Konrad Henlein - Early Life

Early Life

The son of an accounts clerk was born in Maffersdorf (present-day Vratislavice nad Nisou), in what was then the Bohemian crown land of Austria-Hungary. In light of his being a leader of the Sudeten German movement, Henlein's origin was not without problems. His mother, Hedvika (Hedwig) Anna Augusta Dvořáček, was the daughter of a German-speaking mother but her father was of Czech origin. As Henlein after 1938 pursued a Germanisation policy against interethnic marriages, he was forced to change his still-living mother's name from Dvořáček to the more German spelling of Dworatschek, which would be thus more comfortable for Henlein's career as a high Nazi official.

He attended business school in Gablonz (Jablonec nad Nisou). Henlein entered military service as a Kriegsfreiwilliger, assigned to k.u.k. Tiroler Kaiser-Jager-Regiment Nr. 3. In May, 1916, he attended Offiziersschule and then was assigned to k.u.k. Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 27 (Base-Graz). He saw frontline service in the Dolomites at Monte Forno, Mont Sief, and Monte Maletta from May, 1916 to 17 November 1917. Henlein was severely wounded, then captured by Italian troops, and spent the remainder of the war as a POW held in Italian captivity at Asinara Island. There Henlein spent his time studying the history of the German Turner (gymnastics) movement of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. He returned home after the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1919. Henlein worked as a bank clerk in Gablonz, part of the newly established Czechoslovakian state. Influenced by the German national movement, Henlein became a gym teacher of the gymnastics club in Asch (Aš) in 1925, which, similar to the Czech Sokol movement, took an active part in Sudeten German communal life.