Sudeten crisis

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or section needs to be revised. Details should be given on the talk page. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

The Sudeten Crisis or Sudeten German Crisis was an international conflict provoked and escalated by National Socialist Germany in 1938 with the aim of destroying the existence of the state of Czechoslovakia and incorporating the Bohemian and Moravian regions into German territory . Konrad Henlein and the Sudeten German Party led by him, representing the German minority there , acted in cooperation with the Nazi leadership. The Munich Agreement of October 1938 forced the government of the Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudeten areas to the German Reich . While France and Great Britain avoided a military confrontation through their appeasement policy, the Nazi regime headed for the Second World War with an increasingly offensive policy of expansion . After he forced Slovakia to split off from the Czechoslovak Republic (Č-SR), Hitler smashed the rump Czech state in March 1939 and established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia .

Language distribution in Czechoslovakia (around 1930)

prehistory

The Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The Czech lands were among the Kingdom of Bohemia , Duchy of Silesia and Margraviate of Moravia until 1918 to the Habsburg monarchy . For the border areas predominantly inhabited by Germans , the summarizing term Sudetenland was created , derived from the Sudeten mountain range . After the defeat of Austria-Hungary in World War I , Czechoslovakia was proclaimed an independent state on October 28, 1918. From November 1918, Czechoslovak troops occupied the areas populated by Germans.

The treatment of the Sudeten Germans , with 3.3 million people the largest of the minorities in the newly created multi-ethnic state of the Czechoslovak Republic, was controversial. President Masaryk and the Czech ruling parties advocated the concept of a “ nation state ”. In 1920 a corresponding, centralized constitution was passed, in the drafting of which German parties were not involved. The Czechoslovak state language should have priority, the federal form was rejected. According to the constitution, all national minorities had equal civic rights, but the Sudeten Germans saw themselves as a minority compared to Czechity as a result of the government's policy, which in the party landscape structured according to nationality was mostly Czech parties . From unemployment , under during the Great Depression , the population of the Czechoslovak Republic had to suffer, Sudeten Germans were disproportionately affected.

In 1933 the Sudeten German Home Front (SHF) was founded, the German National Party and the German National Socialist Workers' Party dissolved themselves three days later, anticipating a ban by the Czech authorities. This meant that two of the five German parties that had been represented in the National Assembly of Czechoslovakia no longer existed. The Sudeten Germans now saw themselves not only economically but also politically disadvantaged. Konrad Henlein , the leader of the German Gymnastics Association, became chairman of the Sudeten German Home Front, which had to rename itself to Sudeten German Party (SdP) by order of Prague . At first it saw itself as an advocacy and collection movement, and several conservative-national tendencies resulted in it. In the elections in May 1935 she received more than 62 percent of the German vote. However, under pressure from the Czech state, it came completely under the influence of the German Empire. From 1937 onwards she openly committed to National Socialism .

In February 1938 the SdP made contact with the Catholic-clerical Slovak People's Party Andrej Hlinkas , with which it had nothing in common ideologically, but both parties were united by their aversion to Czech centralization tendencies.

The initially internal tensions were drawn more and more into the pull of the power and expansion policy of the National Socialist German Reich and in this respect endangered the power and security interests, especially of the great powers France and Great Britain . After the “Anschluss” of Austria in March 1938, which triggered large demonstrations under the slogan “ Home in the Reich !”, The Sudeten question became the focus of European politics.

In Adolf Hitler's military calculus presented the small but well-armed and additionally by the since 1935 built border wall protected Czechoslovakia a dangerous and ultimately unacceptable back threat in a war against the Western powers. The Nazi propaganda spoke either a French or "Bolshevik" Aircraft carrier in the middle of Europe, with reference to the country's assistance treaties with France and the Soviet Union . The smashing of Czechoslovakia as an independent state was Hitler's goal from the start, and the occupation of the Sudetenland under the pretext of the right to self-determination was only the first step.

French security policy

As a member of the Little Entente and through the Franco-Czechoslovak Treaty of January 24, 1924, Czechoslovakia was part of the French security system, which was supposed to prevent a revision of the Versailles Treaty and in particular an annexation of Austria . The real connection on March 12, 1938 clearly showed the whole problem of this security architecture: France had committed itself to a defensive strategy after the First World War . In the event of a conflict, they wanted to withstand a German attack behind the Maginot Line until all the reservists had been called up and mobilized . Then they wanted to go on the attack and force a two- front war on Germany with the help of France's allies in the east . In May 1935, France and Czechoslovakia had signed assistance pacts with the Soviet Union , but it seemed uncertain whether one could or should rely on Soviet support. In fact, the Soviet Union did not stand by Czechoslovakia during the Sudeten crisis. Whether the reason for this was a "Sovietization of Central Europe" ( Ivan Pfaff ) striven for by Josef Stalin or its "inevitably limited possibilities" (Natalija Gerulajtis) (there was no common border between the two states, so the problem of a right to march through for the Red Army came through Poland or Romania ), is controversial in research. French security policy was therefore dependent on allies in East Central Europe , not least on Czechoslovakia. To protect them and to maintain Austria's independence, however, a professional offensive army would have been necessary, such as General Charles de Gaulle had been calling for since 1934. In addition, France found itself in a government crisis in March 1938: two days before the Wehrmacht invaded Austria, Prime Minister Camille Chautemps resigned, followed by a last attempt at a popular front government for a few weeks . On top of that, on February 20, 1938, the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden , who was increasingly critical of an appeasement policy, was replaced by its staunch supporter, Lord Halifax . A joint Franco-British demarche in Berlin against the Anschluss did not materialize, and each of the two powers submitted its own, ineffective letter of protest.

