During World War II in occupied Czechoslovakia (i.e. The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia), what was the worth of 10,000,000 Koruna? Or, if not answerable in dollars, pounds, etc., does anyone know the price of goods in that state at that time. How much did a loaf of bread cost? A man’s shirt? An automobile? What did ten million Koruna buy?
I ask in order to get a better sense of the magnitude of the reward offered to help capture the assassins of Reinhard Heydrich (as recounted in the terrific book I’m now reading called HHhH).
During occupation, Germany set the value of the Czech Crown at .10 of a German Reichmark. So the reward would be one million marks or about 400,000 1941 US dollars.
Given the havoc in currency markets by 1941-42, I have no doubt that it would have been less that the 1939 figure. The Germans pegged their mark at 0.40 US, but based on nothing solid.
My guess is, that if you collected your 10,000,000. Koruna, ran to any bank in the world, you would have been lucky to get $200,000 US.
The reward may not have been as generous as it looks on the surface. The Germans could print as many Crowns as they wanted so it really didn’t cost them anything. And the recipient would be hard pressed finding anything he could buy with the reward during wartime rationing. This is assuming the Nazis didn’t just arrest and jail the informant for not coming forward sooner.
Yes, the Nazis were aware of this concern and actually proclaimed an amnesty (of five days duration) on giving information about the attack on Heydrich, i.e. you would be thanked and rewarded for coming forward, and not punished or put in jeopardy in any way. On the other hand, the amnesty statement also made it clear that this was the last chance people would have to speak up. Information received afterward, even if helpful, would be considered to have been kept from them from earlier. Ergo, you would be considered to have conspired against your German ‘protectors’
I’m not quite what you’re getting at here, but in the case of Lidice, the massacre there was not based on any information to suggest that any inhabitant of the village had been involved in the Heydrich assassination. Rather, Lidice was simply believed to be the home town of some resistance members (who had not been implicated in the Heydrich attack) and that was all the justification needed when the Nazis, filled with bloodlust, were out for revenge.
Well, and I’m no authority on this, I think it depends on how you define “thought”. I don’t think any of the SS/Gestapo investigators seriously believed that anyone in Lidice was involved in the operation (Operation Anthropoid) or had helped or hidden the operators.
On the other hand, they had ‘information’ to the effect that Lidice was home to some individuals who were less than enthusiastic about the Germans, and that two of the townsmen had, earlier, gone to the UK and joined the RAF. That was all they (the Germans) needed. They knew that if no one in Lidice had helped Gabčík and Kubiš, it was only because they hadn’t had the chance. So, the village would serve nicely as a target of their wrath and as ‘example to others’.