Laurent Binet - HHhH

The match has hardly begun when one of the Ukrainian strikers has his leg broken by a German player. At the time there were no substitutes, so FC Start have to play on with only ten men. Thanks to their numerical superiority, the Germans open the score. Things are going badly. But the Kiev players refuse to give up, and they equalize to loud cheers. When they score a second goal, the supporters explode with joy.

At halftime, General Eberhardt, the superintendent of Kiev, goes to see the Ukrainian players in their changing room and tells them: “Bravo, you’ve played an excellent game and we’ve enjoyed it. But now, in the second half, you must lose. You really must! The Luftwaffe team has never lost before, certainly not in any of the occupied territories. This is an order! If you do not lose, you will be executed.”

The players listen in silence. Back on the pitch, after a brief moment of uncertainty, and without discussing it, they make their decision: they will play to win. They score a goal, then another, and end up winning 5–1. The Ukrainian fans go crazy. The German supporters mutter angrily. Shots are fired in the air. But none of the players is worried yet, because the Germans believe they can avenge the insult on the pitch.

Three days later, a return match is organized, and promoted by a poster campaign. The Germans send urgently for reinforcements: some professional footballers come from Berlin to strengthen their team.

The second match kicks off. The stadium is full to bursting again, but this time it’s patrolled by SS troops. Officially, they are there to maintain order. As before, the Germans score first. But the Ukrainians never lose faith, and they win the match 5–3. At the final whistle, the Ukrainian supporters are ecstatic but the players look pale. The pitch is invaded, and in the confusion three Ukrainian players disappear: they will survive the war. The rest of the team is arrested and four of them are sent immediately to Babi Yar, where they are executed. On his knees at the edge of the ditch, Nikolai Trusevich—the captain and goalkeeper—manages to yell, before getting a bullet in the back of the neck: “Communist sport will never die!” The other players are murdered one by one. Today, there is a monument to them in front of Dynamo’s stadium.

There are an unbelievable number of different versions of this legendary “death match.” Some say there was actually a third game, won by the Ukrainians—with a score of 8–0—and that it was only after this that the players were arrested and killed. But the version I’ve recounted seems the most credible to me, and in any case all the versions share the same broad outline. I’m worried that there are some errors in what I’ve written: since this subject has no direct link with Heydrich, I haven’t had time to investigate more deeply. But I didn’t want to write about Kiev without mentioning this incredible story.

The SD reports are piling up on Hitler’s desk, denouncing the scandalous leniency of the Protectorate’s government. Acts of sabotage; a still-active Resistance; seditious conversations overheard in public; an expanding black market; an 18 percent fall in production; the Czech prime minister’s relations with London… according to Heydrich’s men, the situation is explosive. With the opening of the Russian front, the productivity of Czech industry—one of the best in Europe—is now becoming crucial for the Reich. The Škoda factories must work flat out to support the war effort.

Despite being paranoid, Hitler is not a complete fool. He must know that Heydrich has a vested interest—coveting, as he does, Neurath’s position as Protector of Bohemia and Moravia—in discrediting the old baron by making things look as black as possible. At the same time, Hitler loathes weakness. He isn’t too keen on barons either, for that matter. The latest news is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. A call to boycott the occupation newspapers, made by Beneš and his clique in London, has been taken up to a remarkable extent by the local population for a whole week now. In itself, this isn’t a big deal, but it shows how much influence the Czech government-in-exile still exerts. And what it says about the local population’s overall state of mind is not very comforting for the occupying forces. When you bear in mind Hitler’s sworn hatred of Beneš, you can guess at how angry this must make him.

Hitler knows that Heydrich is a rising star ready to do anything to further his own ambitions. This doesn’t shock him, though, and for a good reason. Couldn’t the same thing have been said about Hitler himself? Hitler respects Heydrich because he combines fierceness with efficiency. If you add to this his loyalty toward the Führer, you get the three elements that make the perfect Nazi. And that’s without even mentioning his pure Aryan appearance. Try as Himmler might to be “faithful Heinrich,” he can’t compete with this blueprint. So it’s likely that Hitler admires Heydrich. Along with Stalin, that would make him one of the few living people to have had this honor. What’s more, Hitler seems not to have been afraid of Heydrich—surprising, for a paranoiac like him. Perhaps he wanted to stoke the fires of competition between Heydrich and Himmler? Perhaps he believed, as he confided to his Reichsführer, that the dossier on Heydrich’s supposed Jewishness was a guarantee of his devotion? Or perhaps the Blond Beast was such a perfect incarnation of the ideal Nazi that Hitler couldn’t imagine him capable of betrayal?

In any case, he must have called Bormann to organize an emergency meeting in his Rastenburg HQ. Summoned immediately: Himmler, Heydrich, Neurath, and his assistant Frank, the Sudeten bookseller.

Frank is the first to arrive. He’s about fifty and has a deeply wrinkled mafioso’s face. Over lunch with Hitler, he paints a picture of the Protectorate that confirms the SD reports in every detail. Himmler and Heydrich arrive next. Heydrich makes a brilliant speech in which he outlines the problems and proposes solutions. Hitler is impressed. Neurath, delayed by bad weather, gets there the next day—but by then his fate is already sealed. Hitler uses the same tactics as when he wishes to strip a general of his command: enforced sick leave. The position of Protector is now up for grabs.

On September 27, 1941, the Czech press agency, controlled by the Germans, sends out the following press release:

The Protector of the Reich of Bohemia and Moravia, Reich minister and honorable citizen Herr Konstantin von Neurath, has decided that it was his duty to ask the Führer for prolonged leave due to reasons of health. Given that the present war situation means the Protector must work full-time, Herr von Neurath has asked the Führer to temporarily relieve him of his duties, and to name a replacement for the whole length of his absence. In view of the circumstances, the Führer could not refuse this request, and he has named Obergruppenführer and police general Heydrich as Protector of Bohemia and Moravia for the entire duration of Reichsminister von Neurath’s illness.

In order to occupy such a prestigious post, Heydrich is promoted to Obergruppenführer, the second-highest rank in the SS hierarchy—subordinate only to Himmler’s title of Reichsführer. The only rank that surpasses that is Oberstgruppenführer, and in September 1941 nobody has reached that level yet. (There will be only four Oberstgruppenführers by the end of the war.)

So Heydrich savors this decisive step in his irresistible if somewhat meandering rise. He phones his wife, who is not very taken by the idea of moving to Prague. (She claims to have said to him: “Oh, if only you’d become a postman!” But she is so conceited and complacent that it is hard to imagine her ever having such a regret.) Heydrich replies: “Try to understand what this means to me. It’ll be a change from doing all the dirty work! Finally, I will be something more than the Reich’s dustbin!” The Reich’s dustbin: so that’s how he defined his duties as head of the Gestapo and the SD. Duties, by the way, that he would continue to fulfill with the same efficiency as before.