It was immediately clear what the next goal of German foreign policy would be. The French ambassador in Berlin, André François-Poncet , reported to Paris on March 24, 1938 that the Nazi regime was now determined to find a solution to the Sudeten problem sooner or later. He recommended a double strategy: on the one hand, the Prague government should be urged to compromise on the Sudeten Germans; on the other hand, he recommended a close Anglo-French entente. A meeting of the Comité permanent de la défense nationale chaired by War Minister Édouard Daladier on March 15, 1938 demonstrated the military inferiority of France: The German armed forces comprised 900,000 men, while the French army only 400,000. Chief of Staff Maurice Gamelin came to the conclusion that France could only think of waging a victorious war together with allies. Above all, it is important to have Great Britain and Poland by your side.

The consultations to which Daladier, who had recently become Prime Minister after the failure of the Popular Front, with the new Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet in London on April 28, 1938, turned out to be unsatisfactory. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain refused to give a pledge of assistance in the event of a Franco-German war over the Sudeten question; rather, the Czechoslovak government should be urged jointly to concessions; Hitler did not plan any annexations at all, only an autonomy for the Sudeten Germans within the Czechoslovak state. Daladier and Bonnet agreed, but felt it was essential to prevent Germany from breaking up Czechoslovakia or causing it to disappear if a diplomatic agreement failed. Therefore, it is now important to show firmness together. In view of the inadequate state of British armaments, Chamberlain replied that one could not bluff . Daladier asked in return whether it might not be Hitler who was bluffing. No agreement was reached.

procedure

Hitler's goals and the first escalation into the crisis

On a by hossbach memorandum traditional conference with the heads of the armed forces and the State Department Hitler unfolded November 5, 1937 its long-term plan for a violent expansion of Germany in Europe. His first goals were Austria and Czechoslovakia, which he wanted to incorporate into the German Empire. This should be tackled between 1943 and 1945 at the latest, and under favorable circumstances as early as 1938. In doing so, he insisted that "there is a high probability that England, but probably also France, would have already quietly written off the Czech Republic". He considered intervention by the Soviet Union and Poland unlikely. As a result, in December 1937 the instructions for the "Green Case" (Czechoslovakia), the war planning of the German General Staff , were updated and the possibility of an isolated war of aggression against Czechoslovakia was provided. The developments in Czechoslovakia played into Hitler's hands.

In the autumn of 1937, the leader of the Sudeten German Party, Konrad Henlein, finally turned to the radical line within his party. When Hans Steinacher was replaced as head of the Volksbund for Germanness Abroad on October 19, 1937, Henlein had lost the last moderate supporter in the German Reich. His close confidante and important advisor for the autonomist course of the SdP, Heinz Rutha , was arrested by the Czech police on October 4th on charges of homosexuality and committed suicide on November 5th. With the so-called Teplitz-Schönau incident, relations with the Czechoslovak government finally worsened: on October 17, 1937, after a meeting of the SdP at which Henlein gave a speech, violent clashes with the Czech police broke out there. Karl Hermann Frank , who had beaten police officers, was beaten with a rubber club and arrested. Henlein and the German press used this incident to campaign against Czechoslovakia. After the Czechoslovak Prime Minister Milan Hodža Henlein had signaled some concession on September 16, 1937, the government reacted with a ban on meetings and postponed the local elections. In order to save his own position and the unity of his party, Henlein turned to Hitler on November 19, 1937 and offered him the SdP as a “ fifth column ”. The SdP must "disguise its commitment to National Socialism as a worldview , as a political principle". While they long for "nothing more internally than the incorporation of the Sudeten German area, indeed the entire Bohemian-Moravian-Silesian area into the empire", the party had to advocate the preservation of Czechoslovakia externally. For the American historian Ronald Smelser , this is the beginning of the activity of the radicals in the SdP, which was supposed to turn the Sudeten problem into the Sudeten crisis. According to the German historian Ralf Gebel, Henlein gave up any approach to an independent policy. The following events are “from a Sudeten German perspective already an epilogue to the history of the road to Munich. The further course of the Sudeten crisis was entirely in the hands of Hitler and his opponents on the international stage ”.

On February 20, 1938, Hitler addressed the problem of Germans living outside the Reich, including Austrians and Sudeten Germans, in a Reichstag speech, and assured them that they would support them in asserting their right to self-determination. Two weeks after the annexation of Austria, on March 28th, he invited Henlein to Berlin and advised him to submit unfulfillable demands to the Czechoslovak government regarding the nationality issue: "So we always have to demand so much that we cannot be satisfied."

