HHhH

Two Czechoslovak paratroopers sent from London are charged with the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Gestapo, head of the Nazi secret service, planner of the Final Solution, protector of Bohemia-Moravia, nicknamed "the executioner", "the blonde beast", "the most dangerous man of the Third Reich". After months of preparation, he is finally shot dead in his Mercedes. The result is a mad hunt that ends in a church in the center of Prague. HHhH is an acronym invented by the SS which means in German: "Himmler's brain is called Heydrich" (Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich).

Most of the history is between 1938 and 1942. The story is structured like a funnel: short chapters relate different episodes in different places and at different times, all of which converge on Prague where the attack took place. All the characters in this book really existed or still exist. The author has reported the facts as faithfully as possible but has had to resist the temptation to romanticize. How to tell the story? This question sometimes leads the author to put himself on stage to give an account of his writing conditions, his research, his hesitations. Historical truth reveals itself to be both a neurotic obsession and a never-ending quest.

Author(s): Laurent Binet
ISBN: 9781250033345
Publisher: Picador
Published: July 2013
Number of Pages: 336