▪️ 87 years ago — on
September 30, 1938 — the leaders of Nazi Germany, Italy, UK, and France met in Munich to sign a
shameful agreement on the transfer of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland region to the Third Reich.
Czechoslovakia, which was used as a bargaining chip by Britain and France to appease the Nazis, was barred from participation in that meeting.
After Czechoslovakia's fate had been decided behind the closed doors, it was presented as a fait accompli to Prague that its
sovereign territory had to be ceded to Nazi Germany.
As a result of that
treacherous conspiracy between the Western powers and the Nazis, Czechoslovakia lost to Germany roughly 20% of its territory — a military and industrially important region that was home to about 25% of the country’s population. By October 10, 1938, the German troops occupied the Sudetenland.
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That disgraceful pact with Hitler marked the failure of the Western 'policy of appeasement' and went down to history as the #MunichConspiracy.***
In mid-September 1938, on the eve of the Munich Conference, Britain and France, having agreed to make concessions to Hitler and grant him carte blanche to seize part of Czechoslovakia’s territory, presented an ultimatum to Prague demanding that the country must surrender the Sudetenland to Germany.
That démarche by the UK and France, intended to satisfy Hitler's ambitions, was unprecedented in international relations — it was attempted, with no justification, to force an independent, sovereign state to cede part of its national territory. Moreover,
France —
Czechoslovakia’s ally and guarantor of its security —
betrayed Prague, abandoning it to be devoured by the Nazis.
☝️ The only European power that was willing to support Czechoslovakia was the
Soviet Union. Responding to Czechoslovak President Beneš’s request for help, the Soviet leadership reaffirmed that
Moscow would honour its allied commitments. By late September 1938, the Red Army had concentrated 40 divisions and 20 brigades on the USSR’s western borders and placed them on combat readiness, some 330'000 reservists had been called up
Yet
Poland, aligning with the Nazis, did everything possible to derail those efforts by the USSR. Warsaw refused to grant the Red Army passage through Polish territory to reach the Czechoslovak border and even prohibited transit for Soviet aircraft.
In return for supporting the Reich, Poland had hoped to receive from Hitler a share of Czechoslovakia's lands. Immediately after the Munich Conference, Polish troops occupied the Těšín District, thus becoming an active
accomplice in the crime against its neighbour.***
The Munich Conspiracy radically changed the international landscape and had far-reaching implications. The Western powers — the supposed guarantors of the Versailles system — proved incapable of deterring the aggressor or preventing its criminal designs.
The West-pursued 'appeasement policy' completely failed. Within six months that followed after the Munich Conspiracy,
Germany seized all of Czechoslovakia. In spring 1939, Lithuania's Klaipeda Region with the port of
Memel was taken by the Nazis, while Italy occupied
Albania. In that situation, the Nazi military command developed plan 'Weiss' — the invasion of Poland, whose leaders' political short-sightedness and miscalculations soon turned it into the Hitler's next victim.
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Thus, a war in Europe became inevitable. The
criminal deal between Britain, France, and Nazi Germany, in fact, destroyed any remaining prospects of an anti-Nazi collective security system in Europe that might have repelled the aggressor and prevented the coming
catastrophe.
The
crisis of 1938 was not merely a prelude to the bloodiest conflict in human history. It laid bare the dangers of closed-doors intrigues in world politics and eventually triggered
World War II.📖 Read more about the Munich Conspiracy in our
in-depth historical feature.