In addition, on May 30th, Hitler declared in a secret deployment plan: "It is my irrevocable decision to destroy Czechoslovakia in the foreseeable future by military action ." On April 21, 1938, Hitler expelled Colonel General Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the Wehrmacht High Command to prepare a first study for future action against Czechoslovakia. The beginning of the action remained open; a suitable external reason should serve as the trigger.

On April 24, Henlein set up the Karlovy Vary program . This included eight points, including equality, autonomy and reparation for the disadvantages suffered since 1918. Other minorities in Czechoslovakia joined Henlein's demands in relation to their ethnic group in the next two weeks. While Prime Minister Milan Hodža was ready to accommodate this with a draft of a new constitution , the President of the ČSR Edvard Beneš rejected the demands. Henlein then traveled to Great Britain to publicly explain the situation of the Sudeten Germans.

The May Crisis

On May 18, 1938, troop movements of the Wehrmacht in Saxony and Bavaria were reported to the Czechoslovak secret service, which seemed to indicate an impending attack: allegedly nine to twelve divisions had been moved to the border. As a result, the government of Prime Minister Milan Hodža decided on May 20, a partial mobilization : 199,000 men were called up, whereby the Czechoslovak army grew to 383,000 men. This decision sparked hectic activities from various quarters on May 20 and 21, which went down in history as the “May” or “weekend crisis”: The American Ambassador to Paris William C. Bullitt appealed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the Bringing the Sudeten crisis to the International Court of Justice in order to prevent a Soviet expansion of power, which he feared in the event of a German-Czechoslovak war. The German ambassador in Prague Ernst Eisenlohr denied against Foreign Minister Kamil Krofta sharply ( "pure nonsense") the reports of German troop concentrations, like had the Czechoslovak Minister in Berlin, Vojtěch Mastný , listen in the Wilhelmstrasse. The SdP apparently instructed its subdivisions to refrain from any provocation, not to wear uniforms and badges for the time being, and to forego the “ German greeting ”. The funeral of two SdP members who had been shot dead by a guard on the night of the mobilization, whose stop signal they had ignored, was used by the SdP for rallies on May 25th. The dead were declared " martyrs of the National Socialist idea" by SdP officials , and Henlein gave a seditious speech. The British ambassador in Berlin, Nevile Henderson , issued several démarches in threatening tones of caution - unnecessarily, because the whole crisis was based on a false report. There had been no concentration of German troops at all.

It has not yet been possible to determine from whom the false report that triggered the May crisis came from. The Czech-American historian Igor Lukes sees it as professionally made disinformation by a secret service that could have been interested in the outbreak of a German-Czechoslovak war, for example the Soviet Union. The Czech historian Stanislav Kokoška, ​​on the other hand, ruled out that Soviet or German secret services were involved. In his opinion, the decisive report came from a German Social Democrat with informants in Reich territory who had worked for the Czechoslovak intelligence service.

This episode gained significance through the misunderstanding of the world press, which saw it as a victory for Czechoslovakia, Great Britain and France (whose government had been completely passive that weekend). National Socialist Germany had been put in its place by its firmness, and the Czechoslovak mobilization was a "triumph and defeat for Hitler".

Hitler felt provoked and was forced to revise his original intention not to intervene for the time being. On May 28, at a conference with the foreign policy and military leaders of the Reich in Berlin, he expressed his will to "eliminate Czechoslovakia at lightning speed". In the new version of "Fall Grün" on May 30, the procedure was presented in detail. The deadline for completing the preparations was October 1, 1938.

Further development May to August 1938

To prevent France from taking too bold action, the Chamberlain government made it clear in a note to Foreign Minister Bonnet on May 22 that its behavior during the May crisis did not mean a change of policy: “L'Angleterre ne interviendra pas. Que la France soit prudente ”.

The Germans, on the other hand, are betting on an escalation. The Sudeten crisis did not arise from conflicting interests on both sides, but rather, as the German historian Klaus-Jürgen Müller writes, "Hitler consciously unleashed it from May 1938". On June 1, in a meeting with the Hungarian ambassador Döme Sztójay , Hermann Göring suggested that Hungary should also make territorial claims to Czechoslovakia, and on June 17, at a meeting with the Polish ambassador Józef Lipski in Carinhall , he asked Poland to do the same. At the same time, the Polish government began to support the Slovak autonomy movement. Here individual members began to consider Slovakia to be closely aligned with Poland, which the party chairman Hlinka rejected, but he died in August 1938, so that the territorial integrity of the Czechoslovakia was questioned from two sides during the Sudeten crisis.

Maneuvers were held near the Czechoslovak border at the end of June. On July 20, the French Foreign Minister Bonnet openly stated to the Czechoslovak ambassador, Štefan Osuský , that the government in Prague should “under no circumstances” (“en aucun cas”) believe that France would be at war over the Sudeten question. The government of Prime Minister Hodža will continue to be publicly supported, but only to give it the opportunity to reach “a peaceful and honorable solution” with Hitler (“une solution pacifique et honorable”). As a justification, Bonnet referred to the international isolation into which France had fallen: support from the Soviet Union was doubtful or even dangerous, Poland was prevented from intervening by its non-aggression pact with Germany from 1934, the Stresa Front with Italy , which was closed in 1935, had been German since then -Italian friendship treaty of November 1, 1936 lapsed. Therefore only a negotiated solution remains. This position was not discussed with Daladier, but Beneš could not have known, who reacted with horror to the ambassador's report. On the same day, the British Foreign Minister Halifax informed the French that he would ask the government in Prague to accept Lord Runciman's mediation . Great Britain had thus taken on the initiative to solve the Sudeten crisis. France only had a spectator function.

