Prague Winter

by Madeleine Albright

  Beneš, however, was right. He did not expect Hitler to act in a manner others thought logical but instead to fulfill his own imagined destiny. The Nazi dream depended on expansion to the east, which made a clash with Stalin inevitable. If the führer waited, thought Beneš, he would give the Soviet military a dangerous amount of time to prepare. Moreover, to retain the element of surprise, Hitler had to move before enemy analysts thought he was ready. Throughout that spring, the Czechoslovak president insisted that the Nazis intended to invade the USSR soon and without warning. On June 22, that forecast came true. Within a week, German tanks and troops advanced more than two hundred miles into the Soviet Union, killing and taking prisoner a massive number of Russians. The Red Army, caught unawares, retreated in confusion. Stalin, who was more than a trifle paranoid, worried that he would be ousted or even possibly shot by his own aides. The outcome of the assault seemed certain. Military experts were unanimous: the Germans would overrun Moscow within two months.

  In London, these events led to a drastic and immediate reassessment. The Soviet Union, reviled both for its Bolshevism and for its infamous pact with Hitler, had become overnight the sworn enemy of civilization’s most dangerous adversary. The Soviets needed help; the West trembled at the thought of Hitler enthroned from Paris to Vladivostok. Broadcasting to his nation on the night of the invasion, Churchill repressed his deeply felt anticommunism and declared, “Any man or state who fights against Nazism will have our aid. Any man or state who marches with Hitler is our foe. . . . It follows therefore that we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and the Russian people.”

  The Nazis’ destruction was appalling, but it also meant that the Soviets would be shopping for friends—and the affections of Czechoslovakia were available. Beneš told the Russian ambassador in London that his country would do all it could to assist, provided only that Moscow grant full recognition to the government in exile. Representing a nation under siege, Soviet diplomats had little interest in fine points of law; the answer was yes.

  Beneš immediately informed the Foreign Office that he was being courted. “I am worried,” he said in his most sincere tone, “that Russia will claim the complete allegiance of my people and that England, as at Munich, will be left behind.” For emphasis, he pointed out that the Soviets had promised to set up a Czech and Slovak military legion on their soil and to begin Czech-language broadcasts from Moscow. This maneuvering, transparent as it was, had precisely the desired impact. With the support of Churchill and Eden, legal qualms were finally swept aside, the “provisional” was dropped, and on July 18, the government in exile was officially recognized by both the Soviet Union and Great Britain.*

  The Czechoslovaks were now on the same plane as other exiled leaders in London—but membership in that group had grown. Not only were there Poles and Yugoslavs, but also French, Belgians, Greeks, and a fair sampling of crowned heads: King Haakon VII of Norway, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, and Albania’s King Zog. All were allies but also, in a sense, rivals. Each had distinct interests, and all wanted attention and help from the British.

  The Czechoslovak cause was aided in this competition by the brave service of its soldiers and airmen. Beneš was concerned, however, that the Czech puppet government in Prague would prove spineless and embarrass him by endorsing the German invasion, possibly even sending troops to fight the Soviets. He dispatched a firm message to Hácha and Eliáš demanding that they not show any sign of support for the Nazis; he also told Hácha that his government had just about exhausted its value and that he and his top advisers should be ready at any moment to resign. No response was received.

  The time had also come to reevaluate the role of the Czech resistance. Twenty-two months had elapsed between the signing of the Hitler-Stalin pact and the German betrayal of the Soviet Union. For Communists in the protectorate, this had been a period of enforced silence and confusion. Under orders from Moscow, they had refrained from actions that might upset the authorities in Berlin. On June 22, that particular signal switched from red to green. Suddenly the Communists—or, as they preferred to be called, the “heroic vanguard of mankind”—were free once again to vent their rage at the “hordes of fascist beasts.” Through messengers and radio broadcasts, the Russian leadership appealed to Czechs to move from passive to more active resistance. Members of the underground were urged literally to throw sand into the gears of the Nazi war machine by tossing gravel into the places in munitions plants where lubricating oil was normally applied. The impact of this call to action, though incremental, was still tangible. Week by week, there were more factory breakdowns, accidents, cases of sabotage, railway fires, and displays of anti-Nazi graffiti.

  At a remote site along the Scottish coast, the British Special Operations Executive began training a select group of exiled airmen and radio operators to participate in clandestine operations. Efforts were also made to upgrade the Allied communications network; messages could now be sent and received by transmitters from as far west as Portugal, as far south as Cairo, and as far east as the Soviet Union. The potential for coordinated resistance actions had expanded.

  The BBC programs supervised by my father assumed a more dynamic role as well. In September, he and his team helped to formulate and publicize two campaigns. The first was a “go slow” initiative that encouraged Czech workers to dawdle. “You who labor in factories operated by the Germans, do not be in such a hurry,” Jan Masaryk advised. “If you go and fetch tools, do not run because you may get out of breath; and if all of you will work just a little more slowly you will hasten victory. Therefore quickly and slowly, each doing his own job in full cooperation with Beneš and London.”

