This Day in History: 30 September 2020
30 September 1938
82 years ago, today, the Munich Pact was signed between the British and French Prime Ministers, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. This agreement averted the outbreak of war but allowed Czechoslovakia to be given away to German conquest. Daladier despised the Pact's peace making with the Nazis, but Chamberlain was happy and even stayed behind in Munich to sign a single-page document with Hitler that he believed assured the future of Anglo-German peace. Chamberlain later flew home to Britain, where he addressed a joyful crowd in London, praising the Munich Pact for bringing 'peace in our time'.
The day after the Pact was signed, Hitler annexed the Czech Sudetenland, where he had wanted to evacuate its population of Czechoslovakians prior to the agreement. The Czechoslovak government subsequently chose submission over destruction by the German 'Wehrmacht', the armed forces of the Nazis. In March 1939, Hitler annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia, and the country ceased to exist. In September, 53 German army divisions invaded Poland despite British and French threats to intervene. Two days later, Chamberlain called for a British declaration of war against Germany, initiating World War Two. Chamberlain would later be replaced as Prime Minister by Winston Churchill after eight months of ineffective wartime leadership.
Want to find out more about the Munich Pact? Click here for more information, or here for more about Chamberlain as Prime Minister.
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