The Accords of Munich were signed between the Germany, the France, the Great Britain and the Italy represented respectively by Adolf Hitler, Edouard Daladier, Neville Chamberlain, and Benito Mussolini which had been made in intermediary, at the conclusion of the conference of Munich, behavior of the 29 to the September 30th 1938 in the absence of the Czechoslovakian president Edvard Beneš, which was not invited. They put an end to the crisis of Sudètes and indirectly seal the death of the Czechoslovakia like independent State.
From Versailles to Munich
Even if one refers commonly to the Traité of Versailles, it is the treated Saint-Germain-in-Bush hammer which ratifies a de facto situation since November 1918 when the Czechoslovakian republic was proclaimed. It makes right to the claim of the Czech and the Slovaques to obtain a country on a national basis, according to the principle of Woodrow Wilson, the “ right of the people to lay out of themselves ”. This treaty passes a little quickly on the fact that the territories of the Bohemia, Moravie, Slovakia, Ruthénie and Silesia include minorities, even sometimes majorities (Germans of the Sudètes, Hungarians in the south of Slovakia, Poles in Silesia). Moreover, the Czechoslovakian “people” are a largely artificial construction: formerly plain within the Large-Moravie , the two people are for a long time separate:
- the Slovak ones have just passed nearly one millenium under the Hungarian yoke;
- the Czechs spent as much time in the cultural and political sphere German (the kings of Bohemia are vassal then prince-voters of the Holy roman Empire before the crown does not pass to the house of Austria).
The charts presented by the Czechoslovakian ones to Saint-Germain minimize, even overlook, the existence of the minorities. They had to defend a State-nation where the Czechs and the Slovak ones only represent hardly more than 50% of the population at the sides of the Hungarians, of the Germans (Sudètes), of the germanized Jews, the Poles, Ruthènes, Roms inhabitants of a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic ex-empire.
From one imperialism to another or Slavic revenge
Left the Austro-Hungarian bosom, the Czechs adopt the behavior of their former Masters: expulsion of the Germans of the key administrative stations to the profit of the Czechs in Bohemia but also as Slovakia where one missed Slavic executives to replace the former Hungarian or Austrian Masters. And if the treaty of Saint-Germain-in-Bush hammer guaranteed a referendum of determination of the autonomy of Slovak in the ten years afterwards, this one never took place. One can argue that the Crise of 1929 and the rise of the Nazisme changed gives it, one can as think as the Czechs adopted a behavior imperialist against the Germans and to the Hungarians, but also of the Slovak ones which had to battle firm thereafter to obtain a recognition of their national specificity within the Czechoslovakian Federal republic, then to carry out the “war of the hyphen” (which aimed at imposing the recognition of the two nations by the writing of the name of the country in Czechoslovakia.
The crisis of Sudètes
In 1918, the deputies with the Imperial Council representing the German of Sudètes refuse adhesion at the Czechoslovakian State lately created, require the fastening of their areas at the Austrian German State and establish four regional governments:
- Böhmerwaldgau - in the south of Bohemia asking its fastening the Kreis of Oberösterreich.
- Deutschböhmen - in the North-West of Bohemia
- Sudetenland - in Moravie of north and Austrian Silesia
- Südmähren - in Moravie of the south asking its fastening the Kreis of Niederösterreich.
The opposition between the Germans and the Czechs intensifies throughout the years 1930. The German minority (majority in the areas concerned), taken along by its political leader Nazi Konrad Henlein amplifies its requirements and the crisis bursts following the Anschluss of Austria and Reich in 1938. It is then obvious that the next requirement of Hitler will be the reunification with the Sudètes.
The conference of Munich
Participants
- Daladier (France)
- Chamberlain (Great Britain)
- Hitler (Germany)
- Mussolini (Italy)
France has a treaty of alliance with Czechoslovakia, but is not ready for the war. France of Daladier is the day before elections, situation unfavorable to an military operation of scale, and she does not wish to enter in war without the United Kingdom. Hitler largely over-estimated the extent of German rearmament and pushes with the conflict, slowed down in that by Mussolini, reticent him also with a European conflict and which pushes it to negotiate within a conference. It is held in Munich in September 1938.
France gives up Czechoslovakia with which it had made from the agreements to guarantee its borders. In France, the agreements of Munich make consensus. The majority of the politicians are " of Munich " , " antimunichois " are dispersed on the political chessboard. The moderate right-hand side (except a deputy Henry de Kérillis) and the left (SFIO and radicals) approve (except Charles Bouhet appointed SFIO of Gold Coast) the signature by the radical socialist Edouard Daladier (President of the Council). Only the Communists vote against the ratification of the agreements at the assembly, which will cause the official end of the Popular front (which in the facts did not exist already any more): Daladier breaks with the Communists.