On August 3rd, Lord Runciman began his mediating role between the Sudeten Germans and the Czechoslovak government. It was clear to the British government from the start that the chances of success were slim. Its main goal, however, was to make international public opinion , especially in the USA, aware of the situation in the Czechoslovak Republic and thus also to arouse the interest of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt , with whom Runciman had held trade policy consultations in Washington in January 1937. In his talks in the Czechoslovak Republic, Runciman was emphatically impartial: he came not as an envoy from the London government, but as an independent mediator. He refused a meeting with Hitler, which Foreign Minister Halifax had hoped would be successful. After all, in his talks he achieved that Prime Minister Hodža was now ready to agree to a federalization of the ČSR. If the proposal had been made two years in advance, it might well have pacified relations between Czechs, Slovaks and Sudeten Germans, but not least because Hitler instructed Henlein to remain firm, Runciman's negotiations led to nothing. When Chamberlain was already in Berchtesgaden to find a personal solution with Hitler after the crisis escalated again, he had Runciman ordered back to London by telephone on September 16. The report, which he submitted to the British government on September 21, was subsequently adapted to Chamberlain's negotiating position.

The crisis escalated again in September 1938

While Runciman's negotiations were still in progress, on September 3, Hitler gave the army orders to be ready for an attack on Czechoslovakia after the 27th of the month. On September 7, the proposed Times in an editorial for the first time the " separation of the seam of the foreign populations" before, "which border the nation with which they are connected stammlich". On September 10th, in a speech in Nuremberg with a view to the Sudeten question , Göring described the situation as unbearable, that a cultured people was constantly being oppressed and harassed. On September 11th, the British Prime Minister Chamberlain replied in a press conference that the negotiations - he meant Runciman's attempts at mediation - had already progressed so far that anyone looking for a military solution would be condemned by the world public.

People were eagerly awaiting Hitler's speech at the end of the Nazi party rally on September 12th. In an extremely aggressive speech, he described the goals of the Prague government as terrorist and criminal and condemned the frivolous willingness to go to war of his opponents. Under no circumstances would he be willing to watch a further repression of the Germans in Czechoslovakia. He also referred to the transfer of the imperial regalia from Vienna to Nuremberg, which he had initiated shortly before. The world should remember "that over half a millennium before the discovery of the New World a huge Germanic-German empire already existed". He then no longer had to explicitly state that Bohemia and Moravia were part of this empire. The war now seemed imminent. As a result of this speech, a revolt broke out in the Sudeten region with numerous victims. According to Runciman's colleague Frank Ashton-Gwatkin, the unrest that emanated from the Sudeten German side and Hitler's speech were the reason why his mission failed. Nevertheless, the unrest was not excessive enough to justify immediate intervention by the Wehrmacht.

On September 13, Prime Minister Chamberlain issued a message declaring his readiness to meet Hitler immediately. On September 15th he arrived at the Berghof . Chamberlain was at least ready to accept a revision of the Czechoslovak border, but that was not enough for his host: he threatened war. Chamberlain then asked Hitler, who was foaming with rage, why he would have agreed to a conversation if he only wanted war, and indicated that he wanted to leave. Thereupon Hitler gave in: he demanded the separation of the Czechoslovakian territories with a predominantly German-speaking population and invoked the peoples' right to self-determination . Chamberlain agreed to discuss this with his cabinet if Hitler would refrain from using violence against the ČSR until another meeting. Hitler was dissatisfied, but could hardly refuse Chamberlain's offer, which responded to all of his outward demands. After a conversation with him on September 18, Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary that “there is not much that can be done about it at the moment. But even so, Czechoslovakia will then dissolve in favor. And in an emergency, we then have a much better military position ”. Obviously Hitler did not intend to be content with the Sudetenland.

While there were reports of Czech atrocities in the German press, Hitler had Henlein, who fled to Germany, set up the Sudeten German Freikorps . This occupied the cities of Eger and Asch . The British cabinet approved Chamberlain's plan, as did the French government. On September 21, they succeeded in getting Czechoslovakia to consent to ceding areas with over 50 percent of the German population to Germany. The day before, the ambassadors Léopold Victor de Lacroix and Basil Cochrane Newton had made it clear to Beneš in a “threatening demarche ” that his country could not count on any military support in the event of a refusal. After some hesitation, Beneš gave in to this “Franco-British ultimatum ”. In a public statement, the Czechoslovak government referred to the "strong pressure" that had been exerted on it and attached particular importance to the guarantee of its national territory , as Chamberlain and Daladier had promised without obligation. Great Britain and France should only allow an invasion of the areas to be ceded by the Wehrmacht if the new border has been determined in detail by an international commission.

