Laurent Binet: HHhH

The first of May, in Germany as in France, is Labor Day, the origins of which go back to a decision of the Second International, made in tribute to a great workers’ strike that took place on May 1 in Chicago in 1886. But it’s also the anniversary of an event whose importance was not realized at the time, whose consequences would be incalculable, and that is for obvious reasons not celebrated anywhere: on May 1, 1925, Hitler founded an elite body of troops, originally intended to protect his safety. A bodyguard made up of overtrained fanatics corresponding to strict racial criteria. This was the “protection squadron,” the Schutzstaffel, better known as the SS.

In 1929 this special guard is transformed into a genuine militia, a paramilitary organization led by Himmler. After the Nazis take power in ’33, Himmler gives a speech in Munich in which he declares:

“Every state needs an elite. The elite of the National Socialist state is the SS. It is here that we maintain, on the basis of racial selection, allied to the requirements of the present time, German military tradition, German dignity and nobility, and German industrial efficiency.”

I still don’t have the book that Heydrich’s wife wrote after the war, Leben mit einem Kriegsverbrecher (“Living with a War Criminal” in English, although the book has never been translated). I imagine it would be a mine of information, but I haven’t been able to get my hands on it. It is an extremely rare work, and the price on the Internet is generally between 350 and 700 euros. I suppose German neo-Nazis, fascinated by Heydrich—a Nazi such as they would hardly dare to dream of—are responsible for these exorbitant prices. I did find it once for 250 euros and wanted to commit the folly of ordering it. Happily for my budget, the German bookshop that had put it up for sale didn’t accept payment by card. I would have had to go to my bank’s local branch. The mere prospect of this, a profoundly depressing one for any normal person, persuaded me not to take the transaction any further. Anyway, given that my German is no better than the average French twelve-year-old’s (although I did do it for eight years in school), it would have been a risky investment.

So I should do without this book. But I’ve reached the point in the story where I have to recount Heydrich’s first meeting with his wife. Here more than for any other section, that extremely rare and costly tome would undoubtedly have been a great help.

When I say “I have to,” I do not mean, of course, that it’s absolutely necessary. I could easily tell the whole story of Operation Anthropoid without even once mentioning Lina Heydrich’s name. Then again, if I am to portray Heydrich’s character, which I would very much like to do, it’s difficult to ignore the role played by his wife in his ascent within Nazi Germany.

At the same time, I’m quite happy not to write the romantic version of their affaire de coeur , which Mrs. Heydrich would not have failed to give in her memoirs. I prefer to avoid the temptations of a soppy love scene. Not that I refuse to consider the human aspects of a being such as Heydrich. I’m not one of those people who’s offended by the film Downfall because it shows us (among other things) Hitler being nice to his secretaries and affectionate with his dog. I naturally suppose that Hitler could, from time to time, be nice. Nor do I doubt, judging by the letters he sent to her, that Heydrich fell genuinely in love with his wife from the moment he met her. At the time, she was a young girl with a pleasant smile, who could even have passed for pretty—far from the hard-faced evil shrew she would become.

But their first meeting, as told in a biography clearly based on Lina’s memoirs, is really too kitsch: at a ball where she dreads being bored the whole evening because there aren’t enough boys, she and her friend are approached by a black-haired officer, accompanied by a shy blond young man. She falls in love instantly with the shy one. Two days later, there’s a rendezvous at the Hohenzollern Park in Kiel (very pretty, I’ve seen photos) and a romantic lakeside walk. A date at the theater the next evening—then to a rented room, where, I imagine, they sleep together, even if the biography remains discreet on this point. The official version is that Heydrich arrives in his best uniform, they have a drink after the play, share a silence, and then suddenly, without warning, Heydrich proposes marriage. “ Mein Gott , Herr Heydrich, you don’t know anything about me or my family! You don’t even know who my father is! The navy doesn’t allow its officers to marry just anyone.” But as it’s also made clear that Lina had got hold of the keys to the room, I suppose that either before or after the proposal, that very evening, they consummated their relationship. It turns out that Lina von Osten, from an aristocratic family fallen on slightly hard times, is a very suitable match. So they get married.

It’s not a bad story. I just don’t feel like doing the ballroom scene, and even less the romantic walk in the park. So it’s better for me not to know more of the details; that way, I won’t be tempted to share them. When I happen upon the materials that allow me to reconstruct in great detail an entire scene from Heydrich’s life, I often find it difficult not to do it, even if the scene itself isn’t particularly interesting. Lina’s memoirs must be full of such stories.

So, in the end, maybe I can do without this overpriced book.

All the same, there is one thing about the meeting of the two lovebirds that intrigued me: the name of the dark-haired officer who accompanied Heydrich was Manstein. First of all, I wondered if it was the same Manstein who would later direct the Ardennes offensive during the French campaign, who we would find afterward as an army general on the Russian front—in Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Kursk—and who would lead Operation Citadel in 1943, when the Wehrmacht’s task was to deal with, as best they could, the Red Army counterattack. The same Manstein too who, to justify the work of Heydrich’s Einsatzgruppen on the Russian front, would declare in 1941: “The soldier must appreciate the necessity for the harsh punishment of Jews, who are the spiritual bearers of the Bolshevik terror. This is also necessary in order to nip in the bud all uprisings, which are mostly plotted by Jews.” The same, finally, who would die in 1973—meaning that, for one year, I lived on the same planet as him. In truth, it’s unlikely: the dark-haired officer is portrayed as a young man, whereas Manstein, in 1930, was already forty-three. Perhaps someone from the same family, a nephew or a distant cousin.

At eighteen Lina was, as far as we know, already a firm believer in Nazism. According to her, she was the one who converted Heydrich. Yet certain clues lead us to believe that even before 1930 Heydrich was politically well to the right of most soldiers, and strongly attracted by National Socialism. But obviously the “woman behind the famous man” version is always more appealing…

It’s risky to try to determine the moments when a person’s life is changed forever. I don’t even know if such moments exist. Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt wrote a book, La Part de l’autre , in which he imagines that Hitler passes his art diploma. From that instant, his destiny and the world’s are completely altered: he has a string of affairs, becomes a promiscuous playboy, marries a Jewish woman with whom he has two or three children, joins the Surrealists in Paris, and ends up a famous painter. At the same time, Germany fights a small war with Poland and that’s all. No Second World War, no genocide, and a Hitler who is nothing like the real one.