He was severely wounded, then captured by Italian troops, and spent the remainder of the war as a POW held in captivity at Asinara Island, where he occupied his time studying the history of the German "Turner" (gymnastics) movement of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. Though many noted that Henlein liked to "talk big" about his war experiences despite the fact that he spent the years 1917–19 as a POW, which somewhat undercut Henlein's tendency to glamorize his war record, his experiences as a "Frontkämpfer" (front fighter) who had been gassed and fought on the Italian front played an important role in shaping his politics. Henlein's self-perception of himself as a "soldier" who was serving the Sudeten community dated from his war experiences, when he had fought for the Austrian empire, which had let the Sudeten community down by disintegrating in October 1918, thereby leaving the Sudeten Germans to be "victimized" in the new state of Czechoslovakia. Through those who had served alongside Henlein called his war service "nothing special" and noted his tendency to exaggerate, if not invent details of his war record, his self-perception of himself as a "soldier" fighting for the Sudeten community was the key to understanding his subsequent career. The fact that many of the leaders of the new Czechoslovakia such as its president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk had fled abroad during the war to seek the support of the Allies for independence from the Austrian Empire was a source of much discontent in the Sudetenland whose people had loyally supported the Austrian war effort.