Target Heydrich: Laurent Binet's HHhH

6 June 2012. Final event in a series commemorating the 70th anniversary of Operation Anthropoid

May 1942.  The storm of war rages over Europe. Czechoslovakia languishes in the dark night of dismemberment and German occupation.  But, in London, a plan has been hatched: Operation Anthropoid.  Two men, the Czechoslovak parachutists, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, fall silently from the Bohemian night sky. Their destination, by train and by bicycle: Prague.  Their weapons:  sten guns, grenades, and their sheer audacity.  Their target: Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, Himmler's right-hand man, the 'most dangerous man in the Third Reich', the 'butcher of Prague', Reinhard Heydrich.  The consequences of their actions will be shattering.

French writer Laurent Binet will be in London to discuss his HHhH, published in English translation at the beginning of May. The novel is an attempt to tell the real story of the two parachutists and their deadly confrontation with Heydrich. All the characters in HHhH (the acronym for the German phrase 'Himmler's brain is called Heydrich') are real. All the events depicted are true. But alongside the nerve-shredding preparations for the attack runs another story: how does a novelist writing about real people resist the temptation to make things up? Winner of the 2010 Prix Goncourt du premier roman, HHhH is a story of heroism and loyalty, revenge and betrayal. In conversation with Tim Beasley-Murray (UCL SSEES), the author will address the fraught questions of the relationship between history and imagination and of the portrayal of both good and evil.

'HHhH blew me away. Binet's style fuses it all together: a neutral, journalistic honesty sustained with a fiction writer's zeal and story-telling instincts. It's one of the best historical novels I've ever come across.' Bret Easton Ellis

The series, which has run since March 2012, is organized by the UCL European Institute, the UCL Centre for the Study of Central Europe and the Winer Library, in conjunction with the Czech Centre London, Harvill Secker, and the Institut Français. It commemorated the 70th anniversary of Operation Anthropoid through the diverse lenses of documentary film and visuals, military history, a French novel and a British detective story. See below for details.

Series Programme

26 March - 8 June 2012
Exhibition
The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
The covert military operation to assassinate Heydrich was planned in London with the support of the British government and carried out by two Czech soldiers-in-exile. Using a wealth of documentary material, this new temporary exhibition, curated by Jan Kaplan, spotlights the events surrounding the 1942 mission and unravels its connections with the escalation of genocide in occupied Europe.

Wednesday, 25 April 2012, 6.30pm
Lecture
Dr Eduard Stehlik: Lidice - the story of a Czech village
After the assassination of Heydrich, the Germans took their revenge and destroyed the northern Bohemian village of Lidice and murdered its 173 male residents.  Eduard Stehlik is the author of 'Lidice - the story of a Czech village', which recounts one of the most barbaric acts of the Second World War from the point of view of the lives of the ordinary people who lived there. An honorary citizen of Lidice, he offers a distinctive insight into these most brutal events.
Organised by the Wiener Library in collaboration with the Czech Centre and the British Czech and Slovak Association.

Thursday 3 May 2012, 6.30pm 

Discussion and Reading
Death in Prague: Philip Kerr on Prague Fatale 

Chaired by Prof Anthony McElligott (University of Limerick)

Philip Kerr is the creator of an engrossing series of thrillers centred around Bernie Gunther, a private detective and wry observer of Central Europe from the rise of Nazism to the aftermath of World War Two. The latest addition to the series, 'Prague Fatale', is set in 1942 and touches on the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich and provides a chilling portrait of Heydrich himself.  Kerr will be speaking about his latest book at the Library in an event chaired by Prof Anthony McElligott, a renowned expert on the Third Reich. 


Wednesday, 23 May 2012, 6.30pm
Film screening
SS-3: The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich

Jan Kaplan and Krystyna Kaplan 
The plot to assassinate Heydrich was the only successful assassination of a leading Nazi during World War II. This remarkable moment in history is examined in a compelling film documentary by Jan and Krystyna Kaplan, combining original black and white footage with reconstructions. As well as being an award-winning documentary film-maker, Jan Kaplan is also an historian who has also co-authored several books including 'Prague in the Shadow of the Swastika', 'Prague: The Turbulent Century' and 'Prague 1900-2000'.

Wednesday, 6 June 2012, 6.30pm
Discussion and Reading
Target Heydrich: Laurent Binet's HHhH
Discussant: Tim Beasley-Murray (UCL SSEES)
French writer Laurent Binet will be in London to discuss his HHhH, published in English translation at the beginning of May. The novel is an attempt to tell the real story of the two parachutists and their deadly confrontation with Heydrich. All the characters in HHhH (the acronym for the German phrase 'Himmler's brain is called Heydrich') are real. All the events depicted are true. But alongside the nerve-shredding preparations for the attack runs another story: how does a novelist writing about real people resist the temptation to make things up? Winner of the 2010 Prix Goncourt du premier roman, HHhH is a story of heroism and loyalty, revenge and betrayal. This discussion will raise the fraught questions of the relationship between history and imagination and of the portrayal of both good and evil.