On 24 April, the SdP issued a series of demands upon the government of Czechoslovakia, that were known as the Carlsbad Program. Shortly after the anschluss of Austria to Germany, Henlein met with Hitler in Berlin on 28 March 1938, where he was instructed to raise demands unacceptable to the Czechoslovak government led by president Edvard Beneš. By 1935, the SdP was the second largest political party in Czechoslovakia. In 1933, as Adolf Hitler assumed power in Germany, Sudeten German pro-Nazi leader Konrad Henlein founded Sudeten German Party (SdP) that served as the branch of the Nazi Party for the Sudetenland. Ĭzech districts with an ethnic German population in 1934 of 25% or more (pink), 50% or more (red), and 75 % or more (dark red) in 1935įrom 1918 to 1938, after the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, more than 3 million ethnic Germans were living in the Czech part of the newly created state of Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, Nazi Germany formally declared that Czech captives shall be considered prisoners of war from 23 September onwards. This understanding has been assumed also by the contemporary Czech Constitutional court. Relying on the Convention for the Definition of Aggression, Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš and the government-in-exile later regarded 17 September 1938, the day of establishment of the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps and beginning of its cross-border raids, as the beginning of the undeclared German–Czechoslovak war. up to 16 September 1938) and Freikorps (i.e. Due to the smooth transition between the two organizations, similar membership, Nazi Germany's sponsorship and application of the same tactic of cross-border raids, some authors often do not particularly distinguish between the actions of Ordners (i.e. Many of its members as well as leadership, wanted for arrest by Czechoslovak authorities, had moved to Germany where they became the basis of Sudetendeutsches Freikorps, conducting Freikorps' first cross-border raids into Czechoslovakia only a few hours after its official establishment. Officially being registered as promoter organization, the Freiwilliger Schutzdienst was dissolved on 16 September 1938 by the Czechoslovak authorities due to its implication in many criminal and terrorist activities. Sudetendeutsches Freikorps was a factual successor to Freiwilliger Schutzdienst, also known as Ordnersgruppe, an organization that had been established by the Sudeten German Party in Czechoslovakia unofficially in 1933 and officially on, following the example of Sturmabteilung, the original paramilitary wing of the German Nazi Party. They played an important role in Hitler's successful effort to occupy Czechoslovakia and annex the region known as Sudetenland into the Third Reich under Nazi Germany. The organization was composed mainly of ethnic German citizens of Czechoslovakia with pro- Nazi sympathies who were sheltered, trained and equipped by the German army and who were conducting cross border terrorist operations into Czechoslovak territory from 1938 to 1939.
Ww2dbase Sources: the Last Lion, Wikipedia.Sudetendeutsches Freikorps ( Sudeten German Free Corps, also known as the Freikorps Sudetenland, Freikorps Henlein and Sudetendeutsche Legion) was a paramilitary Nazi organization founded on 17 September 1938 in Germany on direct order of Adolf Hitler.
He was arrested by Allied troops at the end of the war and committed suicide at Plzeň. Henlein received the title of SS Gruppenführer and, as the Gauleiter of the regional branch of the Nazi Party, governed Sudetenland. After the annexation, the Sudetendeutsche Partei merged into the Nazi Party on. The Sudetenland issue eventually led to the Munich Agreement of where European powers agreed to cede the region under German control. By 1938, Henlein was advertising to the world his wishes to see an independent Sudetenland, while he was secretly on Berlin's payroll and receiving directions from Adolf Hitler and Joachim von Ribbentrop. By now the leader of the violent Sudetendeutsche Partei, Henlein instigated many incidences of these "acts of oppression".
Starting in 1938, the Nazi propaganda machine fabricated false stories of the three million ethnic Germans being oppressed in Czechoslovakia. In 1933, he became a prominent figure of the pro-German Sudetendeutsche Partei, which became the second largest political party in Czechoslovakia after the election. A quarter German by blood, in mid-1930s he decided being pro-German would progress his political career. During the inter-war years he worked for a bank in Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia while becoming active in politics. He attended a German business academy in Liberec and served in the Austrian Army during WW1. Ww2dbaseKonrad Henlein was born in north Bohemian Maffersdorf, Czechoslovakia.