From September 22nd to 24th Chamberlain negotiated again with Hitler at the Rheinhotel Dreesen in Godesberg . He brought the approval of Great Britain, France and Czechoslovakia to the cession of the Sudetenland. An international guarantee should guarantee the independence of Czechoslovakia. Hitler rejected this solution, referring to the alleged acts of violence in recent times against the ethnic German population as well as to Hungarian and Polish territorial demands that the ČSR also had to fulfill. In a memorandum he finally called for a solution by October 1st. Chamberlain was at least ready to pass these new demands on to the Czechoslovak government. During the final talks, the news of the general Czechoslovak mobilization of September 23, 1938 arrived: No further concessions from the Prague government were to be expected.

On September 25, the British cabinet rejected the new demands and promised the French government support in the event of an armed conflict with Germany. On September 26, France ordered partial mobilization. Chamberlain sent his advisor Horace Wilson to Berlin to prevent the outbreak of war. Hitler declared that he would only withhold his divisions if the Godesberg Memorandum had been accepted by the Prague government by 2 p.m. on September 28. In a speech in the Berlin Sportpalast on September 26th, he openly threatened the CSR with war if the German demands were not met. At the same time he named the cession of the Sudeten German territories to the Reich for the first time expressly as his last territorial revision demand: “We don't want any Czechs”. The frenetic jubilation with which the audience responded to this speech - Goebbels had invented the call “Führer befiehl, we follow!” For this evening - did not correspond to the mood of the German population: here they continued to hope that peace could be preserved become.

Nevertheless, on September 27, Yugoslavia , Romania and the USA issued warnings for the opposing side. 19 divisions of the Wehrmacht were mobilized. In the evening Hitler dictated a letter to Chamberlain for Horace Wilson, which contained a formal guarantee for the existence of Czechoslovakia.

The Munich Conference

Finally, Chamberlain and President Roosevelt appealed to the fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to persuade Hitler to postpone mobilization and agree to a conference. On September 28, Mussolini was able to convince Hitler of the necessity of a four-power conference. The next day he was received by Hitler in Kufstein , and the two dictators traveled to Munich together. They did not have to discuss the course of the conference in advance, because Ambassador Bernardo Attolico had already received instructions from the Foreign Office about the German wishes.

From September 29th a conference of the heads of government of France (Daladier), Great Britain (Chamberlain), Italy (Mussolini) and Germany (Hitler) met in Munich . The next day the Munich Agreement was concluded, with which the representatives of France, Great Britain and Italy gave their consent to the annexation of the entire Sudetenland to the German Empire . Czechoslovakia was promised an international guarantee for the rest of its territory. The decisions were dictated to her and marked the end of the First Republic . On October 1st, German troops occupied the so-called Sudetenland. Polish troops occupied the Olsa area between October 2 and 11, 1938 .

Government representatives of Czechoslovakia were not invited. Because of this and because of the massive pressure with which they had been previously extorted consent, the result of the Munich Conference in the scientific literature is sometimes referred to as " dictation referred Munich" and "Munich dictate".

consequences

Consequences for international politics

As a result of the Munich Agreement, the outbreak of a European war could still be prevented in autumn 1938. France saw itself militarily unable and politically unwilling to fulfill its alliance obligations with Czechoslovakia. The governments of France and Great Britain drew the conclusion from Hitler's military threats that they should step up their armaments efforts immediately. Furthermore, they secured the right to mutual consultations on issues of international security in bilateral agreements with the German Reich.

Another consequence was a revision of the policy of the USSR. The Soviet Union - although involved in the system of collective security - was ignored by the Western powers during the Sudeten crisis, but also showed little commitment to the defense of Czechoslovakia. Foreign Minister Litvinov criticized the attitude of the Western powers in a speech in Leningrad at the end of June, but rejected any responsibility on the part of the Soviet government for the further course of events. As a result, Stalin changed his policy, which a year later led to the Hitler-Stalin Pact .

After the Munich Agreement, the question of the Polish and Hungarian territorial claims to the Czechoslovak state remained open. Poland was able to enforce part of its claims after the Czechoslovakian submission to an ultimatum by occupying the Olsa area from October 2nd. In the further course Poland made several new demands on Czechoslovakia. With regard to Hungary, Great Britain and France agreed to German-Italian arbitration, which resulted in the First Vienna Award of November 2, 1938. In this, parts of southern Slovakia and Carpathian Ukraine with a predominantly Hungarian population were awarded to Hungary . The aim of the German and Hungarian leadership remained secretly the dissolution of the Czechoslovak state.

Consequences for Czechoslovakia

In Czechoslovakia, the crisis led to the resignation of President Beneš on October 4th (he soon went into exile in London ). A few days later, Slovakia and the Carpathian Ukraine were granted autonomous status within the now renamed Czecho-Slovak Republic . The remaining Czechoslovak state dissolved in March 1939, not least because of military threats from neighboring Germany, Hungary and Poland. On March 14, Slovakia declared itself an independent republic under German protection. One day later, their protection was the Czechoslovak Wall bared by the Nazi regime so dubbed "rump Czechoslovakia" in the wake of the annexation of the Czech Republic occupied by Wehrmacht troops and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia international law incorporated into the Reich.

