When the speech and the thunderous applause that greeted it in the Sports Palast had finally concluded and the AEG radio was, at last, turned off by Major Dr Ploetz, it was immediately apparent that there were several others in that library who had the same thought as me: someone in the government – Hitler himself, perhaps? – had woken up to the painful reality of just what Germany had undertaken to do in Russia. And this being the Third Reich of course, which was based on lies, it meant that things were probably much worse than we had been told.
Our sombre faces told the same grim story. Indeed, General von Eberstein, who was some big noise in the SS general staff, may actually have muttered some desperate imprecation to a God who was certainly some place else, if anywhere at all. General Hildebrandt, who was Heydrich’s equivalent rank in Danzig, merely hurled his cigarette into the fireplace as if he was as disgusted with it as he was with everything else.
This might have been what prompted Heydrich to say a few words, to resurrect our visible lack of enthusiasm. More likely it was Fleischer’s handwritten note that Captain Pomme had handed him a few minutes earlier. Heydrich himself was grinning like he’d just eaten the last slice of honey-cake.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘If I could have your attention for just a few more minutes. I’ve been given a note by Criminal Commissar Fleischer of the Gestapo, which contains some excellent news. As most of you know, since May of this year we’ve had two of the Three Kings – Josef Balaban and Josef Masin – in custody at Pankrac Prison, here in Prague. These are, of course, two of the three leaders of Czech terrorism here in Bohemia. However, the third king, Melchior, as we like to call him, has eluded us. Until now. It seems that one of our two prisoners – I don’t know which, but somehow I feel sure that his name must be Josef – has agreed to cooperate with our inquiries and, finally, has revealed that Melchior’s real name is Vaclav Moravek, formerly a captain in the Czech Army. We have already begun a search for him here in Prague and at his home town of Kolin, near Losany, and it is now expected that we shall shortly make an arrest.’
I felt oddly sick. It seemed that while we’d been stuffing ourselves with Veal Holstein and Leipziger Everything, a brave man had been tortured into revealing the name of the most wanted man in the Third Reich.
‘Bravo,’ said one of my brother officers, an Abwehr major named Thummel.
Others also present applauded this news, which seemed to please Heydrich no end, and there he might, and perhaps should, have left the matter. But full of his own importance, Heydrich continued to talk for several more minutes. He was not, however, a public speaker. Self-conscious and calculating, he lacked Hitler’s common touch and rhetorical flourish. His voice was pitched too high to inspire men; worst of all, he used a string of big German words where one or two smaller ones would have worked better. Of course, this was typical of the Nazis, for whom language was often used to mask their own ignorance and stupidity – which they possessed in an inexhaustible supply – as well as to give their words the placebo effect of authority; like a doctor who has an impressive Latin name for what is wrong with you, but sadly not a cure.
Fortunately for everyone present, Captain Kuttner and Kritzinger the butler appeared with champagne and a tray of Bohemian glass flutes, and before long there was something of a party atmosphere in that library. I drank a glass without much pleasure and, when I thought I was unobserved, I slipped away onto the terrace and smoked a cigarette in the darkness. It felt like somewhere I belonged – a crepuscular world of creatures that hooted and howled and where one might hide to avoid larger predators.
After a while I glanced through the leaded library window and seeing no sign of Heydrich, I decided I might sneak off to bed. But I had not reckoned on Heydrich’s study being immediately at the top of the first flight of stairs; the doors were open and he was seated behind his desk signing some papers under the cold bespectacled eye of Colonel Jacobi. Insouciantly I headed toward the north wing corridor and my room; but if I had hoped not to catch the General’s eye I was quickly disappointed.
‘Gunther,’ he said, hardly looking up from his signature file. ‘Come in.’
‘Very well, sir.’
