In this, Heydrich was echoing the thoughts of Himmler. As the Germans moved east, he said, they would turn the inferior races they did not destroy into helot armies, stretching from the Atlantic seaboard to the Ural mountains, to protect the Greater Reich from the peoples of Asia. The East, with its slave labour, would produce the food for the Aryan West.
In his dealings with the Czechs, Heydrich added, it would be wise to practise a certain tact now that the strong arm of the S.S. was being shown. ‘I personally, for example,’ he said, ‘shall maintain pleasant social relations with these Czechs, but I will be careful not to cross certain barriers.’ He then concluded with a careful reference to the Final Solution (Endlösung), warning his listeners to keep the matter to themselves; he would need, he said, a complete racial picture of the Czech people obtained by compiling under various guises a national register of the entire population:
‘For those of good race and well intentioned the matter will be very simple — they will be Germanized. The others — those of inferior racial origin with hostile intentions — these people I must get rid of. There is plenty of space in the East for them… During the short time I shall probably be here I shall be able to lay many foundation stones in the affairs of the nation.’
Heydrich, less than a week after taking up his appointment, was already speaking like an established Nazi leader. Though the ideas he put forward were those familiar enough in Himmler’s mythology, he spoke now in the first person. In the signal he had sent by teleprinter to Hitler’s headquarters in Russia on 27 September notifying his arrival in Prague, he had ended by making it quite clear that ‘all political reports and messages will reach you by the hand of Reichsführer Bormann’. There was no longer any question that he would communicate with the Führer through Himmler; according to Schellenberg, who had been invited by Heydrich to celebrate the news of his appointment over a bottle of champagne, Bormann had told Heydrich the Führer had greater responsibilities in store for him if he were successful in Czechoslovakia. He believed, therefore, as he had said at the secret conference in Prague, that he would not be in Czechoslovakia for long. He was, after all, still head of R.S.H.A., and he had no intention of cutting himself off from Berlin. A ’plane stood by constantly to carry him to and from Germany, but he took his wife and children to Prague and installed them in the beautiful and luxurious country seat assigned to the Protector at Panenske-Breschen, twelve miles from the capital. As a bribe for good conduct he increased the rations of Czech workers and adopted the pose, once the initial purge was over, of being Czechoslovakia’s friend while attempting to increase the efficiency of her industry for the benefit of Germany. In spite of his ceaseless schedule of work, the regular journeys to Berlin, the frequent visits to Hitler in the Ukraine, he made a point of appearing to patronize the arts in Prague while subsidizing the performance of German opera.
Himmler was constantly in touch with him, and it was Heydrich, not Himmler, who controlled the lunch conference organized by Eichmann on 20 January 1942 at Wannsee, at which the various phases of the Final Solution were debated with the usual cynical circumlocution. The various claims of death by overwork, deportation to the East, sterilization and extermination were gone over for the 11 million Jews and part-Jews whom Heydrich estimated lived in Europe both within and beyond the territories under Nazi rule. The only Jews to be spared temporarily were those engaged in war work, at the urgent request of Goring’s Ministry. Everyone present, leaders of the S.S. and government officials alike, pledged their assistance, and Thierack, the Minister of Justice, formally blessed the proposals and surrendered all jurisdiction over the Jews to the S.S. Cognac was served and the speakers grew loud and merry. Heydrich who, according to Eichmann when testifying in 1961 at Jerusalem, summoned the conference out of vanity and a desire to consolidate his power over the fate of the Jews, then left for Prague, where on 4 February he called another secret conference of his assistants in order to explain his long-term plan for Czechoslovakia; mass deportations of the millions who were not selected for Germanization. Under guise of a nation-wide check for tuberculosis conducted by racial specialists, the first steps in the national racial survey were begun.
With equal speed, Eichmann set about his work. On 6 March he held a conference to resolve the difficult transport problems connected with the evacuation of the Jews to the east and to debate the problem of organizing the sterilization of Jews involved in mixed marriages and their offspring. Heydrich, confined now for longer periods in Prague, left R.S.H.A. matters to Eichmann and his staff. In the spring, when Schellenberg was visiting him, he seemed more than ordinarily worried. Hitler, he said, ‘was relying more and more on Himmler, who… could exploit his present influence with the Führer.’ He no longer seemed willing to accept Heydrich’s advice, and Bormann, he now felt, was jealous of him and hostile. ‘Apparently there had been differences between him and Himmler, who had become jealous.’ Both Bormann and Himmler resented the fact that Hitler had been prepared to confer with Heydrich alone, and Heydrich was certain by now that Bormann, his former supporter, was starting an intrigue against him.
This was the situation when Heydrich, who was very careless of his personal security, left his castle to be driven to the airport shortly after two o’clock on the afternoon of 27 May. Waiting for him near a sharp turn in the road were two Free Czech agents from Britain, who had been dropped by parachute the previous December to wait for final orders to attempt his assassination; one had a Sten-gun and the other a special grenade. At the crucial moment the Sten-gun jammed, and the second agent flung his grenade at the car. Heydrich, who seemed for the moment uninjured, got out of the car and pursued his assailants, firing his revolver while in their attempt to escape they dodged between two street cars that had drawn up. Then Heydrich suddenly collapsed; he had in fact suffered internal injuries at the base of his spine from the explosion of the grenade. The Czech police arrived and hustled Heydrich, who was in great pain, to hospital. The two agents both escaped at the time, but they died three weeks later resisting arrest.
Both Hitler and Himmler were at their separate headquarters in East Prussia when the news that Heydrich was seriously injured reached them from Frank. According to Wolff, who was with Himmler, the Reichsführer burst into tears, and then drove with Wolff to see Hitler at Rastenburg, some thirty miles distant. They decided at once to send their court physicians by air to Prague in a fervent attempt to keep Heydrich alive. None of them could save Heydrich from the gangrene set up by his wounds, and a week later he died, surrounded by doctors. Gebhardt described the frantic scene at the Doctors’ Triaclass="underline"
‘I arrived by air too late. The operation had already been carried out by two leading Prague surgeons. All I could do was to supervize the subsequent treatment. In the extraordinary excitement and nervous tension which prevailed, and was not diminished by daily personal telephone calls from Hitler and Himmler asking for information, very many suggestions were naturally made; I was practically ordered to call in… the Führer’s own doctor, Morell, who wanted to intervene in his own fashion with his own remedies… The two gentlemen from Prague had already operated… they had made a first-rate job of the operation and also administered sulphonamide. I consider that if anything endangers a patient it is nervous tension at the bedside and the appearance of too many doctors. I refused, in reply to direct demands, to call in any other doctor, not even Morell… Heydrich died in fourteen days. Then I had to see to his family affairs.’