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Ethnic Germans were a large minority in Czechoslovakkia. They were the majority in the Sedetenland, but also an important minority elsewhere in the country. Before World war I, Bohemia and Moravia had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a result, large numbers of ethnic Germans (Austrians) lived throughout what becae Czechoislovakia after the War. Outside of the Sudentenland, the Germans were largely clistered in the major cities, especially Prague. There were an estimated 0.25 million Germans in Bohemia and Moravia. These Germans were awarded German citizenship under the NAZI Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This was different than in Slovakia where the ethnic Germans (especially the Carpethian Germans) became Slovak citizens. This mean that the ehnic Germans in the Protectirate had a different legal status that the Czechs. Germans unlike Czechs were drafted for military service. The NAZI admisistration of the Protectorate relied heavily on the ethnic Germans in the Protectorate as well as Sudeten Germans. A factor here was that they to varying degrees spoke Czech and were more reliable than the Czechs who opposed the occupation. The NAZis used them in both the administrative (government agencies) and the NAZI oppressive machinery including the Gestapo and other security forces. The most notable individual here was Karl Hermann Frank who was appointed Secretary of State in the Protectorate. Frank was a SS general and controlled the police. It was Frank who complained about the lenient policies of Reich Protector Neurath, leading to his replacement with Heydrich. We have begun to find relartively limited information on the conduct of ethnic Germans during the NAZI occupation. This is a topic of some interest, in part a good deal has been written about the expulsion of Germans by the Czechs after the War.
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