The following is an excerpt from K. M. Sandrick's "The Pear Tree."

Assassination

Reinhard Heydrich caught a glimpse of himself as he passed what was left of the hall mirror in his chateau in Panenské Břežany. Stopping to stare at distorted reflections, he inhaled sharply. Despite the evidence of his standing as the leader of Nazi-Occupied Czechoslovakia on his uniform, he was overcome by disgust at the images in the shards of glass: his nose appeared wide and crooked instead of long, narrow and straight; his face seemed broad and square instead of lean, smooth and oval.

Impatient to remove the offending pieces of glass, Heydrich withdrew his sidearm from its holster hanging on the coat rack next to the mirror, grabbed the barrel and struck down with the pistol grip, hammering at the jagged scraps until none was left in the mirror frame and grinding each of them into slivers with the heel of his boot.

Reversing the position of the gun in his hand, he pushed the nose of the barrel into the bullet holes in the wall as he recalled the flash of anger and self-loathing that had overcome him when he returned from the previous night’s bout of drinking, saw his reflection and remembered the taunts from his youth: Filthy Jew.

While replacing the gun in its holster, Heydrich glanced at a photo of his family that had been knocked askew. All because of that silly old woman, he thought as his finger traced the outline of the figure in the foreground of the photograph—his grandmother.

“Foolish old hag! Whore to a Jew! How could you? How could you marry again after Opa died? And leave us, your family, me to argue every day of my life that I don’t have tainted blood. Just so you could have a dalliance with a Jew!” He slapped the edge of the picture frame and sent it crashing to the floor.

***

Wiping his fingertips on his trousers, Heydrich made his way down the hallway to the bathroom, where he performed his morning ritual: He opened the medicine cabinet, pulled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and unscrewed the cap. Lifting it to his mouth, he poured out a small amount of liquid, then leaned his head back and gargled, forcing the harsh liquid against his tonsils and down his throat in the hope that the peroxide would granulate the tissue of his voice box and coarsen his troublesome high-pitched voice.

He spit out the foam, twisted the cap back on the bottle, placed it on the shelf and closed the cabinet door, pausing to scrutinize his image in the mirror and assure himself again that there was no sign of Jewish blood along the edges of his lips, his cheeks and chin, his slicked-back blond hair, his spare and linear eyebrows and the narrow bridge of his nose. Jewish? Hah! No Jewish blood in him. Nor in his father. Nor in his mother.

Back in the hallway, he picked up his sidearm, wrapped and fastened the holster belt around his waist and adjusted the position of the gun. Checking on the preparations for his trip to Czechoslovak ReichsProtektorate Headquarters in Prague, he glanced out the window and saw a guard, a new recruit, loosening the stays that held open the cloth cover of his Mercedes convertible.

“Stupid,” he sputtered as he leaned out the window. “You,” he called to the recruit. “You!” he said more loudly when the recruit continued to raise the cloth. “Didn’t anyone tell you to leave the cover the way it is?”

“But, Herr Gruppenführer…” The recruit turned to speak to Heydrich, who had already slammed down the sash, rattling the windowpane.

“Leave it,” a Nazi sergeant admonished the recruit.

“But he doesn’t want to drive in an open car all the way to Prag, does he? Isn’t he worried about the Resistance?”

“Why would my Czechs shoot at me?” Heydrich interrupted, raising his cap to examine the crown and bill and brush them clean before he placed the hat on his head. “My Czechs are like blades of grass,” he said as he approached the driver’s side of the car and waited for the recruit to open the rear door. “They move whichever way the wind is blowing.”

While twirling his hand as if flicking a fencing foil, he stepped into the car and began the speech he repeated regularly to the men under his command. “The winds of the Third Reich have blown the Czech government away. The Reich has swept up and destroyed the Resistance and sent the Czech Jews to the ghetto at Terezín. And the Gentiles? They love the Third Reich, now that their invalids and old people and widows get pensions, and their workers get better rations and theater tickets and vouchers for vacations. The Czechoslovaks may be grinning brutes, but they know they can’t afford to raise their heads against the Reich or pretend to play good soldiers. The racially good and well-intentioned Czechs should know by now that they will have the opportunity to become Germans. The rest? The mongrels? The Slovaks? What does it matter what they think? They will be gone … to the East … away from here.” He never tired of delivering this message and worked to fine-tune it. He was particularly pleased with the latest turns of phrase—“winds of the Third Reich,” Czechs as “blades of grass.”

