Munich Agreement

The 1938 agreement by which Britain, France, Italy, and Germany permitted Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, without Czechoslovakia’s participation.

Sudetenland: A border region of Czechoslovakia inhabited largely by ethnic Germans before its 1938 annexation by Nazi Germany. Hitler demanded this Czechoslovak region, making its transfer the agreement’s central provision.
Munich Conference: A September 1938 meeting in which Britain, France, Italy, and Germany negotiated the Sudetenland’s transfer. The conference produced the agreement through negotiations among the four powers.
German occupation of Czechoslovakia: Nazi Germany’s occupation of the Czech lands in March 1939, ending what remained of Czechoslovak independence. It violated assurances associated with Munich and exposed the settlement’s failure to contain Hitler.
Appeasement: A policy of making concessions to an aggressive power in an effort to avoid conflict. Munich became the best-known example used to explain and condemn this policy.
Peace for our time: Neville Chamberlain’s phrase upon returning from Munich in September 1938, expressing hope that the agreement secured peace. The phrase became a symbol of confidence in a settlement soon undone by German expansion.
Sudeten German Party: A Czechoslovak political party led by Konrad Henlein that mobilized ethnic German grievances and sought autonomy. Its escalating demands helped create the crisis that Hitler used to justify intervention.
Neville Chamberlain: British prime minister from 1937 to 1940, associated with appeasement and the Munich Agreement. He negotiated directly with Hitler and presented the settlement as a way to preserve peace.
First Vienna Award: A 1938 German-Italian arbitration that transferred parts of southern Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia to Hungary. The Munich settlement weakened Czechoslovakia and was followed by further territorial losses.
Czechoslovak military mobilization of 1938: Czechoslovakia’s September 1938 mobilization of its armed forces during the Sudeten crisis. It shows that Prague prepared to resist before the agreement removed the immediate confrontation.
Winston Churchill: British politician and prime minister who opposed appeasement before the Second World War. His criticism made Munich a defining example of the danger of yielding to Hitler.

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