English Translation

286
Résumé
After the Munich Agreement of 30 September 1938 crippled 
Czechoslovakia, it found itself completely defenceless against Hitler's aggressive 
plans. The Slovak state was created on 14 March 1939 and on the following day 
German troops occupied the remaining territory of Bohemia and Moravia. By 
Hitler's decree the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was established on 16 
March 1939. To begin with, in view of the response abroad and in order to 
appease the domestic scene, the so-called autonomous Czech authorities were 
allowed a certain degree of freedom which, however, was increasingly restricted 
by the Nazis and practically disappeared following Heydrich's reform of public 
administration in 1942 and 1943. Henceforth, all major agendas were handled by 
autonomous authorities controlled by the Nazis with the postscript “im Auftrage 
des Reichs”. The fact that the Protectorate soon became a weapons factory and a 
logistics base for Hitler's plans for conquest would have been unthinkable without 
the ever-present threat of repression and the sophisticated way in which it was 
measured out. It involved various forms of the same policy according to Reinhard 
Heydrich's instructions: a short, “destructive” phase which was to be followed by 
a “constructive” phase because “after the necessary, stringent arrests it is easier to 
be fair and humane”. The reason for the repression was far from just being for 
capital offences in the form of resistance activities, sabotage, espionage, high 
treason, the violation of racial laws, and under martial law practically anything, 
but also for transgressions against a huge number of obligations imposed under 
statutory law relating to maintenance, supplies and prices, as well as to ensure the 
stability of salaries and wages and work morale which were sanctioned in 
administrative punishment with fines, imprisonment or placement in a labour 
camp unless, of course, Nazi repressive forces reserved such an offence for their 
own hearing which forebode the very worst. The Nazis were particularly cruel 
towards Jews who could be sent to extermination camps for the slightest offence, 
where the majority of them died. Although the Nazis envisaged that the Czech 
question would be finally resolved only after the war of conquest had ended so 
that it did not interrupt the running of the economy, preparations for its resolution