Satisfied that the recruit had been sufficiently schooled, Heydrich sat back against the seat cushions, crossed an ankle over a knee, tapped the driver on the shoulder and waved a salute to the recruit and his sergeant as the vehicle pulled away from the chateau, traveled down the gravel path and through the iron gates, passing the wild-boar stone carvings with their bared fangs that he had specially designed as guards for the front entrance to the grounds.

Between gaps in the shrubbery, Heydrich could see his pregnant wife lead their three children to the stone kiosks at the edge of the swimming pool where they would change into their bathing suits. In the past Heydrich had enjoyed many women and had paid a high price for the pleasure: He had been forced to resign his naval commission for impregnating and refusing to marry the daughter of a shipyard director. How could he marry a woman who would give herself so easily? he had said at the time. But Lina—Lina at the age of 19 had so captivated him that he could entertain no other women, and he rushed to the altar with- in a year of meeting her.

Heydrich watched her now, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, holding 3-year-old Silke’s hand. He followed the path of his rambunctious sons—8-year-old Heider and 9-year-old Klaus—down the stone steps as the sun glinted off their glossy white hair. He was happy that he and Lina had reconciled after his commitment to the Reich and his workload had, only a few years ago forced a divorce, assured that he and his wife and family would lead the New Germany.

***

Swaying slightly, the limousine slowed to make its turn on to Rude Armady VII Kobylisky and enter the road that curved along the bend in the Vltava River in the near Prague suburb of Holešovice. Heydrich relaxed in the seat as the sedan followed the wide arc of the road and then slowed to a crawl to make the sharp turn into V Holešovičkách Street. Surprised there were so few people on the street or waiting for the tram, he glanced at his watch: 10:35 a.m. Well, he said to himself, they are all good Czech workers. They are already on the job. He was the one who was late.

He had to admit, if grudgingly, that Czechoslovakia had its charms. Prague itself was cosmopolitan and cultured in a number of ways, with many examples of magnificent architecture. The suburb of Holešovice was serviceable—its buildings part lackluster—and maddeningly slow in operation with trams that were aged and inefficient, but its design, with large green areas on both the north and south sides of the town, was refreshing. Its residents were for the most part pleasant and passive, at least now that they knew who was in charge. But there wasn’t a Germanizable Czech among them. Except maybe, he thought, for that one.

Heydrich had let his eyes trace the two-story shops lining Rude Armady and the shoppers adjusting their string bags as they walked along the cobbles and spotted a young man with a high, smooth fore- head, slim and pointed nose and softly curling lips standing partially hidden in a doorway, a coat covering his body down to his shins. But what was such a young man doing here? And wearing such a long coat? It was nearly the end of May. Heydrich looked away from the man with contempt. Stupid Czech! This man clearly did not meet RuSHA racial criteria! He should not be walking the streets of a small town in Czechoslovakia! He should be working in the steelworks or laboring in the camps in the East! Heydrich decided he would tell the head of RuSHA—the Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt unit of the SS responsible for Germanization and racial profiling—that its investigators needed to do a better job of applying tests for racial purity. Better yet, he would suggest that the Race and Settlement Main Office add more tests—ones for intelligence.

***

Czech Resistance fighter Josef Gabčík turned his head to the left and made a quick nod to his compatriot, Jan Kubiš, who was standing at the corner of V Holešovičkách Street rummaging through a worn rucksack. Gabčík shrugged the arm of the coat off his shoulder and raised a 99-mm automatic submachine gun. With his left hand under the fore piece of the weapon and the stock against his shoulder, he peered through the sight and aimed the barrel of the weapon directly at the side of Heydrich’s face. He smiled as he watched Heydrich’s head turn and eyes rest on him, at first squinting in surprise, then gradually hardening with the realization of what they were observing. The years of preparation in the Czech Army in Exile in Great Britain, the months of planning with the Czech Resistance, the weeks of hiding in the hills and forests of Bohemia, the days of indecision and apprehension were finally being translated into action: He was about to become an assassin.

