English Translation

That Heydrich was never content with the purely negative objective of a safe measure, but sought to achieve a positive purpose also through the necessary negative measures. The way in which the economic pests are combated shows this most clearly. No doubt a large part of the Czech rural population, following the example of the leading men of the Ministry of Agriculture in the Czech Republic, had withdrawn about a quarter of the grain stocks from the register. Hard packing against detected pests, coupled with a reasonable yield in an effort not to let the small man suffer for the mistakes of his leaders, led to the fact that the free post-declaration of grain stocks had a result of up to 20 per cent of the previously stated herds, while the post-registration of pigs resulted in the number of 560000. What these figures meant in terms of food policy becomes clear when it is known that the necessary additional deliveries of grain from the Reich area could be spared. In his speech to the German leadership and administrative apparatus on 2 October 1941 Reinhard Heydrich had introduced himself with the following words: "My lords! In me you see in general the head of the security police and the SD, you generally see in it the man of the executive. This view is erroneous and false. In these words lay the confession of a man who saw his activity not as a cleansing action, but in its total character as a political task. Reinhard Heydrich realized this already in the first few weeks of his activity in Prague. Even then it could be seen that he was not only the representative of the executive intervention and the police prevention, 34