Even if his position as Protector now allows him to short-circuit the hierarchy above him by appealing directly to Hitler, Heydrich still hasn’t decided to supplant Himmler. However insignificant Himmler may look, Heydrich knows his boss should not be underestimated. And besides, his position as number two in the SS means he can hide behind Himmler if the need arises, allowing him to bide his time until he becomes so powerful that he need fear no one.
So Heydrich’s direct rivals are, for the moment, of a lowlier kind. There is Alfred Rosenberg, minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories and the theorist behind the idea of colonizing these countries. There is Oswald Pohl, in charge of the organization of concentration camps, and—like Heydrich—the head of a “central office” (Haupt Amt, the HA in “RSHA”) within the SS. There is Hans Frank, the governor-general of Poland, Heydrich’s counterpart in Warsaw. And there is also Canaris, head of the Abwehr—Heydrich’s counterpart in the Wehrmacht. Having accumulated so many offices, Heydrich’s power is admittedly far superior to any of these men, taken one by one. But each has enough control over his own domain to prevent Heydrich really spreading his wings. Actually, looking at it that way, I should add Dalüge, head of the general police—another “central office” answering directly to Himmler in the hierarchy of the SS. His power is limited to ordinary police tasks, the maintenance of order and the enforcement of common law, but the Orpo, the Schupo, and the Kripo—while lacking the power and dark prestige of the Gestapo—are still police forces beyond Heydrich’s control.
So the road is long. But Heydrich, as he has already amply demonstrated, is not a man easily discouraged.
158
I’ve come across this anecdote in lots of books: Himmler, attending an execution at Minsk, fainted when two young girls were shot just in front of him and he was spattered with their blood. Following this unpleasant scene he realized the need to find another method, less hard on the executioners’ nerves, for continuing the extermination of the Jews and other Untermenschen.
But according to my notes, the end of this type of execution coincides with a similar realization on Heydrich’s part. He was also making an inspection visit, accompanied by his subordinate “Gestapo” Müller.
The Einsatzgruppen always carried out their work in more or less the same way: they dug a gigantic ditch, and—having gathered together hundreds or even thousands of Jews (or other supposed opponents) from the surrounding towns and villages—lined them up at the edge of the ditch and machine-gunned them. Sometimes they made them kneel down so they could put bullets in the backs of their necks. But most of the time, they didn’t even bother to check whether everyone was dead, so some were buried alive. A few survived: sheltered beneath a corpse, half-dead themselves, they waited for nightfall before digging through the earth that covered them until they reached the surface. But such cases are the miraculous exceptions. Several witnesses have described seeing pits filled with bodies piled on top of one another and hearing the groans of the dying emitted by the seething mass. Afterward, the pits were filled in. Using such primitive methods, the Einsatzgruppen exterminated a total of about one and a half million people, the vast majority Jews.
Heydrich attended quite a few of these executions, sometimes in the company of Himmler, sometimes Eichmann, sometimes Müller. One time, a young woman held out her baby so that he could save it. Mother and child were shot right in front of him. Heydrich, who was thicker-skinned than Himmler, did not faint. But the cruelty of the scene made an impression on him, and he wondered about the suitability of this method of execution. Like Himmler, he was worried about the effects of such scenes on the morale of his brave SS guards. Having voiced his doubts, he reached for his hip flask and swallowed a mouthful of slivovitz. Slivovitz is a Czech spirit distilled from plums—it’s very strong and, in the opinion of many Czechs, not very nice. Heydrich, who was a heavy drinker, must have picked up a taste for it after his arrival in Prague.
However, it took him some time to conclude that the Einsatzgruppen were not the ideal solution to the Jewish question. Because in July 1941, when he undertook his first inspection with Himmler—at Minsk, where the two men arrived on the Reichsführer’s special train—Heydrich, just like his boss, could find no fault with the slaughter he witnessed. It must have taken several months for the two of them to understand that such a procedure implicated the Third Reich in a realm of barbarism likely to be condemned by future generations. They had to do something to remedy this. But the process of extermination was already so advanced that the only remedy they found was Auschwitz.
159
Surprisingly, in this dark and horrible period, the number of Czech marriages keeps rising. But there is a reason for this. In early 1942, compulsory work service applies only to single men. Suddenly, there is a marked increase in the number of Czech citizens marrying in haste. This does not escape the watchful eye of Heydrich’s secret services. So it’s decided that forced labor be extended to all male Czech citizens, with no exceptions. Thus tens of thousands of Czech workers, married and single, are sent to all four corners of the Reich to serve as manpower wherever they’re needed—which means everywhere, because German workers are being swallowed by the Wehrmacht in their millions. It’s not only Czechs either: the same law applies to the Poles, Belgians, Danes, Dutch, Norwegians, French, and others.
This policy does produce some interesting side effects, though. In one of the many RSHA reports to land on Heydrich’s desk, we read:
From various places in the Reich, where millions of foreign workers are employed, there is talk of them having sexual relations with German women. The danger of biological weakening is constantly rising. There are more and more complaints concerning young women of German blood seeking out Czech workers for amorous relations.
I suppose Heydrich pulls a face when he reads this. Screwing foreigners has never bothered him, personally. But for Aryan women in heat to mate with those filthy subhumans … that surely must disgust him. It’s also an added reason not to trust women in general. There is no danger that Lina would ever do such a thing—not even to avenge her husband’s infidelities. Lina is a true German, of pure and noble blood, who would kill herself rather than go to bed with a Jew, a black, a Slav, an Arab, or anyone of an inferior race. Not like those shameless bitches who don’t deserve to be German. He’d send the whole damn lot to a whorehouse, quick as you like, or to those Aryan breeding grounds, those stud farms where the young blond women line up to mate with SS stallions. Let them complain then.
I wonder how the Nazis reconciled their racial doctrine with the Slavs’ beauty: not only are the prettiest women on the continent to be found in eastern Europe, but on top of that they’re often blond and blue-eyed. Anyway, when Goebbels had his affair with the gorgeous Czech actress Lida Baarova, he didn’t ask too many questions about her racial purity. He probably thought her beauty made her suitable for Germanization. When you consider the physical degeneracy of most of the Nazi high command—and Goebbels, with his clubfoot, is a prime specimen—you have to laugh at this idea of “weakening the race” that so exercised them. It’s different for Heydrich. He’s no brown midget: his appearance marks him out as a true Germanic standard-bearer. Did he believe this? I think so. People are always quick to believe whatever suits and flatters them. I think of what Paul Newman said: “If my eyes should ever turn brown, my career is shot to hell.” I wonder if Heydrich thought the same thing.