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.