Editing Reinhard Heydrich (section)

==Career in the SS==
On 30 May 1931, Heydrich's discharge from the navy became legally binding,{{sfn|Padfield|1990|p=110}} and either the following day{{sfn|Padfield|1990|p=110}} or on 1 June he joined the Nazi Party in [[Hamburg]].{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|p=48}}{{sfn|Dederichs|2009|p=45}} Six weeks later, on 14 July, he joined the SS.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|p=53}} His party number was 544,916 and his SS number was 10,120.{{sfn|Dederichs|2009|p=12}} Those who joined the party after Hitler's [[Machtergreifung|seizure of power]] in January 1933 faced suspicions from the ''[[Alter Kämpfer|Alte Kämpfer]]'' (Old Fighters; the earliest party members) that they had joined for reasons of career advancement rather than a true commitment to [[Nazism|Nazi ideology]]. Heydrich's date of enlistment in 1931 was early enough to quell suspicion that he had joined only to further his career, but was not early enough for him to be considered an Old Fighter.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|p=48}}

In 1931, [[Heinrich Himmler]] began setting up a [[counterintelligence]] division of the SS. Acting on the advice of his associate [[Karl von Eberstein]], who was Lina's friend and Heydrich's godbrother, Himmler agreed to interview Heydrich, but cancelled their appointment at the last minute.{{sfn|Williams|2001|pp=29–30}}{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|p=47}} Lina ignored this message, packed Heydrich's suitcase, and sent him to [[Munich]]. Eberstein met Heydrich at the railway station and took him to see Himmler.{{sfn|Williams|2001|pp=29–30}} Himmler asked Heydrich to convey his ideas for developing an SS intelligence service. Himmler was so impressed that he hired Heydrich immediately.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|pp=51–52}}{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=125}}

Although the starting monthly salary of 180 ''Reichsmarks'' ({{Inflation|DE|180|1931|fmt=eq|cursign=€}}) was low, Heydrich decided to take the job because Lina's family supported the Nazi movement, and the quasi-military and revolutionary nature of the post appealed to him.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|p=52}} At first he had to share an office and typewriter with a colleague, but by 1932 Heydrich was earning 290 ''Reichsmarks'' a month ({{Inflation|DE|290|1932|fmt=eq|cursign=€}}), a salary he described as "comfortable".{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|pp=55, 58}} As his power and influence grew throughout the 1930s, his wealth grew commensurately; in 1935 he received a base salary of 8,400 ''Reichsmarks'' ({{Inflation|DE|8400|1935|fmt=eq|cursign=€}}) and an allowance of 12,000 ''Reichsmarks'' ({{Inflation|DE|12000|1935|fmt=eq|cursign=€}}) and by 1938 his income increased to 17,371 ''Reichsmarks'' ({{Inflation|DE|17371|1938|fmt=eq|cursign=€}}), annually.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|pp=110, 111}} Heydrich later received a [[Totenkopfring]] from Himmler for his SS service.<ref name="National Archives"/>

On 1 August 1931, Heydrich began his job as chief of the new 'Ic Service' (intelligence service).{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=125}} He set up office at the [[Brown House, Munich, Germany|Brown House]], the Nazi Party headquarters in [[Munich]]. By October he had created a network of spies and informers for intelligence-gathering purposes and to obtain information to be used as [[blackmail]] to further political aims.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|pp=56–57}} Information on thousands of people was recorded on index cards and stored at the Brown House.{{sfn|Calic|1985|p=72}} To mark the occasion of Heydrich's December wedding, Himmler promoted him to the rank of SS-''[[Sturmbannführer]]'' (major).{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|p=58}}

In 1932, rumours were spread by Heydrich's enemies of his alleged Jewish ancestry.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|p=61}} [[Wilhelm Canaris]] said he had obtained copies of documents proving Heydrich's Jewish ancestry.{{sfn|Craig|2005|p=184}} Nazi [[Gauleiter]] [[Rudolf Jordan (politician)|Rudolf Jordan]] claimed Heydrich was not a pure [[Aryan race|Aryan]].{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|p=61}} Within the Nazi organisation such innuendo could be damning, even for the head of the Reich's counterintelligence service. [[Gregor Strasser]] passed the allegations on to the Nazi Party's racial expert, [[Achim Gercke]], who investigated Heydrich's genealogy.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|p=61}} Gercke reported that Heydrich was "...&nbsp;of German origin and free from any coloured and Jewish blood".{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=38}} He insisted that the rumours were baseless. Even so, Heydrich privately engaged SD member Ernst Hoffmann to further investigate and dispel the rumours.{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|p=61}}

