Ever since Hitler came to power in 1933
he had made successive assaults on the restrictions
that had been placed on Germany by the Treaty of
Versailles. He had begun secretly the process of
rearmament and felt confident enough to announce the
program in 1935, the same year in which he introduced
conscription to the new German army. Encouraged by
England's acquiescence in German naval expansion, he
next remilitarized the neutral Rhineland zone. Two
years later, with the annexation of Austria, the Treaty
was well and truly buried. Yet despite his reassuring
falsehoods over the years since 1933--"We will never
attempt to subjugate foreign peoples," "We have no
territorial claims to make in Europe," and the like--by
the summer of 1938 he had begun a propaganda campaign
against Czechoslovakia, ally of both France and Russia,
in the matter of the 3 million or so ethnic Germans in
the Sudeten region of that country, a former territory
of the defunct Austrian empire. Lurid threats were
hurled by the Nazi propaganda machine against the
alleged mistreatment of their minority Germans; the
excuse for the contemplated destruction of
Czechoslovakia, a state unjustifiably dubbed by Hitler
as 'a Bolshevik aircraft carrier in the heart of
Europe'. During the summer the pro-Nazi elements among the Czech Germans demanded to secede from Czechoslovakia, a move that, in the absence of support from their allies or Great Britain, the Czecks could not resist. The result- -a clear example of the workings of appeasement (of which the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, shown here upon his return from Munich with the scrap of paper that was to "ensure peace in our time"!), was the hopeful exponent)in the attempt to prevent hostilities--was the Munich Agreement, generally regarded as the shameful culmination of the Allied refusal (and inability at that time) to confront Nazi aggression.
1) The evacuation will begin on October lst.
2) The United Kingdom, France, and Italy agree that the evacuation of the territory shall be completed by October 10th, without any existing installations having been destroyed, and that the Czechoslovak Government will be held responsible for carrying out the evacuation without damage to the said installations.
3) The conditions governing the evacuation will be laid down in detail by an international commission composed of representatives of Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Czechoslovakia.
4) The occupation by stages of the predominantly German territory by German troops will begin on October 1st. The four territories marked on the attached map will be occupied by German troops in the following order: the territory marked number I on the 1st and 2d of October, the territory marked number II on the 2d and 3d of October, the territory marked number III on the 3d, 4th, and 5th of October, the territory marked number IV on the 6th and 7th of October. The remaining territory of preponderantly German character will be ascertained by the aforesaid international commission forthwith and be occupied by German troops by the 10th of October.
5) The international commission referred to in paragraph 3 will determine the territories in which a plebiscite is to be held. These territories will be occupied by international bodies until the plebiscite has been completed. The same commission will fix the conditions in which the plebiscite is to be held, taking as a basis the conditions of the Saar [territory ceded to France by the treaty of Versailles for 15 years; returned to Germany in 1935] plebiscite. The commission will also fix a date, not later than the end of November, on which the plebiscite will be held.
6) The final determination of the frontiers will be carried out by the international commission. This commission will also be entitled to recommend to the four Powers, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, in certain exceptional cases, minor modifications in the strictly ethnographical determination of the zones which are to be transferred without plebiscite.
7) There will be a right of option into and out of the transferred territories, the option to be exercised within 6 months from the date of this agreement. A German-Czechoslovak commission shall determine the details of the option, consider ways of facilitating the transfer of population and settle questions of principle arising out of the said transfer.
8) The Czechoslovak Government will, within a
period of 4 weeks from the date of this agreement,
release from their military and police forces any
Sudeten Germans who may wish to be released, and the
Czechoslovak Government will within the same period
release Sudeten German prisoners who are serving terms
of imprisonment for political offenses.
Adolf Hitler
Ed. Daladier
Mussolini
Neville Chamberlain
Munich, September 29, 1938
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