22nd August 2024
There are two-books-in-one in this novel by the Parisian-born Laurent Binet, translated from the original French by Sam Taylor.
First, there is a conventional historical thriller about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia – otherwise known as the “Hangman of Prague” or the “Blond Beast” – by the Czech Resistance in 1942 and the terrible revenge that was exacted by the Germans.
In addition – and interspersed throughout the narrative – there is what is effectively a commentary by the author about the writing of the book. This ranges widely, as Binet discusses his extensive (perhaps bordering on obsessive) research, his views on other novels and films that have covered the subject (including Seven Men at Daybreak by Alan Burgess, noted below) and his determined attempt to avoid the insertion of speculative (and unknown) details into a story that has its basis in actual events.
The historical context is set out with some skill, both in terms of Heydrich’s personal background and, more generally, the development of the war in Central and Eastern Europe.
After his initial naval career ends in disgrace and dismissal, Heydrich is recruited by Heinrich Himmler to head the Sicherheitsdienst (SD, the intelligence wing of the Schutzstaffel, SS). Part of this role – undertaken with unbridled enthusiasm – is overseeing the wholesale liquidation by the murderous Einsatzgruppen of those left in the wake of the progress of the German armed forces in Poland – “teachers, writers, journalists, priests, industrialists, bankers, civil servants…”.
By September 1939, Himmler and Heydrich have also taken over responsibility for the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) from Hermann Göring. Such is Heydrich’s reputation that, within the SS, there is a saying: “Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich” – “Himmlers Hirn heist Heydrich”. Hence the title of the book.
The state of Czechoslovakia is abolished in March 1939. Slovakia, though nominally independent, becomes a satellite state aligned with Germany, whilst the Czech component – Bohemia and Moravia – is established as a German Protectorate. Heydrich is put in overall charge by Adolf Hitler in September 1941 with a three-fold responsibility: crushing the remnants of the Resistance movement; ensuring the full “Germanisation” of culture and language; and, crucially for the war effort, ensuring that the industrial base produces an increased output of desperately needed armaments for use in the war with Russia.
For the exiled Czech Government – headed by President Edvard Beneš – and its military advisors in London, a spectacular attack on the Nazi occupiers becomes a matter of urgency. Fearful of the nature and extent of any German retaliation, one possible target is Emanuel Moravic, a collaborationist Minister, but this is rejected as he is little known outside the country. Instead, it is decided to go for a more significant – indeed, the most significant – figure, Heydrich. I would have liked to have learned more about how this decision is reached as, at its heart, is the unavoidable moral dilemma of weighing up the benefits of success against the dreadful revenge that must have been anticipated, albeit perhaps not to the extent that actually occurred.
The mission is put in the hands of two exiled parachute commandos, Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík – respectively a Czech and a Slovak – supported by the thin local network of Resistance members in Prague and elsewhere. It is a story of bravery, mishap, foolhardiness, luck (good and bad) – and betrayal.
The novel shares a characteristic with Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal (1971) – about a 1963 assassination attempt on President de Gaulle of France – in that the reader might well know the outcome in advance. (In the case of the Heydrich assassination, my own understanding of the events had previously been through a 1975 film Operation Daybreak, starring Anthony Andrews and Timothy Bottoms, based on Alan Burgess’s novel). However, this doesn’t detract from the heightened sense of drama provided by Binet, as the assassins finalise their plans, make their attempt and then seek to escape.
In its Vintage Books edition, the book does not contain any page numbers, but consists of no fewer than 257 “chapters”, averaging about a page each and with some only one or two sentences in length. I think this probably adds to the flow of the narrative, although I did also find that this was interrupted by one or two of Binet’s private insertions.
This is an important book. It tells us how, whilst the life of an evil man was brought to an end, the terrible times of which he was a central figure still had some distance to run. The German reprisals included razing the Bohemian village of Lidice, murdering some 340 of its inhabitants and obliterating it from the map – all based on false information that the village had had some sort of connection with the assassins.
However, the book also informs us that, in the post-war reckoning, these horrors were not forgotten. The modern village of Lidice is twinned with Coventry and there are neighbourhoods with that name across the world, including in the United States, Cuba, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile and Azerbeijan. Such are the threads that link the Nazi regime and the Hangman of Prague and the Czech Resistance to a town square in Montevideo and a street in Santiago.
JR Alexander 