Gabčík gently squeezed the trigger and waited for the recoil. But there was no sound or rebound. He squeezed the trigger again, but felt no response. He looked nervously at Kubiš, his eyes wide, his head shaking, his shoulders rising as if to ask a question. Then he released the   fore piece and let the weapon drop to the side of his body and onto the ground. He was prepared for death, assuming it would come quickly by his own hand or an enemy’s weapon, and for flight and concealment until then. But he was not prepared for failure. Since he had been airdropped into Nehvidzy by British pilots in March, he had thought of nothing but the bullet-shattered face and body of Reinhard Heydrich. Yet here at the perfect spot and the perfect time for the assassination, he could do nothing but turn away from his quarry and run down Rude Armady to the next side street.

***

Heydrich fumbled with the flap of his holster and finally un-snapped the catch, withdrawing the pistol. With his hand on the handle of the sedan’s rear door, he paused slightly when he heard the clank of metal striking metal, a thump and then a scraping sound.

“There!” he called out to his driver. “He’s over…” An overpowering rush of air took his words away. A sharp, sudden roar deafened his ears. Reverberations distorted his orientation as the back of the car rose a foot off the ground and crashed back to the earth, a passenger-side tire flattened, the windshield cracked.

Heydrich fell out of the car onto his shoulder, straining against the acute bursts of pain in his side and abdomen. He rose to his knees and held his breath as he forced his legs to raise his body. Hugging his torso with his left arm, he placed his hand on top of the sites of pain and pressed down to make it easier to move. A stab of pain. A loss of breath. He grasped his side, stumbling on the cobblestones and falling back onto his knees. Then his body lurched forward, his pistol hand crashing to the curb.

Lying on his side, Heydrich wrenched open his uniform jacket. Running his fingers gingerly along his shirt front, he probed his injuries. In an area dark with blood, he saw small bits of metal protruding from his skin: shrapnel from the grenade and the interior of the car’s rear door. The tips of his fingers felt tufts of material—strings of horsehair stuffing—and tiny curved pieces of metal—sections of the automobile’s seat springs.

___________________________________________________________________________________

The following is an excerpt from K. M. Sandrick’s The Pear Tree.

Betrayal

Karel Čurda, so confident when he sent his letter to the police post in the Central Bohemian town of Benešov, now stood before Heinz Pannwitz, leader of the committee charged with finding Heydrich’s assassins, in Pannwitz’ office in Petschek Palace—and stuttered. While others on the investigation committee were ready to dismiss Čurda as a crackpot or an opportunist, Pannwitz was desperate for leads, so he decided to test the man.

Pannwitz led Čurda to an interrogation room that displayed 20 similar suitcases on a tabletop and asked him to pick out the one that belonged to one of the assassins. Čurda immediately identified a worn leather case, lifting a small tear in its side as the telltale sign.

“This is the one … the one I saw in Svatos’ apartment, the one that had a British submachine gun in it.”

“Whose was it?”

“Gabčík’s. Josef. He went by the name of Zdenek.”

“Did he have a partner?”

Čurda nodded. “Kubiš. Jan. Known as Ota Navratil.”

Pannwitz could barely disguise his excitement. For the first time, he had names, identities, something solid to go on.

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know for sure …”

Pannwitz grabbed Čurda by the collar. “Don’t fuck with me …”

“But ... but …” Čurda twisted his head away. “There are these safe houses … in the Žižkov area of the city. A family there …,” He tried to ease Pannwitz’ grip. “… called Moravec. On Biskupcova Street. They would know … something.”

***

Two battalions under the command of SS Brigadefuhrer Karl von Treuenfeld were in place on the streets that ran alongside and in front of the Church of St. Charles Borromeo in Prague. Seven hundred Waffen SS troops maintained a double cordon around the area, and Gestapo guarded every sewage outlet and manhole as well as the rooftops of all the neighboring buildings. Troops had already closed the inner and outer perimeters, a gunner had mounted a 7.92 mm MG 34 light machine gun on a roof across the street from the church, and the Prague fire brigade had readied hoses to drive water into the crypts below. The men of the battalions, von Treuenfeld and Heinz Pannwitz now waited for the order from Karl Hermann Frank.

A million Reichsmarks? To him? Frank looked sidelong at Karel Čurda, the traitor to the Czechoslovak Resistance. That slimy little turd, Frank thought. No respect. No loyalty. No allegiance to his own country.

