Die Landkreise Krumau und Kaplitz bei Oberdonau

In 2003 the Austrian government appointed a Historikerkommission to produce a multi-volume history of Austria in the Nazi era. Dr Strobl was one of the historians invited to contribute to the project. The topic was the experience of Nazi rule in the old German-speaking lands of Southern Bohemia ceded to the Reich under the terms of the Munich Agreement. The region, referred to in Nazi terminology as the 'Landkreise Krumau und Kaplitz', was administered from occupied Austria as part of the 'Reichsgau Oberdonau' between September 1938 and May 1945. The essay was the first detailed analysis of the region in any language. It was the fruit of extended archival research in Austria, the Czech Republic and in Germany. The aspects discussed include: the break-down of Czechoslovak authority in the border region in the summer of 1938, the mechanics of nazification before and after the arrival of German forces, anti-semitic violence and the theft of Jewish assets, the creation of new administrative and military structures, the power struggle between rival Nazi potentates for control of the region, the economic impact of annexation, Nazi economic and transport objectives, re-settlement and ethnic policy, continuing ties with the rump Czech state - the so-called 'Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia', anti-Catholic measures and the organised theft of Church property, the seizure of major aristocratic estates whose owners were either known to be pro-Czech or suspected of being old Habsburg loyalists, Gestapo activity in the region, the local implementation of 'euthaniasia policies' [i.e. the deportation of the disabled to killing centres], and the impact of war. In the wider context, the essay added to the growing number of regional studies of Nazi rule, while revealing local practices and policies sometimes noticeably at variance with practice elsewhere in the Reich