German Leadership

Heydrich and Frank.

Reinhard Heydrich, Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, with Gruppenfuhrer (later Obergruppenfuhrer) Karl Hermann Frank, Higher SS and Police Leader and Minister of State, photographed in Prague, early 1942. Frank, a Sudaten German by birth, was an aggressive proponent of the more severe school of German rule in Bohemia - not necessarily the most productive approach in the Czech lands. Having worked to undermine the "moderate" Reich Protector, Konstantin von Neurath, in part in the hope of replacing him, Frank found himself overlooked in favour of Heydrich probably in part because Heydrich seems to having been "fishing" for a proconsular role at the time (the Vichy French were, I think the right term is "threatened" with the imposition of Heydrich as some sort of Governor in late-1941). Following Heydrich's assasination, Frank was "passed over" again in favour of ORPO chief Kurt Daluege as Reich Protector (with whom he shared responsibility for the reprisal action/massacre against the populace of the village of Lidice). In 1943, he was overlooked again, this time in favour of Wilhelm Frick - presumably a consolation prize to Frick following his loss of office as German Minister of the Interior (replaced in that office by his over-mighty "subordinate", Heinrich Himmler). Frank's compensation for his patience in the face of these career disappointments was that, by the end of German control in Bohemia, he had become easily the most powerful official in the German administration in the Czech lands, de facto if not de jure. His proper reward came on 22 May, 1946 when - convicted of sundry war crimes including the Lidice massacre - he was executed by hanging in Prague. Best regards, JR.