In the
spring of 1938, Hitler began openly to support the demands of German-speakers
living in the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia for closer ties with Germany.
Hitler had recently annexed Austria into Germany, and the conquest of
Czechoslovakia was the next step in his plan of creating a "greater
Germany."
29 and 30
of September 1938, representatives of France, Britain, Italy and Germany met at
Munich to discuss the
Sudetenland problem. Neither the Czechs, nor their allies Russia, were
consulted. Hitler traded the promise of peace in Europe for the Sudetenland.
The Czechs had to either accept or face the might of the German army alone.
They accepted.
On 30th
September, 1938, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard
Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sign the Munich Pact,
which seals the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in
the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain would declare that the
meeting had achieved "peace in our time." Although the agreement was
to give into Hitler's hands only the Sudentenland, that part of Czechoslovakia
where 3 million ethnic Germans lived, it also handed over to the Nazi war
machine 66 percent of Czechoslovakia's coal, 70 percent of its iron and steel,
and 70 percent of its electrical power. It also left the Czech nation open to
complete domination by Germany. In short, the Munich Pact sacrificed the autonomy
of Czechoslovakia on the altar of short-term peace-very short term. The
terrorized Czech government was eventually forced to surrender the western
provinces of Bohemia and Moravia (which became a protectorate of Germany) and
finally Slovakia and the Carpathian Ukraine. In each of these partitioned
regions, Germany set up puppet, pro-Nazi regimes that served the military and
political ends of Adolf Hitler. By the time of the invasion of Poland in
September 1939, the nation called "Czechoslovakia" no longer existed.
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