Harry Turtledove: The Man with the Iron Heart

“Well enough, sir, thanks. And you?” Heydrich used the formal pronoun. He always had with Himmler, even if they’d worked hand in glove for years. He expected he always would.

It was a funny business. Heydrich knew he could tear Himmler to pieces if he wanted to. Himmler was on the pudgy side. He’d never been very hard physically. The round, almost chinless face behind the pince-nez could have belonged to a chicken farmer or a schoolmaster. To the man who led the outfit that vied with Beria’s NKVD for deadliness? It seemed unlikely.

But it was true. And therein lay the rub. Himmler might not look like anything much. When he spoke, though, people listened. Having listened, they obeyed. If they didn’t, they quickly departed the land of the living. Himmler, the mild-mannered bureaucrat, had even bureaucratized death. And, because he had, he could intimidate an outwardly tougher man like Heydrich.

And Himmler had another hold on the Reichsprotektor. There were rumors of Jews in Heydrich’s family tree. Heydrich’s father’s mother’s second husband had been named Suss. He’d even looked Jewish, though he hadn’t been. A private genealogist had confirmed that, and the SS had accepted it. Further back, though, there was an unexplained Birnbaum. If Himmler decided that what had been accepted should be rejected…

A bead of sweat trickled down Heydrich’s back. It seemed to burn like acid. He deliberately slowed his breathing. To his relief, his heart stopped fluttering. He couldn’t let Himmler intimidate him, not today. His mission was too important, not for himself but for the Reich.

The Reich. Think of the Reich, not of yourself. As long as that was his lodestone, he’d be all right. He hoped.

Himmler steepled his fingers. “Well, Reinhard, what brings you up from Prague today?” His voice was fussy and precise, like a schoolmaster’s.

One more deep breath. Forcing his voice to steadiness, Heydrich asked, “ Herr Reichsfuhrer, what do you think of Germany’s war prospects in the light of recent developments?”

Himmler’s right eyebrow twitched-only a couple of millimeters, but enough to notice. Whatever he might have expected, that wasn’t it. He usually chose his words with care. He seemed especially careful now, answering, “In view of our, ah, misfortune at Stalingrad, this may not be the best time to ask.”

“It isn’t just Stalingrad, Herr Reichsfuhrer, ” Heydrich said. Himmler’s eyebrow twitched again. He also hadn’t expected Himmler to persist. But the Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia did: “The Russians are taking big bites out of our positions in the east.”

“That will stop. The Fuhrer has personally assured me of it,” Himmler said.

“Yes, sir.” Heydrich’s agreement was more devastating than any argument could have been. After letting it hang in the air, he continued, “Our allies aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Hungary? Romania? Italy?” He snapped his fingers in vast contempt. “The Finns can fight, but there aren’t enough of them.”

“What are you driving at, Reinhard?” Himmler’s tone went silky with danger. “Are you saying the war is lost? Do you dare say that?”

“Yes, sir,” Heydrich repeated. This time, Himmler’s eyebrow didn’t just twitch. It leaped. Heydrich had put his life-not only his career, but his life-in the Reichsfuhrer ’s hands. Having done so, he explained why: “The east is coming undone. Maybe we can patch it up, but I don’t think so. And even if we can…The English and Americans are going to drive us out of Africa. We can’t supply our troops there-that’s been plain for a long time. And after they do, Sicily’s one short hop away. Italy is one more. Can you tell me I’m wrong?”

“Is the castle in Prague haunted? You talk like a man who’s seen a ghost,” Himmler said.

“I wish it were, Herr Reichsfuhrer. I wish I had,” Heydrich said. “Instead, I’ve spent too damned much time looking at maps.” He paused, then added, “The bombing’s getting worse, too, isn’t it?”

“And how do you know that?” Himmler asked quietly.

“Because now we have to talk about it in the papers and on the radio,” Heydrich answered. “We can’t pretend it isn’t happening any more. Everybody knows it is. We’d only look like idiots if we ignored it.”

“Dr. Goebbels is many things. An idiot he is not.” Himmler spoke with a certain regret. The great lords of Party and State were rivals as well as colleagues.

Heydrich nodded. “I know. And so, Herr Reichsfuhrer, I ask you again: what do you think of our war prospects?”

The leader of the SS didn’t answer directly. Instead, he said, “We can’t lose this war. We mustn’t. If we do, it will make what we went through in 1918 look like a kiss on the cheek. Bolshevik hordes storming into Germany…” He shuddered at the idea. “And I don’t imagine we could get terms before the enemy crossed our western border, either, the way we did last time.”

“No, sir. I wouldn’t think so,” Heydrich agreed. “And if we are invaded, if we are occupied-what do we do then?”

“I think I’d rather take poison than live to see the day,” Himmler said.

Heydrich looked at-looked through-him. He seldom held a moral advantage over the Reichsfuhrer -SS, but he did now. “Sir, wouldn’t it be better to fight? To keep on fighting, I mean? Even if the armed forces get ground down-”

“I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it,” Himmler broke in.

“Devil of a lot of Ivans. Devil of a lot of Americans, too,” Heydrich said. “And the Amis can bomb us, and we can’t bomb them. Too damned many Englishmen with them. And all the Jews in Washington and Moscow and London will want revenge on the Reich and the Fuhrer. You know what was decided at Wannsee a year ago.”

No one at that conference had come right out and said Germany aimed to get rid of all the Jews in the territory she held. Nobody’d needed to. The high functionaries had understood what was what. So did Himmler, of course.

“Can you imagine the circus they’d have if they took the Fuhrer alive?” Heydrich asked softly.

That turned out to be a keen shot, keener than he’d expected. Imagining, Himmler looked almost physically ill. “It must not happen!” he choked out. Maybe he was also imagining the circus the Allies would have if they took him alive. And maybe-no, certainly-he had reason to. Heydrich had had imaginings like that more often than he liked since the Czechs almost assassinated him.

“I hope it doesn’t. I pray it doesn’t,” he said now. “But this is war-war to the finish, war to the knife. Shouldn’t we be ready for anything, even the possibility of the worst?”

“What exactly have you got in mind?” the Reichsfuhrer asked. Himmler’s voice was almost back to normal. Almost, but not quite.

“You’ll know, sir, probably better than I do, how much trouble the Russian partisans have given the Wehrmacht, ” Heydrich said.

“And the Waffen -SS,” Himmler put in. “Several of our formations are in action behind the lines against those devils.”

“Yes, sir. And the Waffen -SS,” Heydrich agreed. “And the Soviets improvised those bands on the spur of the moment after the war broke out against them a year and a half ago. How much grief could we give enemy occupiers if we started preparing now, this instant, setting aside weapons and training men to fight as partisans if the worst comes? The more we did in advance, the more ready we’d be if, God forbid, they had to do what we’d trained them for.”

Himmler didn’t answer for some little while. He plucked at his lower lip with thumb and forefinger. That lip was oddly full, oddly sensuous, for the hard-boiled leader of an even more hard-boiled outfit. At last, he said, “This is not a plan I can deliver to the Fuhrer. He remains unshakably convinced we shall emerge victorious in spite of everything.”