Consequences in the German Empire

In 1937 and 1938 the tension between the NSDAP and parts of the Wehrmacht leadership grew . Among other things, this was due to Hitler's announcement to smash the ČSR and the reorganization of the top Wehrmacht as a result of the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis, and it increased dramatically during the Sudeten crisis. Military circles under the leadership of the Army Chief of Staff Ludwig Beck were convinced of the hopelessness of a war against the Western powers. The Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Walther von Brauchitsch, was of this conviction, but felt himself bound by his oath of allegiance to Hitler and remained passive. Beck, disappointed, announced his resignation on August 18, 1938, a step that, contrary to what he had hoped, other leading military officials did not follow suit. The other conspirators, including Hans Bernd Gisevius , Hans Oster and Erwin von Witzleben , wanted active resistance afford and Hitler kill if he would give the order to attack. Beck's successor, Franz Halder, was also in the know, but refused to work because he feared civil war if the attack were successful . After the Munich results became known, the putsch plans became obsolete anyway: Halder is said to have exclaimed desperately: “What else should we do? He succeeds in everything! ”In fact, Hitler now achieved“ an almost legendary reputation ”, in the eyes of the population he was considered a political genius and a peacekeeper - even though in truth he had only very reluctantly agreed to a conference and was furious that she had taken away the opportunity to wage war.

