I never spoke of these things with Helene. When I saw her, in the evenings or on Sundays, we chatted about current events, the hardships of life, the bombings, or else about art, literature, cinema. At times I spoke to her about my childhood, my life; but I didn’t talk about everything—I avoided the distressing, difficult things. Sometimes I was tempted to talk to her more openly: but something stopped me. Why? I don’t know. You might say I was afraid of shocking her, of offending her. But it wasn’t that. I still didn’t know very much about this woman, at bottom, just enough to understand that she must have known how to listen, to listen without judging (writing that now, I am thinking of the personal failings of my life; what her reaction might have been in learning the whole extent and implications of my work, I had no way at the time of telling, but in any case, talking about that was out of question, because of the rule of secrecy first of all, but also by a tacit agreement between us, I think, a kind of “tact” also). So what blocked the words in my throat when, at night after dinner, in a fit of fatigue and sadness, they began to rise up? Fear, not of her reaction but simply of laying myself bare? Or else simply fear of letting her come even closer to me than she already had and than I had let her, without even wanting to? For it was becoming clear that if our relationship remained that of good but new friends, in her, slowly, something was happening, the thought of the bed and maybe something else besides. Sometimes that made me sad; I felt overwhelmed by my powerlessness to offer her anything, or even to accept what she had to offer me: she looked at me with that long, patient gaze that so impressed me, and I said to myself, with a violence that increased with each thought, At night, when you go to bed, you think of me, maybe you touch your body, your breasts, thinking about me, you place your hand between your legs thinking about me, maybe you sink into the thought of me, and I, I love only one person, the very one I cannot have, the thought of whom never releases me and leaves my head only to seep into my bones, the one who will always be there between the world and me and thus between you and me, the one whose kisses will always mock yours, the one whose very marriage makes it so that I can never marry you except to try to feel what she feels in marriage, the one whose simple existence makes it so that you will never completely exist for me, and for the rest—for the rest exists too—I still prefer having my ass drilled by unknown boys, paid if necessary, it brings me closer to her, in my own way, and I still prefer fear and emptiness and the sterility of my thinking, than to give way to weakness.
The plans for Hungary were taking shape; in the beginning of March, the Reichsführer summoned me. The day before, the Americans had launched their first daytime raid on Berlin; it was a very small raid, there were just thirty or so bombers, and Goebbels’s press had crowed about the minimal damage, but these bombers, for the first time, came accompanied by long-range fighter planes, a new weapon that was terrifying in its implications, since our own fighter planes had been driven back with losses, and you had to be a fool not to understand that this raid was just a test, a successful test, and that from then on there would be no more respite, neither by day nor on nights with a full moon, and that the front was everywhere now, all the time. The failure of our Luftwaffe, incapable of mounting an effective counterattack, was complete. This analysis was confirmed for me by the Reichsführer’s dry, precise statements: “The situation in Hungary,” he informed me without any further details, “will soon rapidly evolve. The Führer has decided to intervene, if necessary. New opportunities will arise, which we must seize vigorously. One of these opportunities concerns the Jewish question. At the right time, Obergruppenführer Kaltenbrunner will send his men. They’ll know what they have to do and you are not to get involved in that. But I want you to go with them to assert the interests of the Arbeitseinsatz. Gruppenführer Kammler”—Kammler had just been promoted at the end of January—“will need men, a great many men. The Anglo-Americans are innovating”—he pointed at the sky—“and we have to react quickly. The RSHA must take this into account. I have given instructions concerning this to Obergruppenführer Kaltenbrunner, but I want you to make sure they’re rigorously applied by his specialists. More than ever, the Jews owe us their labor force. Is that clear?” Yes, it was. Brandt, after this meeting, filled me in on the details: the special intervention group would be headed by Eichmann, who would more or less have carte blanche as regards the settlement of this question; as soon as the Hungarians had accepted the principle and their collaboration was assured, the Jews would be directed to Auschwitz, which would serve as a sorting center; from there, all those who were fit for work would be allocated as needed. At each stage, the number of potential workers had to be maximized.
A new round of preparatory conferences took place at the RSHA, much more focused than those of the month before; soon only the date had yet to be decided. Excitement became palpable; for the first time in a long time, the officials concerned had the clear feeling of regaining initiative. I saw Eichmann again several times, at these conferences and in private. He assured me that the Reichsführer’s instructions had been perfectly understood. “I’m happy you’re the one who’s taking care of this aspect of the question,” he said to me, chewing the inside of his left cheek. “With you, we can work, if you permit me to say so. Which isn’t the case with everyone.” The question of the air war dominated everyone’s thoughts. Two days after the first raid, the Americans sent more than 800 bombers, protected by nearly 650 of their new fighter planes, to strike Berlin at lunchtime. Thanks to bad weather, the bombing lacked precision and the damage was limited; what’s more, our fighter planes and flak shot down 80 enemy aircraft, a record; but these fighter planes were heavy and ill-adapted against the new Mustangs, and our own losses came to 66 aircraft, a catastrophe, with the dead pilots being even harder to replace than the planes. Not discouraged in the least, the Americans returned for several days running; each time, the population spent hours in shelters, all work was interrupted; at night, the English sent their Mosquitos, which didn’t do much damage but again forced the people down into the shelters, ruining their sleep, sapping their strength. Human losses fortunately remained lower than in November: Goebbels had decided to evacuate a large part of the city center, and most of the office employees, now, came in to work every day from the suburbs; but that involved hours of exhausting commutes. The quality of work suffered: when preparing correspondence, our Berlin specialists, insomniac now, made more and more mistakes, I had to have the letters retyped three, five times before I could send them.