===Gestapo and SD===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R97512, Berlin, Geheimes Staatspolizeihauptamt.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|[[Gestapo]] headquarters on [[Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse]] in Berlin, 1933]]
In mid-1932, Himmler appointed Heydrich chief of the renamed security service—the ''[[Sicherheitsdienst]]'' (SD).{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=125}} Heydrich's counterintelligence service grew into an effective machine of terror and intimidation. With Hitler striving for absolute power in Germany, Himmler and Heydrich wished to control the political police forces of all 17 German states. They began with [[Bavaria]]. In 1933, Heydrich gathered some of his men from the SD and together they stormed police headquarters in Munich and took over the organisation using intimidation tactics. Himmler became the Munich police chief and Heydrich became the commander of Department IV, the [[Bavarian Political Police|political police]].{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=149}}

In 1933, Hitler became [[Chancellor of Germany (German Reich)|Chancellor of Germany]], and through a series of decrees{{sfn|Shirer|1960|pp=196–200}} became Germany's ''[[Führer|Führer und Reichskanzler]]'' (leader and chancellor).{{sfn|Shirer|1960|pp=226–227}} The first [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camp]]s, which were originally intended to house political opponents, were established in early 1933. By year's end there were over fifty camps.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=271}}

[[Hermann Göring]] founded the [[Gestapo]] in 1933 as a [[Prussia]]n police force. When Göring transferred full authority over the Gestapo to Himmler in April 1934, it immediately became an instrument of terror under the SS's purview.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|pp=270–271}} Himmler named Heydrich to head the Gestapo on 22 April 1934.{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=61}} Also in April, Göring made Heydrich an advisor to the Prussian government with an appointment to the [[Prussian State Council (Nazi Germany)|Prussian State Council]].{{sfn|Miller|Schulz|2015|p=121}} On 9 June 1934, [[Rudolf Hess]] declared the SD the official Nazi intelligence service.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=165}}

===Crushing the SA===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 152-50-10, Reinhard Heydrich.jpg|thumb|left|SS-''Brigadeführer'' Heydrich, head of the Bavarian police and [[Sicherheitsdienst|SD]], in Munich, 1934]]
Beginning in April 1934, and at Hitler's request, Heydrich and Himmler began building a dossier on ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' (SA) leader [[Ernst Röhm]] in an effort to remove him as a rival for party leadership. At this point, the SS was still part of the SA, the early Nazi paramilitary organisation which now numbered over 3 million men.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=306–307}} At Hitler's direction, Heydrich, Himmler, Göring, and [[Viktor Lutze]] drew up lists of those who should be killed, starting with seven top SA officials and including many more. On 30 June 1934 the SS and Gestapo acted in coordinated mass arrests that continued for two days. Röhm was shot without trial, along with the leadership of the SA.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=309–312}} The purge became known as the [[Night of the Long Knives]]. Up to 200 people were killed in the action. Lutze was appointed SA's new head and it was converted into a sports and training organisation.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=313}}

With the SA out of the way, Heydrich began building the Gestapo into an instrument of fear. He improved his index-card system, creating categories of offenders with colour-coded cards.{{sfn|Flaherty|2004|pp=56, 68}} The Gestapo had the authority to arrest citizens on the suspicion that they might commit a crime, and the definition of a crime was at their discretion. The Gestapo Law, passed in 1936, gave police the right to act extra-legally. This led to the sweeping use of ''[[Protective custody#Other usages|Schutzhaft]]''—"protective custody", a [[euphemism]] for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings.{{sfn|McNab|2009|p=156}} The courts were not allowed to investigate or interfere. The Gestapo was considered to be acting legally as long as it was carrying out the leadership's will. People were arrested arbitrarily, sent to concentration camps, or killed.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=271}}

Himmler began developing the notion of a [[religious aspects of Nazism#Himmler and the SS|Germanic religion]] and wanted SS members to leave the church. In early 1936, Heydrich left the [[Catholic Church]] in favour of the ''[[Gottgläubig]]'' movement.{{sfn|Steigmann-Gall|2003|p=219}} His wife, Lina, had already done so the year before. Heydrich not only felt he could no longer be a member, but came to consider the church's political power and influence a danger to the state.{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=66}}

