“Hello! Let me speak to the Reichsführer!… Hello? Yes, it’s done … Yes, that too … It’s happening now … It’s done … And where are you with number one?… The Führer refuses? But why?… You must convince the Führer!… Talk about his morals! And all the scandals that we’ve had to suppress! Remind him of the trunk left behind at the brothel!… Understood, I’ll call Göring now.”
“Hello? Heydrich speaking. The Reichsführer tells me that the Führer wants to spare the SA Führer!… Naturally, under no circumstances!… You must tell him that the army will never accept it! We have executed Reichswehr officers: if Röhm doesn’t die, Blomberg will refuse to back the operation!… Yes, there you go, a question of justice, absolutely!… Understood, I’ll wait for your call.”
An SS guard enters. He looks worried. He approaches Heydrich and bends down to speak in his ear. They both leave the room. Five minutes later, Heydrich returns, alone. His face reveals nothing. He goes back to answering calls.
“Hello!… Burn the body! Send the ashes to his widow!”
“Hello!… No, Göring won’t let us touch him … Leave six men at his house … Nobody enters and nobody leaves!”
“Hello!…” et cetera.
At the same time, he methodically fills out little white sheets of paper.
This goes on all weekend.
Finally, he gets the news he’s been waiting for: the Führer has given in. He will give the order to execute Röhm—his oldest accomplice, and the head of the Sturmabteilung. Röhm may be godfather to Heydrich’s eldest son but he is above all Himmler’s direct superior. By decapitating the SA leadership, Himmler and Heydrich liberate the SS, which becomes an autonomous organization answerable only to Hitler. Heydrich is named Gruppenführer, a rank equivalent to major general. He is thirty years old.
Gregor Strasser is eating lunch with his family on Saturday, June 30, 1934, when the doorbell rings. Eight armed men are here to arrest him. Without even giving him time to say goodbye to his wife, they take him to Gestapo headquarters. He is not interrogated but finds himself locked in a cell with several SA men who crowd around him excitedly. They are reassured by his prestige as an old companion of the Führer, even if he hasn’t exercised any political power in months. He does not understand why he is here with them, but he knows the mysteries of the Party well enough to fear its arbitrary, irrational side.
At 1700, an SS guard comes to take him to an individual cell with a large window in the roof. Alone in his cell, Strasser does not know that the Night of the Long Knives has begun, but he can guess what’s going on. Should he fear for his life? True, he’s a historical figure in the Party, linked to Hitler by the memory of past struggles: they were, after all, in prison together after the Munich putsch. But he knows too that Hitler is not a sentimental man. And even if he can’t grasp how he could be considered a threat comparable to Röhm or Schleicher, one must take the Führer’s boundless paranoia into account. Strasser realizes he will have to play his cards cleverly if he wants to save his neck.
He is thinking this when he feels a shadow pass behind his back. With an old fighter’s instinct, he understands he is in danger and ducks at the very moment that a gun is fired. Someone has reached through the window and shot at him from point-blank range. He ducks, but not fast enough. He collapses.
Facedown on the cell floor, Strasser hears the bolt of the door slide open, then the sound of boots around him, the breath of a man bending over his neck, and voices:
“He’s still alive.”
“What shall we do? Finish him off?”
He hears the click of a pistol being loaded.
“Wait, I’ll go and ask.”
A pair of boots moves away. A moment passes. The boots return, accompanied. Heels snap to attention at the entry of the new arrival. Silence. And then this falsetto voice that he would recognize anywhere, and which sends a final chill down his spine.
“He’s not dead yet? Let him bleed like a pig.”
Heydrich’s is the last human voice he will hear before dying. Well, when I say “human” …