6 – He Brutalized the Czechs & Began the Deportations of Jews to the Camps
When Hitler decided to expand into Czechoslovakia, Heydrich came up with the idea to encourage the ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland region to join the Nazis as a means of destabilizing the area. The Czech government gave up control of the Sudetenland to Germany on August 1, 1938.
Heydrich’s evil deeds escalated, and he helped organize Kristallnacht on November 9/10, 1938. The ‘Night of Broken Glass’ involved attacks on Jews living in Germany and Austria. Synagogues, businesses and homes were attacked, and broken glass littered the streets. Hundreds of Jews died during these attacks and Heydrich ordered the arrest of 30,000 Jews who were sent to concentration camps. It was the beginning of the mass deportation of Jews and Heydrich had a major part to play in their extermination.
He convened the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in January 1942. This meeting involved 15 top bureaucrats from the Reich, and it was at this event that the idea for the Final Solution was coordinated. Heydrich said that the plan was to rid Europe of Jews from east to west. The Nazis wanted to kill all 11 million Jews in Europe and the Soviet Union. The first instance of mass gassing of Jews occurred in Auschwitz, Poland in the middle of 1942. Over 1 million people died at Auschwitz out of a total of 6 million Jews that died during World War II.
Meanwhile, Heydrich continued his plan to destabilize Czechoslovakia by inciting riots in parts of Slovakia and sending in a so-called ‘sabotage squad’ in January 1939. He was appointed Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia in September 1941 and set up his HQ in Prague. He cynically applied a carrot and stick approach in this role. On the one hand, he gave free shoes and food rations to workers and made the populace think he was helping them find work. On the other hand, he suppressed the black market and tortured and murdered members of the resistance movement.
While industrial output increased, inflation and food shortages were a problem. Heydrich’s apparent goodwill towards the people masked his real intentions. Ultimately, his goal was to get rid of up to two-third of the population via deportation to the Soviet Union or murder. The Ministry of Labour conscripted up to 100,000 Czechs and forced them to work anywhere in the Reich while their workday was increased from 8 to 12 hours. Heydrich was on top of the world, but once again, his arrogance came back to haunt him, this time with fatal consequences.