  The second initiative was a summons to boycott newspapers that were pro-German, a category that—because of censorship—now included virtually every publication available on the streets of Prague. Both campaigns were launched early in the month and sustained by daily appeals. The sabotage and slowdowns reduced Czech industrial production by an estimated 30 percent. The press boycott cut newspaper purchases by more than half. At a staff meeting on September 24, my father reported that the strategy had been “an outstanding success.”

  But if there was one thing the Germans would not tolerate, it was a Czechoslovak success.

  15

  The Crown of Wenceslas

  President Hácha held the keys so that his guests might see; one for each of the seven locks to the royal chamber and crown jewels of Bohemia, representing the heritage of a thousand years of Czech history. Before him, laid out on a center table, were the king’s scepter, orb, and cloak, the coronation cross and sword, and Wenceslas’s gleaming gold crown. Slowly Hácha made a half turn and surrendered them. Reinhard Heydrich, the acting reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, grasped the keys firmly, and he, too, held them aloft. Here, on November 19, 1941, in the Wenceslas Chapel of Saint Vitus Cathedral, the Czechs’ supposed leader formally entrusted his nation’s most cherished heirlooms to Germany. Heydrich smiled amiably as he inspected the treasures, gripping the sword’s handle and lightly brushing the fleurs-de-lis atop the spears of the jeweled crown. With a friendly gesture, he returned three of the keys to Hácha, cautioning him, “View this equally as trust and obligation.” The ceremony’s meaning was as plain as the body language of the participants. Heydrich, over six feet tall and finely turned out in his military uniform, exuded strength and order; Hácha, nearly a foot shorter, stood stoop-shouldered and expressionless. In German eyes, the rightful relationship between the two peoples had been set a millennium earlier when Wenceslas had first made peace with Saxony and begun paying an annual tribute. The Aryans were destined to rule, the Czechs to serve.

  Hácha presents keys to Heydrich; on the left is Heydrich’s deputy, Karl Hermann Frank.

  CTK PHOTO

  EIGHT WEEKS
EARLIER, in his bunker in East Prussia, Hitler had met with K. H. Frank, the Sudeten leader, who favored taking a harsher line against the Czechs. At issue was the growing alarm caused by the Resistance. With the invasion of the Soviet Union beginning to stall, the German army could not afford a slowdown in the production and shipment of war materiel. Frank, ever mindful of his career, steered all blame in the direction of Protektor Neurath, who, he said, was coddling the local populace and failing to demand respect. Perhaps there might be a stronger man for the job? Hitler agreed but, instead of turning to Frank, sought help from one of the busiest figures in the Reich. Reinhard Heydrich, deputy to Hitler’s security chief, Heinrich Himmler, supervised all police operations in Germany. Since August 1940, he had been head of the International Police Commission, or INTERPOL. He was also a leader of the German sports federation. On September 27, he flew to Prague to begin additional duties as acting protektor; Neurath was directed to take time off “for his health.”

  Blue-eyed, with fair hair and chiseled features, the thirty-seven-year-old Heydrich was the ideal national socialist: dedicated, organized, ambitious, and without pity. He had inherited his extreme nationalism and anti-Semitism from his father, a composer of little distinction who was rumored, falsely, to be Jewish. Before the young Heydrich found his calling as Himmler’s protégé, he had been expelled from the navy for spending a night with one woman shortly after proposing to another. A Nazi since June 1931, Heydrich had made his reputation by identifying and dealing with internal enemies. In recognition of his diligence, he was among the first to be awarded the SS’s coveted Death’s Head ring. When the war began, he continued to act where others might have hesitated. Under Himmler’s direction, he organized the mobile death squads that massacred Jews, churchmen, aristocrats, and intellectuals during the invasion of Poland. In the autumn of 1941, he ensured that similar barbarities were perpetrated against the Russians.

  For most Czechs, the first two and a half years of the Nazi occupation had been both annoying and mortifying. Jews faced severe discrimination; university and secondary schools were closed; curfews were still in effect; and streets, shops, government offices, and factory boardrooms swarmed with German soldiers, bureaucrats, spies, and profiteers. Yet the typical Czech felt more angry than frightened. Those who kept their mouths shut and heads down could go on about their lives. Even the majority of people arrested were soon released; executions were infrequent. Czechs could show pride in their identity, provided they did so without disrespecting Germans. Over time, the relatively relaxed atmosphere had an effect. The underground gained confidence. The BBC broadcasts evolved from a minor annoyance into a real threat. Czechs began wondering how hard they could push. To this last question in particular, Heydrich was intent on providing an answer.

  THE ACTING PROTEKTOR’S plan for asserting dominance was based on the principle of mixing carrots and sticks or, as Heydrich preferred, “whips and sugar.” From his first day in Prague, he instilled fear by imposing martial law and by ordering the apprehension, questioning, and torture of thousands of Czechs. Among those arrested was Prime Minister Eliáš, whose ties to the Resistance had been known for some time but who had been shielded from punishment by Neurath. Now Eliáš became the only prime minister in a German-occupied land to be tried and sentenced to death. Each afternoon, police cars transported prisoners to the shooting grounds. In the morning, neatly typed placards were posted on streetlamps with the names and birth dates of the victims; relatives were required to reimburse the Gestapo for the cost of the executions and placards.

  Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, 1939–1945

  Laura Lee

  On October 2, a week after his arrival, Heydrich gathered his staff. He demanded that the recent surge in resistance and sabotage be met with “unflinching hardness.” Every Czech must understand his duty: to work ceaselessly in support of the German war effort. That could be accomplished only through brutality, because the local population equated kindness with weakness. “Not a single German should forgive anything to the Czech. . . . There should not be one German who would say: ‘But this Czech is a decent person!’ ”

  The goal, he said, was not to push the wretches to the point of exhaustion but to reap the full fruits of their labor. This meant that for the duration of the conflict, workers had to be “given their grub.” However, the long-term goal must remain. “This region must once more become German . . . the Czechs have . . . no right to be here.” Heydrich unveiled his plan to order medical exams for the protectorate’s entire population, beginning with its children, to determine which portion could be saved for possible Aryanization and which eliminated. The most worrisome, he warned, were Czechs “with hostile intentions but of good racial extraction. These are the most dangerous.”

  The ceremony in which he took possession of the Bohemian crown jewels provided a climax to the first phase of his strategy: German supremacy had now been established symbolically as well as politically and economically. In phase two, Heydrich lifted martial law and emphasized the dividends of collaboration. Workers in defense plants received higher wages, free shoes, cigarettes, more food, and extra days off. Czechs who informed on their countrymen were rewarded, police and other officials who cooperated with the Nazis promoted. By blending cruelty with a tempting promise of special favors, Heydrich did much to weaken the Resistance. For the first time, the system of clandestine wireless links between the underground and the government in exile was disrupted. More than four hundred people were executed; thousands more went into hiding. The feeling grew that effective rebellion was not possible. Hácha, pliable now to the point of treason, publicly denounced both Beneš and the BBC’s troublemaking broadcasts. For the Nazis, the results were gratifying: the munitions plants were again operating at full speed; there were fewer incidents of sabotage; and Czech schoolchildren collected mittens, scarves, sweaters, and skis to send to Germans fighting in Russia. Even Hitler was pleased. “If we give these gourmands double rations,” he gloated, “the Czechs could be made into fanatical supporters of the Reich.”

  Heydrich had sought the assignment in Prague because he saw it as a stepping-stone to a position in Paris or to an even loftier job in Berlin. Martin Bormann, the führer’s private secretary, noted how much the young man resembled Hitler in his creative energy. Heydrich, he said, “always remained a happy, strong optimist. How much human weakness, inadequacy and evil did he see! Nonetheless, he always remained an unworried, aggressive national socialist, whose faith in the mastery of tasks simply could not be shaken!”

  The acting protektor was indeed tireless, for on top of all his other responsibilities, he had volunteered for yet one more: to find an answer to the Jewish question.

  BUREAUCRACIES SPAWN SPECIALISTS; the Nazi system produced experts in persecuting Jews. Members of that cadre assembled first in Germany and Austria, then in other occupied lands. They developed their own jargon, replete with euphemisms for genocide and murder, and found their home in the Gestapo, where they were accountable only to Himmler and ultimately the führer. Heydrich was one of their guides. He explained that all Jews, whether religious or secular, bankers or bricklayers, were part of a multigenerational conspiracy to dominate the world and annihilate Aryan values. “The Jew,” wrote Heydrich in 1935, is “the mortal enemy of Nordic-led and racially healthy folks”; even the many Jewish soldiers who had fought for Germany in the Great War had done so to deceive real patriots and divert attention from their self-aggrand
izing goals.

  During the 1930s, the combination of Hitler’s verbal bigotry and Nazi intimidation had prompted hundreds of thousands of Jews to flee Germany. The exodus was encouraged by the Reich, which sought in the process to separate the emigrants from their property and money. This policy was refined in Austria after the 1938 Anschluss by a Heydrich acolyte, thirty-two-year-old Adolf Eichmann, whose office streamlined the handling of paperwork and financed emigration by taxing wealthy Jews. His “Vienna Model” pushed 110,000 people out of Austria in five months. In the summer of 1939, Eichmann established a comparable office in Prague, where he declared, “I too am a Zionist; I want every Jew to leave for Palestine.”

  Before the war and in its first two years, the Nazis considered emigration a means both for raising funds and of removing an unwelcome population. Hitler even appealed to Western leaders to back their statements of concern for the well-being of Jews by opening their borders, a challenge that the West shamefully failed to take up. In 1940, Nazi planners devised a scheme to send one million Jews annually to the French colony of Madagascar. That brainstorm, supposedly blessed by Hitler, came to naught when the British survived the Blitz. The German fleet was not large enough to fight His Majesty’s Navy while simultaneously conducting a ferry service to Africa.

  Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia, appeared to open the door to another option. Assuming a quick victory, the entirety of the USSR’s frozen East would become available. The Nazis soon found, however, that success there would not come as rapidly as hoped; meanwhile, the Wehrmacht had first claim on rail facilities for the movement of troops. The bureaucrats concerned with the Jewish question had to improvise.