Frank had to acknowledge that if it hadn’t been for Čurda’s leads to the Moravecs and other families who had been harboring Heydrich’s assassins, Pannwitz and von Treuenfeld’s men wouldn’t be positioned for an assault on the church where not only both assassins—Kubíš and Gabčík—but five other Resistance fighters were holed up. If it weren’t for Čurda, Frank would still be making excuses to Hitler, hoping the Führer wouldn’t end up sending him to oversee the death squads in Poland. He nevertheless loathed having to deal with Čurda. He couldn’t wait for the assault on St. Charles Borromeo to be over so he could hand the money to the turncoat and wash off the taint of it.

Frank climbed the stairs to the rooftop next to the church on Resslova Street. “The battalions?” he asked.

“They have surrounded the church and the area,” von Treuenfeld affirmed.

“The machine gun …” he started to ask, but then noted that the gunner was sighting his weapon. Frank checked his wristwatch: 4:14 a.m.

 At Frank’s signal, a squad of Gestapo, led by Pannwitz, climbed the front steps of the church and rang the bell. Pushing aside the janitor who unlocked the heavy wooden door, the squad rushed into the sanctuary and found the altars empty. With only the vacant eyes of saints within their picture frames bearing witness, they turned to the metal grille that closed off the stairway to the choir. Just as they were forcing it open, a grenade rolled down from the top of the stairs. Landing on the bottom step, the bomb exploded, tearing the metal latticework away from its hinges, hollowing out sections of the stone walls and floor and setting fire to the wall hangings on either side of the entry.

The explosion prompted the machine gunner and the SS riflemen on the nearby rooftops to open fire. Steady bursts from their weapons rained down shards of leaded-glass windows and ricocheted bullets on Pannwitz and his men, but they did not reach the Czech Resistance fighters, who were hiding in the niches between the supporting columns of the church roof.

A hastily called ceasefire: “For Christ sake, you’re hitting us,” Pannwitz radioed to the shooters surrounding the building.

A regrouped SS squad: “Remember,” Pannwitz cautioned his men. “We want to take them alive.”

Inside the church: an assault on the narrow stairs leading to the choir: Grenades tossed halfway up; fusillades from automatic weapons aimed at the ceiling; a two-hour unremitting attack, then a slow, careful ascent to the top of the stairs where Heydrich assassin Jan Kubiš was bleeding to death, his suit shredded by grenade fragments and pieces of the wall that had imploded behind him.

Just beyond, Resistance fighter Adolf Opálka lay dead from a gunshot wound to the left temple, blood pooling behind his nubby gray V-necked sweater, his right arm at an odd angle, a bone protruding from the sleeve.  Next to him was Josef Bublík, froth at the edges of his mouth—the residue from a cyanide capsule.

“That can’t be all of them,” Pannwitz told Pastor Vladimir Petrek. “And none of these men fits the description of the other assassin. So where are they? Where else are they hiding?” Pannwitz released his pistol from its holster and hefted it in his palm. “You don’t want to sacrifice your life for these … these killers?” Pannwitz placed his index finger on the trigger and cocked the weapon.  “Do you?”

The pastor fingered the crucifix on the rosary he had withdrawn from the pocket of his cassock. He brought the cross to his lips as he tapped his foot on the stone floor. “The catacombs.”

“How many?”

He bowed his head and crossed himself. “Four.”

“Why aren’t you storming the cellars?” Frank demanded, a walkie-talkie to the side of his head.

“We can’t risk it,” Pannwitz answered. “We could kill all the rest. You know Himmler wants them alive.”

“So how do you plan to get them out of there?”

Pastor Petrek leaned into the loudspeaker that had been placed on the outside of a grille at the entrance to an air shaft at the back wall of the church: “It is hopeless, my boys,” the pastor said. “Save yourselves. Come out.”

Muffled shouting: “We’re Czechs, fighting for our country!”

“You’ll be treated as prisoners of war. The SS have assured me. All you have to do is surrender. There’s no need for more bloodshed. Surrender …”

“Fuck you, father.”

“We’ll never give up!”

Karel Čurda, handcuffed with young Ata Moravec to the Gestapo, tried next. “Surrender, boys. I tell you,” he said. “It will be all right.”

Catcalls, whistles in response.

“Who the fuck are you?” One of the men called out.

“I am one of you—Operation Out Distance.”

“You’re not one of us if you’re with them.”

“Listen to me. They promise…”

“They promise. They promise. Here’s to their promises.” Ripples of gunfire from underground.

“Enough of this.” Pannwitz summoned the chief of the Prague fire brigade. “Get going with your hoses. Flood them out.”

