Munich Pact, 1938. In the summer of 1938, Chancellor Hitler of Germany began openly to support the demands of Germans living in the Sudetenland (see Sudetes) of Czechoslovakia for an improved status. In September, Hitler demanded self-determination for the Sudetenland. Disorders broke out in Czechoslovakia, and martial law was proclaimed. Meetings between Hitler and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain, first at Berchtesgaden and then at Bad Godesberg, failed to achieve a satisfactory agreement. War seemed unavoidable. After appeals by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Benito Mussolini, a conference met at Munich (Sept. 29). Great Britain was represented by Chamberlain and Halifax, France by Edouard Daladier and Georges Bonnet, Italy by Mussolini and Galeazzo Ciano, Germany by Hitler and Ribbentrop. Neither Czechoslovakia nor the Soviet Union, which had offered aid to the threatened country under the terms of a 1935 treaty, was invited to the conference. England and France quickly surrendered to Hitler's demands, and the Munich Pact was signed Sept. 30 (but dated Sept. 29). It permitted immediate occupation by Germany of the Sudetenland, but also provided for plebiscites, which were never carried out. France and Britain guaranteed the new Czechoslovak boundaries. When Chamberlain arrived in London, he announced that he had secured "peace in our time." Abandoned by its allies, Czechoslovakia gave in to the terms, and President Beneš, the target of Hitler's most venomous attacks, resigned. Poland and Hungary, for whose minorities promises had been made at Munich, were allowed to seize, respectively, the Teschen district and parts of Slovakia. The Munich Pact became a symbol of appeasement and shook the confidence of Eastern Europeans in the good faith of the Western democracies. World War II began about one year after its signing.

See J. W. Wheeler-Bennett, Munich: Prologue to Tragedy (1948, repr. 1966); studies by K. Eubank (1963), F. L. Loewenheim, ed. (1965), and D. E. Lee, ed. (1970).

Munich agreement. ‘Munich’ has entered the English language as a synonym for betrayal and weakness, and historians continue to debate whether it would have been wiser as well as more honourable for Britain to have risked war rather than to require Czechoslovakia to surrender the Sudetenland to Hitler. At the time (30 September 1938), the commonest feeling in Britain was one of relief. Perhaps the most realistic verdict—given the national unpreparedness for war—was that it was a ‘necessary defeat’. Neville Chamberlain, however, was not negotiating primarily to buy time for rearmament but in the belief that peace was possible.

C. J. Bartlett

Munich Agreement (September 1938) Pact agreed by Britain, France, Italy, and Germany to settle German claims on Czechoslovakia. Hoping to preserve European peace, Britain and France compelled Czechoslovakia (not represented at Munich) to surrender the predominantly German-speaking Sudetenland to Nazi Germany on certain conditions. Hitler ignored the conditions and, six months later, his troops took over the rest of the country, an action that finally ended the Anglo-French policy of appeasement.

Munich Agreement an agreement between Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, signed at Munich on 29 September 1938, under which the Sudetenland was ceded to Germany; Neville Chamberlain, on his return, famously and erroneously declared that he believed that he was bringing back ‘peace for our time’. In extended use (and allusively as Munich), it may denote an agreement held to resemble this pact in representing mistaken or dishonourable appeasement.