Finally, the Protector was authorized, with the Reich Leader SS and the Chief of the German Police (Himmler) “to take, if necessary, such (police) measures which go beyond the limits usually valid for police measures.” It is difficult to imagine what can be police measures “beyond the limits usually valid for police measures” in view of the police measures in Germany between 1933 and 1939. (See Section 4 of Chapter VII on Purge of Political Opponents and Section 6 of Chapter XV on the Gestapo and SD.) But presumably such increase was believed to be possible, and was given to von Neurath to use for coercion of the Czechs.
The declared basic policy of the Protectorate was to destroy the identity of the Czechs as a nation and to absorb their territory into the Reich. This is borne out by a memorandum signed by Lt. Gen. of Infantry Frederici (862-PS), which is headed “The Deputy General of the Armed Forces with the Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia”. It is marked Top Secret and dated 15 October 1940. That was practically a year before von Neurath went on leave, as he puts it, on 27 September 1941. The memorandum discusses “Basic Political Principles in the Protectorate,” and copies went to Keitel and Jodl. The memorandum states:
“On 9 October of this year [1940] the office of the Reich protector held an official conference in which State Secretary SS Lt. General K. H. Frank spoke about the following:
“Since creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, party agencies, industrial circles, as well as agencies of the central authorities of Berlin, have had difficulties about the solution of the Czech problem.
“After ample deliberation, the Reich Protector expressed his view about the various plans in a memorandum. In this, three ways of solution were indicated:
“A. German infiltration of Moravia and reduction of the Czech nationality to a residual Bohemia.
“This solution is considered as unsatisfactory, because the Czech problem, even if in a diminished form, will continue to exist.
“B. Many arguments can be brought up against the most radical solution, namely, the deportation of all Czechs. Therefore the memorandum comes to the conclusion that it can not be carried out within a reasonable space of time.
“C. Assimilation of the Czechs, i.e. absorption of about half of the Czech nationality by the Germans, insofar as this is of importance by being valuable from a racial or other standpoint. This will take place among other things, also by increasing the Arbeitseinsatz of the Czechs in the Reich territory, with the exception of the Sudeten German border district; in other words, by dispersing the closed Czech nationality. The other half of the Czech nationality must be deprived of its power, eliminated and shipped out of the country by all sorts of methods. This applies particularly to the racially mongoloid part, and to the major part of the intellectual class. The latter can scarcely be converted ideologically, and would represent a burden by constantly making claims for leadership over the other Czech classes, and thus interfering with a rapid assimilation.
“Elements which counteract the planned Germanization are to be handled roughly and should be eliminated.