***

Prague fireman Juri Fischer folded a small-bladed knife and slipped it into the pocket of his trousers before unrolling the heavy tubing connected to a water-pumping unit. He and a pair of other firemen thrust the hose into the vent leading to the church catacombs and opened the water main.

A geyser of high-pressure water burst from the side of the hose.

“It’s leaking,” a fireman yelled to his commander.

“For Christ sake,” the commander shouted. “Get this thing out of here. Fischer,” he called out. “Get another hose.”

The torn section of tubing removed, the firemen reconnected the hose and began pumping 600 gallons of water a minute into the crypts.

Within moments, the end of the hose was flapping erratically, its sides severed and the tatters pushed out on to the street from below. Bottles with flaming pieces of cloth sparking from their mouths sailed into the air, crashed and rolled over the cobblestones. The Resistance fighters had placed a ladder under the nozzle of the hose, slashed and thrust the tubing out of the airshaft, then lofted a volley of Molotov cocktails. 

Fischer and the other members of his fire crew hurriedly backed away from the building while Soldats flattened their bodies against the side of the building, then released pins from tear gas canisters and tossed the grenades down the air shaft. 

“Push the end of that hose back down there,” Pannwitz shouted to Fischer and his men, pointing to the remnants of tubing that snaked wildly over the street. 

“The water must be escaping through some kind of drainage canal or underground passageway,” von Treuenfeld told Frank, after torrents of water had been released and there was still no sign the Resistance fighters were weakening. “They could follow the water and find a way out. We should storm the crypt—before they get away from us.”

 “We could have stormed the crypt six hours ago if all we wanted to do was kill the bastards. We need to take them alive,” Pannwitz argued.

“I’ve had enough. We look like fools,” Frank said, assessing the number of troops and fire brigades and lorries and the heads of witnesses peeking from windows and around street corners. “All this, and we can’t ferret out a handful of Czech Resistance fighters? Let’s get this done.”

On Frank’s command, SS combat troops ordered Pastor Petrek to lead them to the entrance of the crypt, which was concealed under a stone slab on the west side of the nave. After blasting away the flagstone, Soldats descended a steep set of stairs, dropped into waist-deep water and moved toward the Resistance fighters, gas masks protecting their eyes and noses. At the same time, more Soldats blew open a bricked-up entrance to the crypt near the altar and began their own descent.

Four pistol shots from below, then silence.

“Fertig,” a Soldat called out ten minutes later. “All dead.”

 Josef Gabčík, the man who had faced Reinhard Heydrich at the turn of Rude Armady on V Holešovičkách Street, the sight of his automatic weapon trained on Heydrich’s forehead, was propped against an exterior wall at the front of the church, his short-sleeved shirt drenched in blood, dead from a shot to the head with his Colt automatic. Three other Czechs were nearby: Jaroslav Švarc, Jan Hrubý and Josef Valčík. 

  ***

Karl Hermann Frank bent over the body of one of the Czech Resistance fighters lined up in the alleyway next to the Church of St. Charles Borromeo. He tugged at the man’s collar and pulled his head off the ground. “This one?” he asked Čurda, who stood to his right, his hands shoved in the jacket pockets of his tweed suit. “Bublík,” Čurda said.

“One of the assassins?”

“No,” Čurda said. “He was with me … in Operation Out Distance.”

“So where …?”

“Here,” Čurda pointed to Jan Kubíš, whose body lay next to Bublík’s, the jacket of his dark pinstriped suit unbuttoned.

“And the other?”

“There,” Čurda said, indicating the body of Josef Gabčík, his shirt still buttoned but now torn and stained with blood.

“And they are from?”

“He,” Čurda kicked Kubíš’ oxford shoe, “is from somewhere near Poland, in Moravia. The other one is a Slovak.”

“Anyone one named Horák here?”

“No.”

“You know anyone named Horák?”

“No, never heard the name.”

“Or Říha or Maruščáková?” Čurda shook his head.

“So, no one from Lidice?”

“Lidice?” Čurda laughed. “That little town? I doubt anyone in that town even heard of the Resistance.”

***

Juri Fischer passed behind Frank and Čurda, his fire helmet held to his chest, his eyes downcast but flashing as he surreptitiously acknowledged the dead bodies of his compatriots. He stooped to pick up the ends of the fire hoses, stopping to palm and hide in the depths of his pockets a pair of tear gas grenades that had been lying on the ground.