Konrad Henlein
Konrad Henlein (
May 6,
1898 -
May 10,
1945) was the most important pro-
Nazi politician in
Czechoslovakia and leader of
Sudeten German separatists.
Born in north Bohemian Maffersdorf (today
Vratislavice nad Nisou borough in
Reichenberg/Liberec). In light of being a potential leader of
Sudeten German movement, Henlein's origin was not without difficulties. His mother Hedvika Anna Augusta Dvořáček was a daughter of
German while her father was
Czech. As Henlein pursued against mixed marriages after
1938, he was forced to change his mother's name from Dvořáček to Dworatschek, which sounded more German and thus was more comfortable for Henlein's career as a high
Nazi official.
He attended a German business academy in Liberec. After the
First World War, during which he spent time in
Italian captivity as an Austrian soldier, and subsequent breakup of
Austria-Hungary he worked as a bank clerk in the interwar Czechoslovakia while taking an active part in the
Sudeten German communal life.
In the first half of the
1930s, Henlein made a pro-Czechoslovak and overtly anti-Nazi point in his public speeches and did not become a follower of
Adolf Hitler until
1937, when the pro-German camp within the Sudeten-German Party (SdP) represented by
Karl Hermann Frank emerged victorious. He then swiftly aligned himself with the slogan "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!" (One People, One Country, One leader), thus making the predominantly German-speaking border areas of Czechoslovakia known as
Sudetenland a part of Germany (they had been Austrian until 1918, as was the whole Bohemia and Moravia). Such political union would, however, have removed from Czechoslovakia not only its richest iron-producing regions but also any geographic barrier to German invasion. Henlein's political party's dominance of the
Sudetenland in the
1930s ultimately led to the
Munich Agreement on
September 30,
1938, which he helped to accomplish by influencing the British delegate
Lord Runciman during the latter's visit of Czechoslovakia. Henlein presented his party's policy as one striving to fulfill the "justified claims" of the then largely nazified German minority of Czechoslovakia. In September 1938 he helped organize civil unrest raging in Czechoslovak border areas settled by Germans and instigated by Hitler's frenetic speech in
Nuremberg. Since the turmoil was quickly suppressed by Czechoslovak forces, Henlein fled to Germany and made numerous intrusions into Czechoslovak territory as a commander of Sudeten German guerilla bands of
Freikorps. After the final
secession of the Sudetenland, Henlein's party merged with Hitler's
NSDAP on November 5, 1938. Henlein then became
Gruppenführer (later
Obergruppenführer)
SS and a
Reichstag deputy. On May 1, 1939 he was nominated
Gauleiter of the Sudetenland, a position he held until the end of the war.
In May
1945, while in
American captivity in the barracks of
Plzeň, he committed
suicide by cutting his veins with his broken glasses. He was buried anonymously in the Plzeň Central Cemetery.
*
Germans in Czechoslovakia (1918-1938)*
Konrad Henlein in Britannica*
Konrad Henlein (in German)