===Consolidating the police forces===
[[File:Pruchtnow and Himmler.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Heydrich and other SS officers with their wives in 1937]]
On 17 June 1936, all police forces throughout Germany were united, following Hitler's appointment of Himmler as Chief of German Police. With this appointment by Hitler, Himmler and his ''de facto'' deputy, Heydrich, became two of the most powerful men in the internal administration of Germany.{{sfn|Reitlinger|1989|p=90}} Himmler immediately reorganised the police into two groups: the ''[[Ordnungspolizei]]'' (Order Police; Orpo), consisting of both the national uniformed police and the municipal police; and the ''[[Sicherheitspolizei]]'' (Security Police; SiPo), consisting of the ''Geheime Staatspolizei'' (Secret State Police; Gestapo) and ''Kriminalpolizei'' (Criminal Police; [[Kripo]]).{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=77}} At that point, Heydrich was head of the SiPo and SD. [[Heinrich Müller (Gestapo)|Heinrich Müller]] was the Gestapo's operations chief.{{sfn|Weale|2010|pp=132, 135}} Under the direction of Reichsminister Hans Frank, Heydrich published a strategy for the destruction of enemies of the German State.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Heydrich |first=Reinhard |date=1936 |title=Die Bekaempfung der Staatsfeinde |journal=Deutsche Rechtswissenschaft |pages=97}}</ref>

Heydrich was assigned to help organise the [[1936 Summer Olympics]] in Berlin. The games were used to promote the [[Nazi propaganda|propaganda aims]] of the Nazi regime. Goodwill ambassadors were sent to countries that were considering a boycott. Anti-Jewish violence was forbidden for the duration, and news stands were required to stop displaying copies of ''[[Der Stürmer]]''.{{sfn|Calic|1985|p=157}}{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=358–359}} For his part in the games' success, Heydrich was awarded the ''Deutsches Olympiaehrenzeichen'' or German [[Olympic Games Decoration]] (First Class).<ref name="National Archives"/>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 119-5243, Wien, Arthur Seyß-Inquart, Adolf Hitler.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|[[Arthur Seyss-Inquart]], [[Adolf Hitler]], [[Heinrich Himmler]], and Heydrich in [[Vienna]], March 1938]]

In January 1937, Heydrich directed the SD to secretly begin collecting and analysing public opinion and report back its findings.{{sfn|Kitchen|1995|p=40}} He then had the Gestapo carry out house searches, arrests, and interrogations, thus in effect exercising control over public opinion.{{sfn|Delarue|2008|p=85}} In February 1938 when the Austrian Chancellor [[Kurt Schuschnigg]] resisted Hitler's proposed merger with Germany, Heydrich intensified the pressure on [[Austria]] by organising Nazi demonstrations and distributing propaganda in Vienna emphasising the common Germanic blood of the two countries.{{sfn|Blandford|2001|pp=135–137}} In the ''[[Anschluss]]'' on 12 March, Hitler declared the unification of Austria with Nazi Germany.{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=655}}

In mid-1939, Heydrich created the [[Stiftung Nordhav]] Foundation to obtain real estate for the SS and Security Police to use as guest houses and vacation spots.{{sfn|Lehrer|2000|p=55}} The [[Wannsee Conference|Wannsee Villa]], which Stiftung Nordhav acquired in November 1940,{{sfn|Lehrer|2000|pp=61–62}} was the site of the [[Wannsee Conference]] (20 January 1942). Heydrich was the lead speaker. At Wannsee, senior Nazi officials formalised plans to deport and exterminate all Jews in German-occupied territory and those countries not yet conquered.{{sfn|Goldhagen|1996|p=158}} This action was to be coordinated among the representatives from the Nazi state agencies present at the meeting.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=696}}

On 27 September 1939, the SD and SiPo—made up of the Gestapo and the Criminal Police, or Kripo—were folded into the new [[Reich Security Main Office]] or ''Reichssicherheitshauptamt'' (RSHA), which was placed under Heydrich's control.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|pp=469–470}} The title of ''Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD'' (Chief of Security Police and SD) or CSSD was conferred on Heydrich on 1 October.{{sfn|Headland|1992|p=22}} Heydrich became the president of the International Criminal Police Commission (later known as [[Interpol]]) on 24 August 1940,{{sfn|Dederichs|2009|p=83}} and its headquarters were transferred to Berlin. He was promoted to SS-''[[Obergruppenführer]] und General der Polizei'' on 24 September 1941.{{sfn|Dederichs|2009|p=12}}

