Munich agreement

Munich agreement. After the German annexation of Austria in March 1938, the conquest of Czechoslovakia came next on Hitler's programme for expanding Germany. ‘It is my unalterable will,’ he laid down on 30 May, ‘to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future.’ A torrent of propaganda, orchestrated by Goebbels, asserted the wrongs of the Sudetenland German minority in the Czechoslovak republic, and Hitler ordered his general staff to prepare a plan (FALL GRÜN) for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. A small war at least seemed imminent; it might easily turn into a large one, as both France and the USSR had alliances with Czechoslovakia, beyond that republic's membership of the League of Nations.

On 12 September Hitler made a violently anti-Czechoslovak speech at a Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg; this was public. D-day for FALL GRÜN was set for 30 September; this was secret. The British prime minister, Chamberlain, tried to appease Hitler by travelling to Germany to see him. On 15 September he went by air (he had hardly ever flown in his life before) from London to see Hitler in his mountain eyrie at Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps. Hitler agreed to defer violent action for the time being. A week later they met again, at Bad Godesberg, on the Rhine a few miles above Cologne; at this second meeting Hitler raised his terms, and pressed also for concessions by Czechoslovakia to Poland and to Hungary. He was much assisted by being able to read, through his decipher staff, most of the messages the British, French, and Czechoslovak diplomats were exchanging among themselves.

On 26 September Hitler made another violent attack on Czechoslovakia in a public speech, cheered to the echo, in a Berlin sports stadium. Next day the Royal Navy was mobilized; German army mobilization was delayed a further 24 hours. Mussolini then proposed a four-power conference which took place in Munich on 29 and 30 September 1938.

The principals present were Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain, and the French prime minister Daladier. The contribution of the USA to the crisis was confined to a message from Roosevelt on 26 September reminding all the European powers concerned of their obligation under the half-forgotten Kellogg–Briand Pact of 1928 not to go to war with each other. The USSR was not invited; Chamberlain profoundly mistrusted Stalin, who in any case had then hardly any useful armed forces, on account of his great purge of senior officers. Two Czechoslovak diplomats, summoned to Munich, were held overnight under Gestapo guard, and confronted on the morning of 30 September with what the great powers had decided.

The German Army was to be allowed to take over the German-speaking frontier areas of Czechoslovakia during the first ten days of October with all the installations they contained. Benefits for the Poles and the Hungarians were to follow; and what was left of Czechoslovakia was to be placed under some kind of indeterminate guarantee, never enacted.

On the same morning Chamberlain and Hitler met again, and both signed a declaration that in future their two countries would consult, instead of quarrelling, over any difficulties that might arise between them. This gave Chamberlain reason to revive a phrase of Disraeli's when he got back to London that evening—he said he had brought ‘peace with honour’.

Strategic experts continue to argue about whether the year's grace before the Second World War broke out was of more benefit to Germany or to the Allies.

M. R. D. Foot

Bibliography

Wheeler-Bennett, J. W. , Munich: Prologue to Tragedy (London, 1948).