Philip Kerr - Prague Fatale

‘I’m saying it’s a possibility. When I was last in Prague, Heydrich told me that SS doctors were experimenting with sulphonamide compounds, as a way of treating wound infections. Doesn’t it seem odd that Heydrich of all people should have been prevented from taking advantage of a drug newly synthesized in SS laboratories?’

‘Yes, it does,’ admitted Nebe.

‘At least until you remember that Heydrich already suspected Himmler of trying to kill him.’ I shrugged. ‘Who better than a doctor to finish the job started by the British parachutists? And here’s another thing that I found out at the Bulovka Hospital. After her husband died Lina Heydrich had some sort of altercation with Dr Gebhardt and actually accused him of killing her husband. It seems that she had to be restrained from hitting him.’

‘Jesus Christ. I never knew this.’

‘Apparently she told Major Ploetz, Heydrich’s adjutant, that she won’t be accompanying your SS guard of honour back to Berlin.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. It seems she herself believes that her husband’s death is not exactly as advertised.’

‘Himmler will be furious. Hitler, too.’

‘There is that possibility.’

Nebe rubbed his jaw anxiously.

‘You’re right, Bernie. We never had this conversation.’ He toasted me with his glass. ‘I might have known you’d discover a very different culprit from the ones I was hoping to find. I think we’d best leave it there, don’t you?’

‘I already did. When I get back to Berlin I’m going to deny I was ever here. As I discovered last October, being in Prague can be damaging to your health. Even fatal.’

Nebe uttered a grim-sounding sigh.

‘About your girl friend, Arianne Tauber. It’s not good news, I’m afraid. I wish I could give you some good news, but I can’t. I’m sorry.’

‘Good news I wasn’t expecting, Arthur. I just want to know for sure what happened to her.’

‘They sent her to a concentration camp near Krakow.’

I nodded.

‘Well, that’s not so bad. People have survived concentration camps before.’

‘Not this one. This is a new kind of concentration camp. Only part of it is a true concentration camp of the kind that you and I know about. You know, like Dachau or Buchenwald. Mostly this is a special new sort of concentration camp. Much bigger than those others. It’s called Auschwitz.’

That was the first time I ever heard the name Auschwitz. While I was eating a good dinner and enjoying a fine bottle of wine in an expensive restaurant. It seems astonishing now that the name did not stay with me longer, but within a few days I had more or less forgotten it. Years later, I heard the name again, and this time it stayed with me. It stays with me always now, and whenever I think of it I know I can put at least one face and name to the several millions of people who died there.

The Three Kings were Josef Masin, Josef Balaban and Vaclav Moravek. Balaban died in Prague’s Ruznye Prison on 3 October 1941; Vaclav Moravek was killed in a shoot-out with the Prague Gestapo on 21 March 1942; Josef Masin was executed in May 1942, as part of the Nazi retaliation for the attack on Reinhard Heydrich.

On 9 June 1942, a special train carrying one thousand Jews left Prague for Auschwitz. The train bore a sign which read ATTENTAT AUF HEYDRICH (Assassination of Heydrich). On the same day, General Karl Hermann Frank ordered Horst Bohme to destroy the Czech village of Lidice, north-west of Prague, because it was vaguely suspected of having harboured some of Heydrich’s assassins. One hundred and ninety men over the age of sixteen were executed, summarily. One hundred and eighty-four women were sent to Ravensbruck; eighty-eight children were sent to Lodz. On 1 July 1942 Eichmann ordered the women and children to be sent to Chelmno, where they were all gassed in specially converted gas vans. The village itself was razed to the ground.

On 16 June 1942 Karel Curda walked into Pecek Palace and gave away the names and addresses of many prominent UVOD resistance workers, among them the Moravec family (no relation). Marie Moravec poisoned herself rather than be taken alive by the Gestapo. Her son, Ata, was captured and tortured. His interrogators showed him his mother’s severed head before dropping it into a fish tank. Ata Moravec broke down and revealed the hiding place of the Heydrich assassins; this was the church of St Cyril and St Methodius in Resolva Street. The Germans called this church Karl Borromaus.

Hiding in the crypt of St Cyril’s (a Russian Orthodox church — not a Roman Catholic one, as might have been supposed) were Jan Kubis, Adolf Opalka, Jaroslav Svarc, Josef Gabcik, Josef Bublik, Josef Valcik and Jan Hruby — all members of an assassination team trained by the British Special Operations Executive for a mission called Operation Anthropoid. A pitched battle ensued during which all six men were killed or committed suicide. The bodies were identified by ‘the traitor’ Curda. The entire families of all these brave heroes were sent to Mauthausen Concentration Camp, where they were executed on 24 October 1942.

On 3 September 1942, the officials of the Resolva Street church of St Cyril’s were tried in the conference hall of the Pecek Palace in Prague. The trial lasted three and a half hours. On 4 September, Bishop Gorazd, Jan Sonnevend, Vladimir Petrek and Vaclav Cikl were hanged.

Adolf Hitler gave Lina Heydrich the Lower Castle at JungfernBreschan (the Czech name for this place is Panenske-Brezany) in gratitude for her husband’s ‘heroic work’. Heydrich’s eldest son, Klaus, was killed in a traffic accident outside the gates of the house in October 1943. The boy is buried in an unmarked grave in the grounds of the house. In January 1945 the Heydrichs left the house for good.

Paul Thummel was released and rearrested on several occasions. In February 1942 he broke down under questioning and admitted he was a spy. He was imprisoned in the fortress at Terezin (Theresienstadt) under the false name of Dr Paul Tooman. There he remained for three years. In August 1944 he was divorced by his wife Elsa, which was the last time he saw her. In April 1945 he ‘committed suicide’ in Terezin.

Karl Hermann Frank was captured in 1945, tried by the Czechs, found guilty and executed outside Pankrac Prison on 22 May 1946. The whole execution may be found on the internet for those who are inclined that way at http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/05/22/1946-karl-hermann-frank/

It’s only my opinion but he died rather bravely, for what it’s worth.

SS-Standartenfuhrer Dr Walter Jacobi was arrested by the Americans in September 1945. He was executed in Prague on 3 May 1947.

SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Richard Hildebrandt was hanged for war crimes in Poland on 10 March 1952.

SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Karl von Eberstein testified for the prosecution at the Nuremberg trials. He denied knowledge of and responsibility for Dachau Concentration Camp, which fell under his authority as the Higher SS and Police Leader for Munich. He died in Bavaria on 10 February 1979.

SS-Gruppenfuhrer Konrad Henlein was captured by the Americans and committed suicide in May 1945. However, he may actually have been a spy for the British.

SS-Gruppenfuhrer Dr Hugo Jury committed suicide in May 1945.

SS-Brigadefuhrer Bernard Voss was hanged in Prague on 4 February 1947.

SS-Standartenfuhrer Dr Hans Ulrich Geschke was most probably killed during the Battle of Budapest in February 1945. He was declared dead in 1959.

SS-Standartenfuhrer Horst Bohme was killed at the Battle of Konigsberg in April 1945. Declared dead, 1954.

SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Dr Achim Ploetz. Fate unknown to the author.

Konstantin von Neurath was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Released in 1954, he died aged eighty-three in August 1956.