===Red Army purges===
In 1936, Heydrich learned that a top-ranking Soviet officer was plotting to overthrow [[Joseph Stalin]]. Sensing an opportunity to strike a blow at both the Soviet Army and [[Admiral Canaris]] of Germany's [[Abwehr]], Heydrich decided that the Soviet officer should be "unmasked".{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=85}} He discussed the matter with Himmler and both in turn brought it to Hitler's attention. Hitler approved Heydrich's plan to act immediately. But the "information" Heydrich had received was actually misinformation planted by Stalin himself in an attempt to legitimise his planned purges of the [[Red Army]]'s high command. Stalin ordered one of his best [[NKVD]] agents, General [[Nikolai Skoblin]], to pass Heydrich false information suggesting that Marshal [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]] and other Soviet generals were plotting against Stalin.{{sfn|Blandford|2001|p=112}}

Heydrich's SD forged documents and letters implicating Tukhachevsky and other Red Army commanders. The material was delivered to the NKVD.{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=85}} The [[Great Purge]] of the Red Army followed on Stalin's orders. While Heydrich believed they had deluded Stalin into executing or dismissing 35,000 of his officer corps, the importance of Heydrich's part is a matter of conjecture.{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=88}} Soviet military prosecutors did not use SD forged documents against the generals in their secret trial; they instead relied on false confessions extorted or beaten out of the defendants.{{sfn|Conquest|2008|pp=200–202}}

===Night-and-Fog decree===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R98683, Reinhard Heydrich.jpg|thumb|upright|Heydrich in 1940]]
By late 1940, German armies had invaded most of Western Europe. The following year, Heydrich's SD was given responsibility for carrying out the ''[[Nacht und Nebel]]'' (Night-and-Fog) decree.{{sfn|Bracher|1970|p=418}} According to the decree, "persons endangering German security" were to be arrested in a maximally discreet way: "under the cover of night and fog". People disappeared without a trace with no one told of their whereabouts or fate.{{sfn|Snyder|1994|p=242}} For each prisoner, the SD had to fill in a questionnaire that listed personal information, country of origin, and the details of their crimes against the Reich. This questionnaire was placed in an envelope inscribed with a seal reading "Nacht und Nebel" and submitted to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). In the [[SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt|WVHA]] "Central Inmate File", as in many camp files, these prisoners would be given a special "covert prisoner" code, as opposed to the code for POW, Felon, Jew, [[Romani people|Gypsy]], etc.{{efn|name=coding}} The decree remained in effect after Heydrich's death. The exact number of people who vanished under it has never been positively established, but it is estimated to be 7,000.<ref name="ushmm Night And Fog Decree"/>

===Anti-Polish policies===
Heydrich created the "Zentralstelle IIP Polen" unit of the Gestapo to coordinate the [[Nazi crimes against the Polish nation|ethnic cleansing of Poles]] in "[[Operation Tannenberg]]" and the ''[[Intelligenzaktion]]'',<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.sierpien1980.pl/download/10/15909/biuletyn8-967-68.pdf |title=Kolebka (Cradle) |publisher=[[Institute of National Remembrance]] |journal=IPN Bulletin No. 8–9 (67–68), 152 Pages |location=Warsaw |date=September 2006 |access-date=8 November 2015 |author=Piotr Semków, [[IPN Gdańsk]] |at=42–50 (44–51/152 in PDF) |via=direct download: 3.44 MB |issn=1641-9561 |archive-date=17 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180917203328/http://www.sierpien1980.pl/download/10/15909/biuletyn8-967-68.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> two codenames for extermination actions directed at the [[Polish people]] during the German occupation of Poland.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Levene |first1=Mark |title=Annihilation: Volume II: The European Rimlands 1939–1953 |date=2013 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0191505553 |page=28}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Pakulski |first1=Jan |title=Violence and the state |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-1784996543}}</ref> Among the 100,000 people murdered in the ''Intelligenzaktion'' operations in 1939–1940, approximately 61,000 were members of the Polish intelligentsia: scholars, clergy, former officers, and others, whom the Germans identified as political targets in the ''[[Special Prosecution Book-Poland]]'', compiled before the war began in September 1939.<ref>Dr. Jan Moor-Jankowski, [http://www.pacwashmetrodiv.org/events/holoc04/moor-jankowski.htm  Holocaust of Non-Jewish Poles During WWII.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160516004415/http://www.pacwashmetrodiv.org/events/holoc04/moor-jankowski.htm |date=16 May 2016 }} Polish American Congress, Washington.</ref>

===Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia===
{{further|Resistance in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1972-039-26, Reinhard Heydrich im Prager Schloß crop.jpg|thumb|upright=1.02|Heydrich (''left'') with [[Karl Hermann Frank]] at [[Prague Castle]] in 1941]]
On 27 September 1941, Heydrich was appointed Deputy Reich Protector of the [[Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia]] (the part of [[Czechoslovakia]] incorporated into the Reich on 15 March 1939) and assumed control of the territory.<ref>{{cite web|title=Czech State Gets Gestapo Master; Heydrich, Chief Lieutenant of Himmler, Succeeds Von Neurath as Protector|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1941/09/28/archives/czech-state-gets-gestapo-master-heydrich-chief-lieutenant-of.html|agency=AP|work=The New York Times|date=28 September 1941|access-date=1 October 2024}}</ref> The Reich Protector, [[Konstantin von Neurath]], remained the territory's titular head, but was sent on "leave" because Hitler, Himmler, and Heydrich felt his "soft approach" to the [[Czechs]] had promoted anti-German sentiment and encouraged anti-German resistance via strikes and sabotage.{{sfn|Williams|2003|p=82}} Upon his appointment, Heydrich told his aides: "We will Germanize the Czech vermin."{{sfn|Horvitz|Catherwood|2006|p=200}}

Heydrich came to [[Prague]] to enforce policy, fight resistance to the Nazi regime, and keep up production quotas of Czech motors and arms that were "extremely important to the German war effort".{{sfn|Williams|2003|p=82}} He viewed the area as a bulwark of [[German nationalism|Germandom]] and condemned the Czech resistance's "stabs in the back". To realise his goals, Heydrich demanded racial classification of those who could and could not be [[Germanized]]. He explained, "Making this Czech garbage into Germans must give way to methods based on racist thought."{{sfn|Bryant|2007|p=140}}

Heydrich started his rule by terrorising the population: he proclaimed [[martial law]], and 142 people were executed within five days of his arrival in Prague.<ref name="1.heydrichiada">{{cite web |last1=Šír |first1=Vojtěch |title=První stanné právo v protektorátu |url=https://www.fronta.cz/dotaz/prvni-stanne-pravo-v-protektoratu |website=Fronta.cz |access-date=24 June 2018 |language=cs |date=3 April 2011|trans-title=The First Martial Law in Protectorate }}</ref> Their names appeared on posters throughout the occupied country.{{sfn|Bryant|2007|p=143}} Most of them were the members of the resistance that had previously been captured and were awaiting trial.

According to Heydrich's estimate, between 4,000 and 5,000 people were arrested{{sfn|Bryant|2007|p=143}} and between 400 and 500 were executed by February 1942.<ref name="1.heydrichiada" />{{efn|name=deathcamp}} Those who were not executed were sent to [[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp]], where only four per cent of Czech prisoners survived the war.{{sfn|Bryant|2007|p=143}} Czech prime minister [[Alois Eliáš]] was among those arrested the first day. He was [[People's Court (Germany)|put on trial]] in Berlin and sentenced to death, but was kept alive as a hostage. He was later executed in retaliation for Heydrich's assassination.<ref name="vets">{{cite web |last1=Jedlička |first1=František |title=armádní generál in memoriam Alois Eliáš |url=https://www.vets.cz/vpm/alois-elias-355/ |website=vets.cz |publisher=Spolek pro vojenská pietní místa, o.s. |access-date=24 June 2018 |language=cs}}</ref><ref name="vlada">{{cite web |title=Ing. Alois Eliáš |url=https://www.vlada.cz/cz/clenove-vlady/historie-minulych-vlad/prehled-vlad-cr/1939-1945-protektorat-cechy-a-morava/rudolf-beran/alois-elias-45302/ |website=vlada.cz |publisher=[[Government of Czech Republic|Vláda České republiky]] |access-date=24 June 2018 |language=cs}}</ref><ref name="lidovky">{{cite news |last1=Zídek |first1=Petr |title=Pohnuté Osudy: Alois Eliáš. Generál v srdci nepřítele s cenou tří divizí |url=https://www.lidovky.cz/alois-elias-general-s-cenou-tri-divizi-dxk-/lide.aspx?c=A150802_205022_lide_ELE |access-date=24 June 2018 |work=Lidovky.cz |date=16 August 2015 |language=cs}}</ref>

