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—— ON THIS DAY ——
SEPTEMBER 30, 1938
Munich, Germany
88 years ago
The Munich Agreement, signed in the early hours of September 30, 1938, by Germany, Britain, France, and Italy, permitting the German annexation of the Sudetenland.
In the early hours of September 30, 1938, in Munich, Neville Chamberlain of Britain, Édouard Daladier of France, Benito Mussolini of Italy, and Adolf Hitler signed an agreement transferring the Sudetenland, the mountainous border region of Czechoslovakia with a large ethnic German population, to Germany. Czechoslovakia was not represented at the conference. Its delegates waited in a nearby hotel and were informed of the terms after the fact. The Soviet Union, which had a treaty with Czechoslovakia, was also excluded.
The crisis had been building through the summer. Hitler demanded the Sudetenland, backed the demand with the threat of invasion, and orchestrated agitation among the region's German speakers. Czechoslovakia had a modern army, strong border fortifications in exactly the territory under discussion, and alliances with France and the Soviet Union. Britain and France, unprepared for war and haunted by the casualties of 1914 to 1918, pressed Prague to give way rather than fight.
—— MARQUEE EVENT ——
Appeasement, the British and French policy of conceding to German territorial demands through the 1930s in the hope of avoiding another European war, of which the Munich Agreement became the defining example.
Chamberlain returned to Britain later on September 30 and, at the airport and then in Downing Street, held up a separate declaration he had persuaded Hitler to sign, expressing the desire of the two countries never to go to war with one another again. He told the crowd that he believed it was peace for our time. The public response was overwhelming relief. Crowds cheered him in the street. Not everyone agreed: Winston Churchill told the House of Commons that Britain had sustained a total and unmitigated defeat, and Duff Cooper resigned from the cabinet.
Czechoslovakia lost about a third of its population, most of its heavy industry, and the fortified frontier that had made it defensible. Poland and Hungary took further territory in the following weeks. In March 1939, Hitler disregarded the agreement entirely and occupied the remainder of the Czech lands, establishing a protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia and a client state in Slovakia. Whatever case had existed for Munich as a settlement of German national grievances collapsed at that moment, because the territory taken was not German-speaking at all.
Britain and France responded by guaranteeing Poland, and when Germany invaded on September 1, 1939, they declared war. Historians have argued ever since about whether the year gained at Munich helped Britain more than Germany, given the radar, aircraft, and rearmament of 1938 to 1939, and about whether Czechoslovakia and its allies could have fought effectively in 1938. What is not much disputed is the political legacy. Munich became the standard reference for the argument that concessions to an aggressor invite further aggression, invoked in nearly every subsequent international crisis, sometimes wisely and sometimes as a substitute for thinking.
—— WHY THIS MATTERS ——
It is the defining case in the argument about conceding to aggressors. Munich became the reference point invoked in almost every international crisis since, shaping how leaders and publics reason about negotiation, deterrence, and the risk of encouraging further demands.
It destroyed Czechoslovakia's ability to defend itself. The Sudetenland contained the border fortifications and much of the industry. Handing it over left the rest of the country indefensible, and Germany occupied the remainder within six months.
It shows the cost of excluding the people whose fate is being decided. Czechoslovakia's representatives were kept out of the room and told the terms afterward. The phrase about us, without us entered Czech political memory and remains a caution about settlements imposed on absent parties.
—— THE TAKEAWAY ——
In the small hours of September 30, 1938, four leaders signed away a third of Czechoslovakia while the Czechs waited in a hotel down the road. Chamberlain came home to cheering crowds waving a paper he believed meant peace. Germany took the rest of the country in March and invaded Poland in September.
—— QUOTE OF THE DAY ——
“I believe it is peace for our time.”
— Neville Chamberlain, on returning from Munich, September 30, 1938
—— OUR QUIZ OF THE DAY ——
How much do you know about the Munich Agreement, who was excluded from the negotiations, what Czechoslovakia lost, and the arguments historians still have about appeasement?