Source collections

  • Kurt Rabl: New documents on the Sudeten crisis in 1938. In: Bohemia . Vol. 1, 1960, No. 1, pp. 312-362, doi : 10.18447 / BoZ-1960-2819 .
  • Václav Král (Ed.): The Munich Agreement 1938. Czechoslovak diplomatic documents 1937–1939. Prague 1968.
  • Fritz Peter Habel (ed.): Documents on the Sudeten question. Unfinished business. 5th, completely revised and supplemented edition, Langen Müller, Munich [u. a.] 2003, ISBN 3-7844-2691-3 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Occupation of the Sudetenland  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard J. Evans : The Third Reich. Volume 2: dictatorship . DVA, Munich 2006, volume 2, p. 807.
  2. ↑ Detlef Brandes : Sudetendeutsche , in: Stefan Aust, Stephan Burgdorff (ed.): The flight. About the expulsion from the east. Licensed edition for the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 2005, ISBN 3-89331-533-0 , p. 120.
  3. ^ Gotthold Rhode : Czechoslovakia from independence to the “Prague Spring” (1918–1968) . In: Theodor Schieder (ed.): Handbook of European History, Vol. 7: Europe in the Age of World Powers . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1979, 2nd volume, p. 939.
  4. ↑ Jean Doise and Maurice Vaïsse: Diplomacy et outil militaire (1871-1991). Éditions du Seuil, Paris 1992, pp. 341–344 and 371 ff.
  5. ↑ Ivan Pfaff: Stalin's Strategy of the Sovietization of Central Europe 1935-1938. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 38, Heft 4 (1990), p. 560 ( online , accessed on June 5, 2017); Eckhard Hübner: New Light on Soviet Foreign Policy Before World War II? On the essay by Ivan Pfaff “Stalin's Strategy of the Sovietization of Central Europe 1935–1938. The example of Czechoslovakia ”. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 40, Heft 1 (1990), pp. 88 ff. ( Online , accessed on June 5, 2017); Natalija Gerulajtis: Introduction: Treaty of Mutual Assistance between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Czechoslovak Republic, May 16, 1935 , 1000dokumente.de, accessed June 5, 2017.
  6. ↑ Jean Doise and Maurice Vaïsse: Diplomacy et outil militaire (1871-1991). Éditions du Seuil, Paris 1992, pp. 375-378.
  7. ^ Jean-Baptiste Duroselle : La décadence (1932–1939) , Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1979, pp. 325–329.
  8. ^ Claus W. Schäfer: André François-Poncet as ambassador in Berlin (1931–1938) . Oldenbourg, Munich 2004, p. 295.
  9. ^ Jean-Baptiste Duroselle: La décadence (1932–1939) , Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1979, p. 330.
  10. ↑ Jean-Baptiste Duroselle: La décadence (1932–1939) , Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1979, pp. 225 ff.
  11. ^ Richard J. Evans: The Third Reich. Vol. II / 2: Dictatorship. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2006, p. 776 f .; Andreas Krämer: Hitler's war course, appeasement and the “May crisis” in 1938. Decision-making hour in the run-up to the “Munich Agreement” and the Second World War. Oldenbourg, Munich 2014 (also Diss., Univ. Würzburg, 2014), pp. 42–47, cited above. P. 43.
  12. ↑ Ronald Smelser: The Sudeten Problem and the Third Reich 1933-1938. From national politics to national socialist foreign policy (=  publications of the Collegium Carolinum. Volume 36). Oldenbourg, Munich 1980, pp. 180-185; Ralf Gebel: "Heim ins Reich!": Konrad Henlein and the Reichsgau Sudetenland (1938–1945) (=  publications of the Collegium Carolinum. Volume 83), 2nd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2000, p. 54 f .; Detlef Brandes: Die Sudetendeutschen in the crisis year 1938 (=  publications of the Collegium Carolinum. Volume 107), 2nd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2010, pp. 47-50, quoted. P. 50.
  13. ↑ Ronald Smelser: The Sudeten Problem and the Third Reich 1933-1938. From national politics to national socialist foreign policy (=  publications of the Collegium Carolinum. Volume 36). Oldenbourg, Munich 1980, p. 180.
  14. ↑ Ralf Gebel: "Heim ins Reich!": Konrad Henlein and the Reichsgau Sudetenland (1938–1945) (=  publications of the Collegium Carolinum. Volume 83), 2nd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2000, p. 55 f.
  15. ↑ Quoted from Helmuth G. Rönnefarth: The Sudeten Crisis in International Politics: Origin - Course - Impact. 2 vol., Steiner, Wiesbaden 1961, vol. 1, p. 219.
  16. ↑ Klaus Sator: The "Munich Agreement" of 1938 and the smashing of Czechoslovakia. ( Memento of October 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: Scientific Services of the German Bundestag , Current Term No. 30/2013, September 27, 2013 (PDF; 67 kB).
  17. ^ Nazi archives: Documents on National Socialism: "Study Green" of April 22, 1938 ; Klaus Hildebrand : The past realm. German foreign policy from Bismarck to Hitler . Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-486-58605-3 , p. 651 (accessed from De Gruyter Online).
  18. ^ Igor Lukes: The Czechoslovak Partial Mobilization in May 1938: A Mystery (almost) Solved . In: Journal of Contemporary History 31, Issue 4 (1996), pp. 701 f.
  19. ↑ Ivan Pfaff: Stalin's Strategy of the Sovietization of Central Europe 1935-1938. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 38, Heft 4 (1990), pp. 560 ff. ( Online , accessed on June 5, 2017).
  20. ^ Igor Lukes: The Czechoslovak Partial Mobilization in May 1938: A Mystery (almost) Solved . In: Journal of Contemporary History 31, Issue 4 (1996), p. 703 f.
  21. ↑ Detlef Brandes: The Sudeten Germans in the crisis year 1938 . 2nd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2010, pp. 155-158, cited above. P. 158.
  22. ^ Jean-Baptiste Duroselle: La décadence (1932–1939) , Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1979, p. 338; Klaus Hildebrand: The Third Reich (=  Oldenbourg floor plan of history , Bd. 17). Oldenbourg, Munich 1991, p. 33.
  23. ^ Igor Lukes: The Czechoslovak Partial Mobilization in May 1938: A Mystery (almost) Solved . In: Journal of Contemporary History 31, Issue 4 (1996), p. 712 ff.
  24. ↑ Andreas Krämer: Hitler's War Course, Appeasement and the “May Crisis” 1938. Decision hour in the run-up to the “Munich Agreement” and the Second World War . Oldenbourg, Munich 2014, p. 19.
  25. ↑ bořivoj čelovský : The Munich Agreement in 1938. German publishing house, Stuttgart 1958, p 215, quoted by Rainer A. Blasius : For Greater Germany - against the big war. State Secretary Ernst Frhr. von Weizsäcker in the crises around Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1938/39. Böhlau, Cologne / Vienna 1981, p. 40; Jean-Baptiste Duroselle: La décadence (1932–1939) , Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1979, p. 338.
  26. ^ Nazi archives: Documents on National Socialism: "Green Instructions" from May 20, 1938 .
  27. ^ National Socialist Archives: Documents on National Socialism: "Study Green" of May 30, 1938 ; Klaus Hildebrand: The past realm. German foreign policy from Bismarck to Hitler . Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, p. 653 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  28. ^ Rainer A. Blasius: For Greater Germany - against the great war. State Secretary Ernst Frhr. von Weizsäcker in the crises around Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1938/39. Böhlau, Cologne / Vienna 1981, p. 40 f.
