The Munich Agreement, 30 September 1938

— Jason

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Dictators have used the excuse of protecting their own ethnic minorities located in foreign territory throughout history.  The “need for and obligation to aid” their fellows from a hostile state has been a spark used to ignite many wars.  Usually, the abuses that are claimed to be taking place by the aggressor state are elaborated and exaggerated to give justification for their actions, including military invasion and annexation of contested regions.  Perhaps the most famous instance of this is the German annexation of the Sudetenland in September of 1938.

The years leading up to 1938 were ones of increasing tensions in Europe.  Adolf Hitler had become Chancellor of Germany after the Nazi Party won many seats in the Reichstag during the election of November 1932.  Despite the concerns of then German President Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler was placed as Chancellor on 30 January 1933.  The Reichstag Fire, less than a month later, on 27 February 1933 allowed Hitler to convince Hindenburg to declare a state of emergency.  The state of emergency allowed the Nazis to arrest, and in many cases, murder, their communist political enemies whom they blamed for the fire.  The German Communist Party was outlawed by the state and numerous members were put into concentration camps for “reeducation.” Even the German Socialist Party and Center Party were targeted with violence.

The election of 5 March 1933 ensured that the Nazi Party was the dominant, and soon to be only, German political party.  Since the German Communist Party was outlawed and its leaders arrested, this left the National Socialist Party was the winner of the largest number of seats in the Reichstag.  Because of the actions of the Nazis, even the surviving Social Democrats and German Center Parties lacked the numbers to curb Hitler.  His SA stormtroopers had surrounded the temporary Reichstag meeting and prevented the Socialists from entering the building on 23 March 1933.  When Hitler asked for the passage of the Enabling Act, which granted him the power to create and enact legislation without the approval, or even input, of either the Reichstag or President, his party members forced the vote through, and Hitler had effectively taken sole control of the German government.

While Hindenburg was alive, he theoretically served to check the Nazis on their increasingly radical political and social agendas.   Hindenburg was a war hero and had stabilized the Weimer Republic, preventing it from collapsing during the 1920s and early 1930s.  However, Hitler’s chance to absorb the office of the President came with Hindenburg’s death on 2 August 1934.  The Nazi Party now actively began the secret rearmament of Germany in violation to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.  Hitler and the Nazis were also able to slowly dull German sensitivities towards the active persecution of the German Jewish, Roma, Sinti, and other “less desirable” elements of society.

One key component to Hitler’s popularity with the far-right German groups, both in Germany and outside of it, were his promises to make Germany great again.  He promised to gain back all the territory that had been lost by Germany as part of the armistice that ended World War I.  Territory from Germany had been ceded to create the emerging states of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania, in addition to the lands given back to Belgium and France.  There were considerable number of German ethnic minorities in the new eastern states, particularly in western Czechoslovakia and western Poland.  These people were the excuse Hitler needed to reabsorb these territories back into Germany.

Germany’s first annexation came with the occupation of the Rhineland on 7 March 1936.  The Rhineland had been declared a demilitarized zone as part of the Treaty of Versailles.  Germany was not to have any military forces or fortifications in the region.  France and Belgium were shocked by this aggressive move, but without the support of Great Britain could do little to stop its reintegration and remilitarization.  Had international pressure been strong enough, it is possible that Hitler’s expansionist policies could have been slowed, if not stopped altogether.

This bloodless success whetted Hitler’s appetite for further territorial annexations.  His next conquest was the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria into the Third Reich.  The Austrian Nazi Party had been outlawed by the Austrian government for its political violence and assassination of a previous Austrian chancellor.   Hitler claimed that they were being persecuted by the Austrian government.  He demanded the Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schusnigg hold a referendum to determine if the Austrians wanted to join with Germany.  He then demanded that Schusnigg.  On 13 March 1938, German soldiers marched across the Austrian border where they were celebrated.  Hitler was the most famous Austrian citizen of the day and had promised to redress the humiliating terms his countrymen suffered after World War I.  A plebiscite was held on 10 April 1938 that officially recognized the annexation of Austria.

Great Britain and France were concerned that Hitler’s territorial ambitions would never be satisfied if international pressure was not applied.  Unfortunately, neither empire was militarily prepared for a confrontation with a rearmed Germany.  Their leaders hoped that negotiations and a policy of appeasement would delay, and maybe prevent, another war before Britain and France were ready.  Czechoslovakia was the next most obvious target of Hitler’s greed.  During the years between 1920 and 1938, the Czechs had built their most powerful and modern border fortifications inside their mutual western and northern borders with Germany.  The Czechs also possessed one of the largest arms industries in eastern Europe.  Germany would be able to rearm themselves with Czech weapons factories and materials if it could be absorbed.

The Czech president, Edvard Bennes, reached out to the governments of Great Britain and France asking them to ensure the territorial integrity of his country as per the agreements made a decade prior.  Bennes also reached out to Soviet Premier Josef Stalin to obtain aid from the Soviet Union.  Hitler gave speeches telling stories about the mistreatment and persecution of the Sudetenland Germans by the Czechs.  Bennes was desperate to save his country; he realized that with the German annexation of Austria, his people were now vulnerable to attacks from the south as well as from the north and west.  German separatist parties had existed in Czechoslovakia since 1933 and they were prepared to help lay the foundation for the Czech state’s demise.

Konrad Heinlein, the founder of the far-right Sudeten German Party had been meeting with Hitler to discuss the situation of Czechoslovakia.  Heinlein’s party was the second largest in the country and violently opposed the competing Czech and Slovak parties.  The success of the Anschluss had emboldened Hitler: Britain and France had merely turned the other way; he felt the same pattern would repeat.  He began to pressure Bennes to surrender the Sudetenland to German annexation.  Bennes refused to surrender his country’s prepared defenses to the Nazis, knowing this would leave the Czechs vulnerable to German aggression.  Hitler threatened a massive invasion should the Czechs refuse his demands.

As the threat of war over the Sudetenland intensified, the international community again sought to appease Hitler, in hopes of this being the last time.  Representatives from France, Great Britain, Italy, and Germany met in the city of Munich on the 29 and 30 September 1938 to discuss solutions.  Italian dictator Benito Mussolini served as the neutral negotiator between Hitler, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier.  Czechoslovakian President Bennes was not invited to these meetings which would decide the fate of his country.  

Hitler promised that the Sudetenland was the last bit of former German territory he wished to reabsorb.  Chamberlain argued to Daladier that Hitler’s demands were justified, and that this would prevent war.  When pressed by Bennes about the negotiations, Chamberlain and Daladier told him his country was not worth starting another world war over.  Further pressure was applied to the Czechs when Hungary and Poland also demanded territories lost to them in the 1920s.  Neville Chamberlain and Daladier browbeat Bennes into submission.  Once he realized neither of his allies would honor their defensive alliance, Bennes ceded the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany opening the remaining portions of his nation to complete annexation by the Germans in March 1939.