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Reinhard Heydrich and Final Solution of the Czech Question
Vrabcová, Klára ; Rataj, Jan (advisor) ; Martínek, Miloslav (referee)
The person of Reinhard Heydrich was one of those fateful to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The first chapter of this paper attempts to prove that Heydrich's impact on the "Czech Question" is much greater than the eight months he spent in office as Deputy Reich Protector. It analyses different approaches to the solution of the Czech Question in Nazi plans and particularly, towards the end of the chapter, Heydrich's tendency towards one of these plans -- the memorandum of Secretary of State K. H. Frank. This memorandum anticipated two things: the temporary preservation of the Protectorate, the assimilation of people of suitable race and disposition and the expatriation of people of unsatisfactory race and of those opposing German rule. This thesis also attempts to prove that although Reinhard Heydrich planned the solution of Czech Question as a long-term process, the fulfilment of which could be considered only after a succesful war, he started the first steps already during the war. Great attention is given not only to his racial survey of the population, but also to his policy concerning Protectorate youth, who were meant to be caught up and reeducated within the Curatorium for the Education of Youth in Bohemia and Moravia. To ensure calm and economic health throughout the Protectorate, he applied his carrot-and-stick policy on the population. The occupation policy required a combination of short-term and long-term goals and application of the former to ensure the consequent accomplishment of the latter. The final chapter lays bare the reaction of the Czechoslovak foreign resistance to the situation in the Protectorate -- the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. This act was supposed to empower the Czech underground movement and improve the status of the exiled government among Allies. Even though this operation of the foreign resistance caused a torrent of arrests and executions within the Protectorate, its foremost effect was to draw the attention of the world and the Media and to excite Allied recognition for the Czech domestic resistance.
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