1938         


In the late thirties Hitler’s Germany was actively seeking a revanche for the losses suffered by Germany in the Great War. Hitler’s Nazi ideology strove for  the incorporation of all ethnic Germans into the German Fatherland and a widening of the living space “Lebensraum” of the German people, at the cost of its mainly Slav neighbours in the East. In Austria, the country that never got to participate in the German unification of the Nineteenth Century, and was hindered by the Peace Treaties to join Germany after the war, when it had been stripped of all its non German territories, the Nazi movement grew very popular. In an attempted Nazi coup in 1934 the Austrian Chancellor Dolfuss, who had founded his own branch of conservative Catholic authoritarian government in Austria, was killed. The coup failed and Hitler distanced himself from it when Italian troops, protectors of the like minded Austro-fascist regime, marched to the Brenner in defence of Austrian independence.  Under Dolfuss’ successor Schussnig, had to accept more influence by the Austrian Nazi’s. In 1938 a plebiscite over incorporation in Germany was aborted by an ultimatum from Hitler. Schussnig resigned and the Nazi’s took over the government. Austria was incorporated into the German Realm.

Hitler’s next project was the destruction of the Czechoslovak Republic. Its large German minority (22 percent of the population) lived in the areas adjacent to Germany proper. As a pretext Hitler cited their alleged mistreatment by Czechoslovak authorities. In the “Sudeten” area of Czechoslovakia the party of the ethnic Germans agitated for autonomy, which would result in a Nazi led state within the Czechoslovak Republic. Czechoslovakia trusted on their alliance with France for their safety, but that did not turn out to be worth much, since the French wouldn’t give Czechoslovakia any guarantees without British backing. The British hesitated to give these assurances. Their strategic interests ended at the Rhine, and they would only come into action if France itself was in danger of collapsing under a German attack. In the impasse that followed the Czechoslovak government made far reaching concessions to Hitler and his Sudeten German accomplices. Meanwhile the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, travelled to Germany and conducted talks with Hitler about the matter, in which the handing over of the territory to Germany, a claim hitherto not explicitly made by Hitler, was put on the table by British negotiators. In the face off the obvious lack of resolve on the Franco-British side, Hitler only increased his demands and now called for territorial concessions for Hungary and Poland as well. He also demanded the total abandonment of Czechoslovak alliances with France and others, notably the Soviet Union, which would be replaced by guarantees for a reduced Czechoslovakia by Britain, France, Germany and Italy. This would not only destroy the French system off alliances in Eastern Europe, but it would also reduce the Soviet role in Eastern Europe. In a conference at Munich all of Germany’s demands were met. In the end Czechoslovakia was forced to cede even more territory to Germany than was foreseen in the Munich agreements. The agreement bought a few more years of peace, but ended the role of France as a great power on the European continent.