Who Started WW2? Unification- The Munich Conference Part 1

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Who Started WW2? Treaty of Versailles Series, Who Started WW2? Weimar Series, Who Started WW2? Unification- Austria Series

The three major sources for this article are Who Started WW2? by Udo Walendy (pages 92–100), 1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof (pages 165–177), and Hitler’s Revolution by Richard Tedor (pages 115–118).

The reunification of Germany and the Sudetenland (the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans) during the Munich Conference is another tale of Hitler being the good guy. Like the Austrian Anschluss, Hitler reunified this land through political and diplomatic means, not violence. Of course, Holocaust fabulists don’t want people to see this as anything but Hitler being an evil tyrant.

Let’s revisit our friend, The Holocaust Explained (THE), to see what they have to say on the topic. I’d like to point out that THE “is designed with the British school curriculum for thirteen to eighteen year olds in mind, but it aims to be accessible to other users as well.” Here is what THE has to say:

Following the success of Anschluss, Hitler’s next target was Czechoslovakia, which was now surrounded by German territory. The northern part of Czechoslovakia was known as the Sudetenland.

The Sudetenland was desired by Germany not only for its territory, but also because a majority of its population were ‘ethnically’ German.

In the summer of 1938 Hitler demanded the annexation of the Sudetenland into Germany. At this point Hitler was aware that the Allies were desperate to avoid war, and thought it likely that they would appease his demands.

Hitler threatened war over the issue of the Sudetenland. On 29 – 30 September 1938 the British, Italian, French and German leaders met in Munich to discuss the issue.

The Allies agreed to concede the Sudetenland to Germany in exchange for a pledge of peace. This agreement was known as the Munich Pact.

Once again, vital context is left out. We’ll start with the fact that THE uses scare quotes on the word ethnically. The story of Sudetenland is complex and goes back to the year 800 when the area fell into dependence on the German Reich. To summarize: the regions of Bohemia and Moravia become permanent subjects of German kings and kaisers in 950. From 1041 to 1918 (when the Treaty of Versailles took the land away), both regions belonged to the German Reich.

The following map is the ethnic groups of the region in 1910:

This is a map of the region after Germany’s land was carved up by the Allies:

In 1938, Czechoslovakia was home to 6.7 million Czechs, 3.1 million German, 2 million Slovaks, 734 thousand Hungarians, 460 thousand Ukrainians, 180 thousand Jews, 75 thousand Poles and 240 thousand people of other descents. Since 1918, they were all being controlled by a Czech government.

Edvard Beneš, a Czech politician and statesman, who would later serve as president from 1935 to 1938, promised that Czechoslovakia would be like Switzerland—a successful multi-ethnic state. He promised that the state would accept the laws of the different nationalities and give autonomy to the different minorities.

Now we have to take a step back and remember that the civilians in the region never had a choice about the formation of a new country and government. This was something the Allies of WW1 forced upon them. In fact, in 1918, officials in the German-settled areas of Bohemia, Moravia and North Austrian-Silesia proclaimed to the American government that they wished to be a part of Germany-Austria. They invoked the right to self-determination that was promoted by President Wilson. The right for self-determination was only lip service because the Sudeten Germans never got theirs.

Fast forward to 1920 and only the Ruthenians enjoy an autonomous region and regional parliament with the power to make laws about language, education, and regional administration. The Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians, and Poles do not have any such privileges. Many suffered under this new government, but I will only be focusing on the Sudeten Germans. I’m only scratching the surface of the grievances here. For more see the books listed above.

The Czech majority engaged with a culture war against the Germans that had been forced into their state. For an example of the sentiment of the Czechs, we can take a look at a quote from October of 1921 (well before Hitler’s influence, so the Holocaust fabulists can’t blame him) made by the official paper of Czechoslovakia (Walendy, page 97):

The German minority in Brünn will melt away like a piece of ice in the sun and nothing can save them. To be contributing to this development is a self-evident duty of the Czech majority.

In February of 1919, the Czech army disrupted the democratic process of the Germans, who were still a part of Austria at that point. On March 4th the German people peacefully protested this disruption, and the Czech army opened fired into the unarmed crowd, killing 54 Germans—20 of whom were women.

The Prague government closed German-speaking schools and replaced them with Czech institutions. Nine of the nineteen German universities were closed. Half of the German municipal and rural officials lost their jobs. German workers were replaced with Czechs in other fields as well, such as the forestry industry.

The German people lost land, too. For example, all German land acquisitions since 1620 were expropriated in a land reform and “restored” to the Czech population.

The systemic discrimination had real-world effects. For instance, according to Walendy, under Czech rule Sudetenland had the highest suicide and infant morality rates in the world.

Now that you know about some of the suffering of the German people in Czechoslovakia that came from the unjust redistribution of land by greater powers, continue to part two to learn how Hitler came to the rescue.