Germany 1919-1990

1938

Austria, newly annexed to Nazi-Germany, had left some German speaking territories to its succesor states in 1919. Italian South Tirol would remain untouched by Hitlers Realm. He didn't even annex it when he occupied Italy in 1943. The German speaking Bohemian borderlands of the Czechoslovak Republic (one of Austria's succesor states) were wanted by Hitlers Germany. He claimed them because of their German nature, he wanted them for their strategic importance and mineral wealth. It would be Hitlers last territorial claim in Europe, as the Fuehrer claimed at the time. The Czechoslovak Republic was an ally of France and Britain, and the German claim on her German speaking border areas (known as the Sudetenland) could cause another war. France and Britain were not up to it. The British Prime Minister Chamberlain, mindfull of the fact that this war could not be won at the time, initiated a compromise between Germany, Britain, France,  Italy, Poland and Hungary whereby Czechoslovakia would cede territories to Germany, Hungary and Poland, without Czechoslovakia being asked for its aproval. Britain and France would simply ignore their obligations towards Czechoslovakia. This was agreed at a conference in Munich in 1938. Germany, Hungary and Poland took their prizes. The peace of the world was saved for the time being. Chamberlain became very popular. His popularity would wane when Germany took more and more. Chamberlain was later blaimed for appeasing the Germans fascists and allowing them to become stronger. He was however mindfull of that and sought a reprieve from global war because Britain was not ready. He foresaw war and tried to make Britain ready.

In what remained of Czechoslovakia, the Slovaks ceceded from the Czechs with German aproval. Hitler's Germany broke the Munich agreement by occupying the remnant Czech state and making it a protectorate of the German Realm. This caused Chamberlain and the French to make an alliance with Poland, seen to be Germany's next victim. Germany in the meantime made a pact with its arch enimy the Communist Soviet Union. In  a secret article Hitler and Stalin included a map dividing Poland and the Baltic states among them