THE MUNICH AGREEMENT OF1938


In the summer of 1938, Hitler voiced active support of the highly publicized demands of the German population of the Sudetenland in the Republic of Czechoslovakia, for annexation of the region into Germany. Fearing the outbreak of war, European leaders met in a conference at Munich on September 29. Present were Eduard Daladier from France, Neville Chamberlain from England, Mussolini representing Italy, Hitler, and Ribbentrop. Representatives of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union were not invited.

Wanting to avoid the possibility of a new European war, Chamberlain and Daladier submitted to Hitler's demands very quickly; the conference was over the next day. The treaty ceded three areas of Czechoslovakia to other powers: the Sudetenland was annexed into Germany, the Teschen district was given to Poland, and parts of Slovakia went to Hungary. (See map .)

Chamberlain boasted after the conference that they had achieved "Peace in our time," but the Agreement quickly became a symbol of the western powers' appeasement of Hitler, which led to the outbreak of World War Two one year later.