German Occupation
Upon the Wehrmacht's entry into the Sudetenland, Henlein was appointed Reichskommissar and became a SS-Gruppenführer (later an SS-Obergruppenführer). The SdP merged with Hitler's NSDAP on 5 November 1938. Henlein joined the Nazi Party in January 1939 and was appointed Reichstag deputy. In March and April 1939 he served as the head of civil service in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia but soon most of the power went to the hands of his long-time rival Karl Hermann Frank. On 1 May 1939 Henlein was named Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter of the newly established Reichsgau Sudetenland, a position he held until the end of the war.
His political influence was limited. Several attempts by RSHA leader Reinhard Heydrich and others to remove him from office, supposedly because he was not radical enough, failed due to Henlein's good relations with Hitler. After 1938, Henlein worked as a spy for the British and had conspirative contacts with Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.
On 10 May 1945, while in American captivity in the barracks of Plzeň, he committed suicide by cutting his veins with his broken glasses. He was buried anonymously in the Plzeň Central Cemetery.
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