Trial of the Major War Criminals before International Military Tribunal ...

Typical of the methods of the Nazi police.terrorism was also the
threat of reprisals against factory managers in case of any hold up
of work. Thus late in 1939 the Gestapo summoned the managers and
shopstewards of various industrial firms and told them that they
would be shot in case of strike. Before leaving they had to sign
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the following declaration: "I take note that I shall be immediately
shot if the work in our factory stops without good reason."
Similarly school-masters were held responsible for the loyal
behaviour of their pupils. Many teachers were arrested merely
because boys of their school had been caught writing anti-German
slogans on walls or reading black-listed books.
The carefully devised system of tortures applied at investigations
by the German police especially by the Gestapo, is well known and
needs, therefore, no further description.
But nothing was more appropriate to terrorise the people of the
Republic than the threat of deportation to one of the infamous con-
centration camps. It hovered permanently over the whole popula-
tion and was realised in many thousand instances.
(a) The Power of the Police.
The power to hand over every single citizen of the Czechoslovak
Republic was vested in a police-network, spread over the whole
territory of the Republic. It was up to this organisation to order
"Protective Custody" (Schutzhaft) or "Preventive Custody" (Vorbeugende
Polizeihaft), both of which led to internment in one of the
concentration camps. In the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia the right to order "Protective Custody" fell within the
jurisdiction of the Staatspolizeileitstellen Prague and Brno, which
had established branch offices ("Aussenstellen") in major towns of
the "Protectorate".
Immediately subordinate to them in all political police matters
(in matters of the Gestapo) were the "Oberlandraete" (since the
administration-reform of 1942 called "Inspekteure des Reichsprotektors"),
the highest administrative officials in the Oberlandrat-
Districts, in which the "Protectorate" was divided. The Oberland-
raete controlled the District Police of their area (Kreispolizeibehoerden)
and the Local Police (Ortspolizeibehoerden) subordinate
to the latter-as well as the "Staatlichen Polizeiverwaltungen"
(Polizeidirektionen), which