HHhH: A Novel полностью

The two armies are more or less equal in numbers: 113,000 Poles against 114,000 Russians. Tukhachevsky, however, is certain of victory. He sends the main body of his forces north, where Piłsudski has fooled him into believing that there is a concentration of troops. In fact, Piłsudski attacks in the south, from behind. It is here that this tributary episode joins the main flow of my story. Tukhachevsky calls for reinforcements from the 1st Cavalry—led by the no-less-legendary General Budyonny—who are fighting on the southwest front to take L’viv. Budyonny’s cavalry is formidable, and Piłsudski knows that this intervention might turn the battle against him. But then something unbelievable happens: General Budyonny refuses to obey orders, and his army remains at L’viv. For the Poles, this is without doubt the real miracle at the Vistula. For Tukhachevsky, however, defeat is bitter, and he wants to understand why it happened. He doesn’t have to search far: the political commissar of the southwestern front, under whose authority Budyonny is operating, has decided that the capture of L’viv is a matter of prestige. There is no question of him sending away his best troops, even if it is necessary to avoid a military disaster, because he knows that the disaster is not his responsibility. Never mind that the fate of the war depends upon it. The personal ambitions of this commissar have often taken precedence over all other considerations. His name is Joseph Dzhugashvili, though he is better known by his nom de guerre: Stalin.

Fifteen years later, Tukhachevsky succeeds Trotsky as head of the Red Army, while Stalin succeeds Lenin as head of state. The two men hate each other, they are at the pinnacle of their power, and they disagree over political strategy: Stalin seeks to delay a conflict with Nazi Germany, while Tukhachevsky advocates going to war now.

I wasn’t aware of all this when I saw the Eric Rohmer film Triple Agent. But I decided to study the question seriously when I heard the main character, General Skoblin, an eminent White Russian exiled in Paris, say to his wife: “Do you remember? I told you that in Berlin I went to see the head of German intelligence, a certain Heydrich. And you know what I didn’t want to tell him? Things about Comrade Tukhachevsky, whom I met secretly in Paris during his trip to the West for the funeral of the king of England. Oh, of course, he didn’t open his heart to me, but from what he said I was able to make certain deductions. The Gestapo must have got wind of this meeting; Heydrich questioned me, I answered evasively, he gave me an icy look, and that’s how we left it.”

Heydrich in a Rohmer film! I still can’t get over it.

After this bit of dialogue, Skoblin’s wife asks:

“And this Mr. Heydrich, why does he want this information?”

“Well, it’s in the Germans’ interests to compromise the head of the Red Army, especially as they already know he’s out of favor with Stalin … at least, that’s what I assume.”

Skoblin goes on to deny any links with the Nazis, and this, too, seems to be Rohmer’s view, even if the director takes great care to stress the ambiguity of his character and politics. But I struggle to believe that Skoblin went to the trouble of meeting Heydrich in Berlin just to tell him nothing.

It seems to me more likely that Skoblin went to see Heydrich to inform him that a plot against Stalin had been hatched by Tukhachevsky, but that in doing so, Skoblin was acting on behalf of the NKVD—in other words, for Stalin himself. Why? To spread the rumor of the plot in order to make people believe an (apparently unfounded) accusation of high treason.

Did Heydrich believe Skoblin? I don’t know, but either way he saw the opportunity of eliminating a dangerous enemy of the Reich: to remove Tukhachevsky in 1937 is to decapitate the Red Army. He decides to feed the rumor. He knows that such an affair is a matter for Canaris’s Abwehr, as it’s a military question. But, intoxicated by the sheer scale of his project, he manages to convince Himmler and Hitler to give him control of the operation. To carry it out, he calls on his best hired man, Alfred Naujocks, who specializes in dirty work. For three months, Naujocks will create a whole series of forgeries aimed at compromising the Russian marshal. He has no difficulty finding his signature: all he has to do is look through the archives of the Weimar Republic. Back then, when diplomatic relations between the two countries were more friendly, many official documents had been signed by Tukhachevsky.

When the dossier is ready, Heydrich assigns one of his men to sell it to the NKVD. This meeting gives rise to a wonderful spying double cross: the Russian buys the fake dossier from the German, whom he pays with fake rubles. Each thinks he’s fooling the other, each is fooled in turn.