September 29-30, 1938: Germany, Italy, Britain and France sign the Munich Accords, according to which Czechoslovakia must cede its border areas and defenses (the so-called Sudetenland region) to Nazi Germany. German troops occupied these areas between 1 and 10 October 1938. An agreement was reached on September 29, and around 1:30 a.m. on September 30.m .m. 1938,[43] Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini and Édouard Daladier signed the Munich Accords. The agreement was officially introduced by Mussolini, although the Italian plan was almost identical to Godesberg`s proposal: the German army was to complete the occupation of the Sudetenland by October 10 and an international commission was to decide on the future of the other disputed territories. Sudeten Germans were not asked if they wanted to be citizens of Czechoslovakia. Although the constitution guarantees equality for all citizens, political leaders have tended to turn the country “into an instrument of Czech and Slovak nationalism.” [7] Progress was made in the integration of Germans and other minorities, but they remained underrepresented in the government and military. In addition, the global economic crisis that began in 1929 hit the highly industrialized and export-oriented Sudeten Germans more than the Czech and Slovak populations.
In 1936, 60% of the unemployed in Czechoslovakia were Germans. [8] Although the British people were relieved that war had been averted, many now wondered whether appeasement was the best decision. They didn`t believe it would stop Hitler and simply delay the war instead of preventing him. While Chamberlain was still signing the Munich Accords, he agreed to a huge increase in spending to increase British armament in preparation for war. He must have known, from the situation presented to him by General Ismay, that Czechoslovakia was lost, that war was coming. On September 1, 1939, 53 divisions of the German army invaded Poland, despite British and French threats to intervene on behalf of the nation. Two days later, Chamberlain solemnly called for a British declaration of war against Germany, and World War II began. After eight months of ineffective war, Chamberlain was replaced as prime minister by Winston Churchill. As threats from Germany and a European war became more and more apparent, opinions changed.
Chamberlain has been criticized for his role as one of the “men of Munich” in books such as The Guilty Men of 1940. A rare defence of the deal came in 1944 from Viscount Maugham, who had been Lord Chancellor. Maugham regarded the decision to establish a Czechoslovak state with large German and Hungarian minorities as a “dangerous experiment” in light of previous disputes and largely attributed the agreement to the need for France to free itself from its contractual obligations given that it was not prepared for war. [63] After the war, Churchill`s memoirs of the time, The Gathering Storm (1948), claimed that Chamberlain`s appeasement of Hitler in Munich had been wrong, and recorded Churchill`s warnings about war before Hitler`s plan of attack and the madness that Britain insisted on disarmament after Germany had achieved air parity with Britain. Although Churchill acknowledged that Chamberlain was acting for noble motives, he argued that Hitler should have been fought because of Czechoslovakia and that efforts should have been made to include the Soviet Union. After Poland learned that the territories inhabited by Poland were to be handed over to Germany, there was a note to the Czechoslovak government calling for “the immediate conclusion of an agreement according to which Polish territory should be undeniably occupied by Polish troops; This should be followed by an agreement on referendums in districts where a large share of the Polish population is high. [75] [again] An agreement signed at the Munich Conference of September 1938 ceded the German-speaking Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany. The agreement was concluded between Germany, Italy, Great Britain and France. Czechoslovakia was not allowed to participate in the conference. In March 1939, six months after the munich accords were signed, Hitler violated the agreement and destroyed the Czech state.
Ucla Film and Television Archive Six months later, in March 1939, German troops took control of the rest of Czechoslovakia. Poland seemed to be the next most likely victim of Nazi aggression, and Chamberlain struck a deal with the Poles to defend them in Germany. Hitler did not believe that Britain would go to war for Poland after failing to do so through Czechoslovakia. In September 1939, he sent his soldiers to Poland. On the same day, Britain declared war on Germany. The slogan “About us, without us!” (Czech: O nás bez nás!) summarizes the feelings of the Czechoslovak people (now Slovakia and the Czech Republic) towards the agreement. [Citation needed] With the transition from the Sudetenland to Germany, Czechoslovakia (as the state was renamed) lost its defensible border with Germany and its fortifications. Without it, its independence became more nominal than real. Czechoslovakia also lost 70% of its steel industry, 70% of its electrical energy and 3.5 million citizens to Germany as a result of unification. [61] Sudeten Germans celebrated what they saw as their liberation. The impending war, it seems, had been averted.
By signing the Munich Accords, European leaders agreed to allow Germany to seize Eastern European territory. The New York Times headline on the Munich Accords read, “Hitler gets less than his Sudetenland demands,” and reported that a “cheerful crowd” greeted Daladier on his return to France and that Chamberlain was “savagely acclaimed” upon his return to Britain. [54] On September 25, Czechoslovakia agreed to the terms previously agreed between Britain, France and Germany. The next day, however, Hitler added new demands, insisting that the demands of ethnic Germans in Poland and Hungary be met as well. The British people expected war to come, and Chamberlain`s “statesman gesture” was initially greeted with applause. He was greeted as a hero by the royal family and invited to the balcony of Buckingham Palace before presenting the deal to the British Parliament. The generally positive reaction quickly deteriorated, despite the royal patronage. However, there was resistance from the beginning. .