  29. ↑ “England will not intervene. May France be careful. ”Jean-Baptiste Duroselle: La décadence (1932–1939) , Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1979, pp. 338 f.
  30. ^ Klaus-Jürgen Müller: Outbreak of war in 1939. The will to war and the crisis of the international system. In: Bernd Wegner (Ed.): How wars arise. On the historical background of conflicts between states . Schöningh, Paderborn 2000, p. 270.
  31. ↑ This and the following statements up to the Munich Conference are largely based on Joachim C. Fest : Hitler. Second volume: Der Führer (=  Ullstein book. Volume 3274). Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main [a. a.] 1976, ISBN 3-548-03274-5 .
  32. ↑ a b c d Gotthold Rhode: Czechoslovakia from independence to the “Prague Spring” (1918–1968) . In: Theodor Schieder (ed.): Handbook of European History, Vol. 7: Europe in the Age of World Powers . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1979, 2nd volume, p. 940.
  33. ^ Jean-Baptiste Duroselle: La décadence (1932–1939) , Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1979, p. 334 f. and 339 f.
  34. ↑ Tony McCulloch: Franklin Roosevelt and the Runciman Mission to Czechoslovakia, 1938. A new perspective on Anglo-American relations in the era of appeasement . In: Journal of Transatlantic Studies 1: 2 (2008), pp. 152-165.
  35. ^ Johann Wolfgang Brügel: The Runciman Report. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 26, Heft 4 (1978), p. 652 ( online , accessed on January 6, 2019); see. Runciman report on the private website zwittau.de, accessed on January 6, 2019.
  36. ↑ Manfred Messerschmidt : Foreign policy and war preparations. In: Wilhelm Deist , Manfred Messerschmidt, Hans-Erich Volkmann and Wolfram Wette: The German Reich and the Second World War , Vol. 1: Causes and requirements of German war policy , ed. v. Military History Research Office , DVA, Stuttgart 1979, p. 651.
  37. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : The long way to the west . German history II. From the “Third Reich” to reunification. CH Beck, Munich 2000, p. 58 f.
  38. ^ René Küpper: Karl Hermann Frank (1898-1946). Political biography of a Sudeten German National Socialist . Oldenbourg, Munich 2010, p. 113.
  39. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: The long way to the west. German history II. From the “Third Reich” to reunification. CH Beck, Munich 2000, p. 59; Richard J. Evans: The Third Reich. Vol. II / 2: Dictatorship. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2006, p. 814.
  40. ↑ Angela Hermann: The way to the war 1938/39. Source-critical studies on the diaries of Joseph Goebbels . Oldenbourg, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-486-71171-4 , p. 228 f. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  41. ^ Jean-Baptiste Duroselle: La décadence (1932–1939). Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1979, p. 348 ff.
  42. ^ Yvon Lacaze: France and the Munich Crisis. In: Robert Boyce (Ed.): French Foreign and Defense Policy, 1918–1940. The Decline and Fall of a Great Power. Routledge, London / New York 2005, p. 218.
  43. ↑ Eckart Thurich: Difficult neighborhoods. Germans and Poles, Germans and Czechs in the 20th century. A representation in documents. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart / Berlin / Cologne 1990, p. 63.
  44. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: The long way to the west. German history II. From the “Third Reich” to reunification. CH Beck, Munich 2000, p. 59; Richard J. Evans: The Third Reich. Vol. II / 2: Dictatorship. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2006, p. 814 f.
  45. ↑ We don't want any Czechs! , Hitler speech of September 26, 1938 ; Richard J. Evans: The Third Reich. Vol. II / 2: Dictatorship. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2006, p. 815.
  46. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: The long way to the west. German history II. From the “Third Reich” to reunification. CH Beck, Munich 2000, p. 60; Henning Köhler : Germany on the way to itself. A story of the century . Hohenheim-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, p. 358 f.
  47. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: The long way to the west. German history II. From the “Third Reich” to reunification. CH Beck, Munich 2000, p. 60.
  48. ↑ Angela Hermann: The way to the war 1938/39. Source-critical studies on the diaries of Joseph Goebbels . Oldenbourg, Munich 2011, p. 286 f. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  49. ↑ Karsten Krieger: Munich Agreement. In: Wolfgang Benz , Hermann Graml and Hermann Weiß (eds.): Encyclopedia of National Socialism . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1997, p. 590.
  50. ^ Stefan Dolezel: Czechoslovakia - nationality problems in the force field of the Nazi expansion policy. In: Erhard Forndran , Frank Golczewski and Dieter Riesenberger : (Eds.): Domestic and foreign policy under National Socialist threat. Determinants of International Relations in Historical Case Studies . Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1977, p. 270; Igor Lukes: From the Munich Agreement to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 41 (1993), issue 3, p. 345; Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler. The Diplomacy of Edvard Beneš in the 1930s . Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 1996, pp. 255 f .; Ferdinand Seibt : Germans, Czechs, Sudeten Germans (=  publications of the Collegium Carolinum , vol. 100). Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, p. 283; Detlef Brandes, Dušan Kováč and Jiří Pešek (eds.): Turning points in the relations between Germans, Czechs and Slovaks 1848–1989 . Klartext, Essen 2007, pp. 173 and 199.
  51. ^ Christian Hartmann : Halder. Chief of Staff of Hitler 1938–1942. Schöningh, Paderborn 1991, p. 51 ff., 57 f. and 99 ff .; Klaus Hildebrand: The past realm. German foreign policy from Bismarck to Hitler . Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, p. 653 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  52. ^ Christian Hartmann: Halder. Chief of Staff of Hitler 1938–1942. Schöningh, Paderborn 1991, pp. 101-113 (here the quote).
  53. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wehler : Deutsche Gesellschaftgeschichte , Vol. 4: From the beginning of the First World War to the founding of the two German states 1914–1949. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 651.
  54. ↑ Brandes remains, according to Peter Haslinger, "[s] strongly arrested in the field of political and local history"; ders .: Nation and Territory in the Czech Political Discourse 1880–1938 (=  publications of the Collegium Carolinum. Volume 117). Oldenbourg, Munich 2010, p. 38, fn. 130.
  55. ↑ Jörg K. Hoensch certifies Rönnefarth's study “national-conservative spirit of justification”. See Jörg Osterloh: National Socialist Persecution of Jews in the Reichsgau Sudetenland 1938–1945 (=  publications of the Collegium Carolinum. Volume 105). Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, p. 21, fn. 48.