and the Moravec family would be transformed into the Svigar family—why not?—while the traitor might be rebaptized with a fanciful name like Nutella or Kodak or Prada. But of course I am not going to play that game. My only concession to the reader’s convenience consists in not declining the proper nouns: so, even if the feminine form of “Moravec” ought logically to be “Moravcova,” I will nevertheless keep the basic form when talking about Aunt Moravec. I do this in order not to add one complication (the homonyms of real people) to another (the declension of feminine or plural proper nouns in the Slav languages). Well, I’m not writing a Russian novel, am I? Anyway, it’s worth noting that in the French translation of War and Peace, Natasha Rostova becomes (or remains) Natasha Rostov.

  170

  Goebbels’s diary, February 6, 1942:

  Gregory gave me a report on the Protectorate. The atmosphere is very good. Heydrich has worked brilliantly. He has shown such prudence and political intelligence that there is no more talk of crisis. Heydrich wanted to replace Gregory with an SS-Führer. I don’t agree. Gregory has an excellent knowledge of the Protectorate and the Czech population, and Heydrich’s staff is not always very intelligent. Above all, it does not show much leadership. That’s why I keep faith with Gregory.

  Sorry, I don’t have the faintest idea who this Gregory could be. And just so my falsely offhand tone doesn’t give you the wrong idea: I have tried to find out!

  171

  Goebbels’s diary, February 15, 1942:

  I had a long conversation with Heydrich about the situation in the Protectorate. Sentiment there is now much more favorable to us. Heydrich’s measures are producing good results. It is true that the intelligentsia is still hostile to us, but the danger to German security from Czech elements in the Protectorate has been completely neutralized. Heydrich is clever. He plays cat and mouse with the Czechs and they swallow everything he tells them. He has carried out a number of extremely popular measures, first and foremost the almost total conquest of the black market. It is absolutely staggering to see how much food people have hidden away. He is successfully Germanizing a large number of Czechs. He proceeds in this matter with great caution but he will undoubtedly achieve good results in the long term. The Slavs, he emphasized, cannot be educated as one educates a Germanic people. One must either break them or humble them constantly. At present he does the latter. Our task in the Protectorate is perfectly clear. Neurath completely misjudged it, and that’s how the first crisis in Prague arose.

  Heydrich is building a security service for all the occupied sectors. The Wehrmacht is causing him problems in this regard, but these difficulties tend to smooth themselves out. The longer this goes on, the more the Wehrmacht shows itself incapable of dealing with these questions.

  Heydrich has experience with certain parts of the Wehrmacht: they are not sympathetic to National Socialist politics, nor to a National Socialist war. As for leading the people, they understand nothing at all.

  172

  On February 16, Lieutenant Bartos, head of Operation Silver A, sends a message to London. The message is sent via the transmitter Libuse, the machine his group parachuted into the country the same night as Gabčík and Kubiš. Reading this message gives us a good idea of the difficulties encountered by the parachutists in the fulfillment of their secret mission:

  The groups that you send should be given plenty of money and dressed suitably. A small-caliber pistol and a towel—difficult to find here—are very useful. The poison should be carried in a smaller tube. Depending on the circumstances, you should send the groups to areas away from those where they have to report. This makes it more difficult for the German security services to find them. The biggest problem here is finding work. Nobody will hire you unless you have a work permit. Anyone who does have one is given a job by the Work Office. The danger of forced labor increases greatly in the spring, so we can’t commit a greater number of men to secret missions without also increasing the risk that the entire system will be discovered. That’s why I consider it more beneficial to use those already here to the maximum, and to limit the arrival of new men to an absolute minimum. Signed, Ice.

  173

  Goebbels’s diary, February 26, 1942:

  Heydrich sends me a very detailed report on the situation in the Protectorate. It hasn’t really changed. But what stands out very clearly is that his tactics are the right ones. He treats the Czech ministers as his subjects. Hacha puts himself completely at the service of Heydrich’s new politics. As far as the Protectorate is concerned, nothing more needs to be done at the moment.

  174

  Heydrich does not neglect his cultural life. In March, he organizes the greatest cultural event of his reign: an exhibition entitled Das Sowjet Paradies, inaugurated by the vile Karl Frank, in the presence of the old president Emil Hácha and the infamous collaborator Emanuel Moravec.

  I don’t know what the exhibition is like exactly, but the idea is to show that the USSR is a barbaric, underdeveloped country with disgraceful living conditions, while underlining the intrinsic perversity of Bolshevism. It is also a chance to praise the German victories on the Eastern Front. Tanks and other military hardware taken from the Russians are exhibited like trophies.

  The exhibition lasts four weeks and attracts half a million visitors, among them Gabčík and Kubiš. This is probably the first and only time that our heroes will see a Soviet tank.

  175

  To begin with, this seemed a simple-enough story to tell. Two men have to kill a third man. They succeed, or not, a
nd that’s the end, or nearly. I thought of all the other people as mere ghosts who would glide elegantly across the tapestry of history. Ghosts have to be looked after, and that requires great care—I knew that. On the other hand, what I didn’t know (but should have guessed) is that a ghost desires only one thing: to live again. Personally, I’d like nothing better, but I am constrained by the needs of my story. I can’t keep leaving space for this ever-growing army of shadows, these ghosts who—perhaps to avenge themselves for the meager care I show them—are haunting me.

  But that’s not all.

  Pardubice is a town in eastern Bohemia. The Elbe runs through it. The town has a population of about 90,000 and a pretty square in the center with some handsome Renaissance-style buildings. It is also the birthplace of Dominik Hašek, the legendary goaltender and one of the greatest ice-hockey players of all time.

  There is a fairly chic hotel-restaurant here called Vaselka. This evening, as every other evening, it is full of Germans. The men of the Gestapo sit around a table, making a lot of noise. They’ve had lots to eat and drink. They hail the waiter. He comes over, smart and obsequious. I imagine they want some brandy. The waiter takes their order. One of the Germans puts a cigarette to his lips. The waiter takes a lighter from his pocket and, with a bow, offers the German a light.