In March 1942, further sweeps against Czech cultural and patriotic organisations, the military, and the intelligentsia resulted in the practical paralysis of the London-based Czech resistance. Almost all avenues by which Czechs could express the Czech culture in public were closed.{{sfn|Bryant|2007|p=140}} Although small disorganised cells of [[Resistance in German-occupied Czechoslovakia#Consolidation of resistance groups: ÚVOD|Central Leadership of Home Resistance (Ústřední vedení odboje domácího, ÚVOD)]] survived, only the communist resistance was able to function in a coordinated manner (although it also suffered arrests).{{sfn|Bryant|2007|p=143}} The terror also served to paralyse resistance in society, with public and widespread reprisals by the Nazis against any action resisting German rule.{{sfn|Bryant|2007|p=143}} Heydrich's brutal policies during that time quickly earned him the nickname "the Butcher of Prague".{{sfn|Paces|2009|p=167}} The reprisals are referred to by Czechs as the ''Heydrichiáda''.{{sfn|Roberts|2005|p=56}}

As Acting Reich Protector of [[Bohemia]] and [[Moravia]], Heydrich applied [[carrot-and-stick]] methods.{{sfn|Williams|2003|p=100}} Labor was reorganised on the basis of the [[German Labour Front]]. Heydrich used equipment confiscated from the Czech gymnastics organisation [[Sokol (sport organization)|Sokol]] to organise events for workers.{{sfn|Bryant|2007|p=144}} Food rations and free shoes were distributed, pensions were increased, and (for a time) free Saturdays were introduced. [[Unemployment insurance]] was established for the first time.{{sfn|Williams|2003|p=100}} The [[black market]] was suppressed. Those associated with it or the resistance movement were tortured or executed. Heydrich labelled them "economic criminals" and "enemies of the people", which helped gain him support. Conditions in Prague and the rest of the Czech lands were relatively peaceful under Heydrich, and industrial output increased.{{sfn|Williams|2003|p=100}} Still, those measures could not hide shortages and increasing inflation; reports of growing discontent multiplied.{{sfn|Bryant|2007|p=144}}

Despite public displays of goodwill towards the populace, privately Heydrich was very clear about his eventual goal: "This entire area will one day be definitely German, and the Czechs have nothing to expect here." Eventually up to two-thirds of the populace were to be either [[Generalplan Ost|removed to regions of Russia]] or exterminated after Nazi Germany won the war. Bohemia and Moravia faced annexation directly into the German Reich.{{sfn|Garrett|1996|p=60}}

The Czech workforce was exploited as Nazi-conscripted labour.{{sfn|Bryant|2007|p=144}} More than 100,000 workers were removed from "unsuitable" jobs and conscripted by the [[Ministry of Labour]]. By December 1941, Czechs could be called to work anywhere within the Reich. Between April and November 1942, 79,000 Czech workers were taken in this manner for work within Nazi Germany. Also, in February 1942, the work day was increased from eight to twelve hours.{{sfn|MacDonald|1989|p=133}}

Heydrich was, for all intents and purposes, military dictator of Bohemia and Moravia. His changes to the government's structure left President [[Emil Hácha]] and his cabinet virtually powerless. He often drove alone in a car with an open roof{{snd}}a show of his confidence in the occupation forces and in his government's effectiveness.{{sfn|Williams|2003|p=141}}

By 3 October 1941, Czechoslovak [[military intelligence]] in London had made the decision to kill Heydrich.<ref>{{cite web |title=Plán atentátu (anniversary) |url=https://www.fronta.cz/kalendar/plan-atentatu |website=Fronta.cz |access-date=24 June 2018|language=cs}}</ref><ref name="Stehlík">{{cite journal |last1=Stehlík |first1=Eduard |title=SOE a příprava atentátu na Reinharda Heydricha |journal=Paměť a Dějiny |date=2012 |volume=2 |page=4 |trans-title=SOE and the preparation of Reinhard Heydrich's assassination |url=https://www.ustrcr.cz/data/pdf/pamet-dejiny/pad1202/003-015.pdf |publisher=[[Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes|ÚSTR]] |language=cs}}</ref>