Konrad Henlein

Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein (6 May 1898 – 10 May 1945) was a Sudeten German politician in Czechoslovakia prior to World War II. After Germany invaded Czechoslovakia he became the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Reichsgau Sudetenland under the occupation of Nazi Germany.

Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1898, Henlein served in the Austro-Hungarian Army in World War I. The Austrian Empire collapsed after the war; and the Sudetenland, where Henlein lived, became part of the newly created Czechoslovakia.

He became active in the Deutscher Turnverband movement, a German nationalist and völkisch movement athletic organization. In 1933, he founded the Sudeten German Party of Czechoslovakia, which merged into the Nazi Party in 1939.

Henlein actively lobbied for Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland and led the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps in the Sudeten German uprising in September 1938. The uprising led to the Munich Agreement and the German occupation of the Sudetenland. After the occupation in October 1938 he formally joined the Nazi Party as well as the SS and was appointed Gauleiter of the Reichsgau Sudetenland. He became Reichsstatthalter of the Reichsgau Sudetenland when it was formed on 1 May 1939, and was responsible for mass deportations to death camps. He died by suicide in 1945 in American custody after the war.