However, of its return in France, Daladier thought of being hooted to have yielded to Hitler, the agreements of Munich yielding to the Nazis Czechoslovakia without almost anything to require in exchange if not of vague promises of peace. But at its exit of the plane bringing back it towards Paris, Daladier is highly acclaimed, with its great surprise, to have saved peace.
In England, Chamberlain is accommodated as hero with his descent of plane to the return of Munich (it is even called " the peacemaker" =le maker of peace), the public opinions are aware that one has just come very close to major conflict, are relieved and grateful of these peace agreements, even if they are only one loose and dilatory compromise.
The agreements envisage the evacuation of the territory of the Sudètes by the Czechs before the October 10th 1938 and its progressive occupation by the German troops and the retrocession of part of the Silesia to the Poland (906 km ² - 258.000 inhabitants).
In addition to these agreements, Chamberlain sets out again with an additional resolution between the United Kingdom and Germany urging the parts to negotiate in a peaceful way their future disagreements. It is this document which one sees Chamberlain holding up on his arrival in London at the time of the triumphal reception which was made to him.
The Czechoslovakian government capitulates the September 30th 1938 and is subjected under the terms of the agreements of Munich. President Benes resigns on October 5th.
This hard crisis made it possible the democratic governments to better take the measurement of the danger represented by Adolf Hitler.
Winston Churchill will declare after the Agreements: “England had the choice between dishonor and the war. It chose dishonor, and it will have the war. ”.
Consequences
Towards the war
In preparation of a confrontation that each and everyone thought inevitable, the European powers had put their armies on the war footing for the first time since the First World War. If an agreement were found putting a temporary term at the sudète question, and the avoided war, it is nevertheless clear that the worst is to be come. France amends its law of military programming then in order to reinforce its equipment.The USSR for its part is large absent from these agreements between the European great powers. Stalin notes that England and France are ready to sacrifice one their allies to the requirements Nazis and fears that they do not make in the same way towards the USSR in the future, allowing the Communists and the Nazis to clash for then securing an easy victory over the two totalitarian modes. Stalin also realizes that neither Poland, neither Romania are ready to accept the passage of Soviet troops on their ground, nor even the overflight of the Russian planes, to come if required helps some with the Czechoslovakian ones. This situation will influence the signature of the Pacte germano-Soviet in August 1939.
Czechoslovakia loses especially its military defenses. The equivalent of the Line Maginot having been built including one great part with the margins sudètes of the country, it is found from now on with the hands of Reich. Without this line of defense, the independence of the country is more theoretical than real; it depends entirely on goodwill Nazi and the western powers which guaranteed its borders during the agreements of Munich. In March 1939, the armies of Reich, violating deliberately the agreements make six months front in Munich, invade and occupy the remainder of Bohemia and Moravie (and establish a protectorate there) whereas Slovakia becomes a State " indépendant" , controlled by German Reich, under the crook of Mgr Tiso which is hung by the Slovak ones for high treason the shortly after the Second world war. England and France begin the mobilization of their troops even if no concrete action is taken then. It is the invasion of Poland by Hitler which marks the beginning of the Second world war.
The conference of Potsdam and the Beneš Decrees
Often associated with the Decrees Beneš, expulsion and the " relocation" Germans of Sudètes is a decision of the Conférence of Potsdam in 1945, which ordered the transfer of a few 11 million Germans of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary.Czechoslovakia thus expels, between 1945 and 1947, three million its German nationals, all suspected of having supported the Nazi regime or the German party pro-Nazi of Konrad Heinlein - except for the combatants anti-nazis and of the people made essential from their qualifications (either 250.000 people and nearly 10% of the total).
The goods of these Germans are confiscated by the Beneš decrees (name of the president in exile then interim Edvard Beneš), and these deposed citizens of their Czechoslovakian nationality.
These decrees had, a long time even after the war, a certain influence on the relations between the Czech Republic and its neighbors Austrian and German who, although their government respective consider the closed question, remained are subjected to the pressures of associations of moved (especially in Bavaria) which asserted the revocation of these decrees. The ageing and the progressive disappearance of the people thus expelled and the entry of the Czech Republic in the European Union made moreover these claims obsolete,
After the Velvet Revolution
The German question remains extreme in Czechoslovakia. After the Revolution of Velvet and the fall of the Communist regime arises the difficulty of the restitution (or the privatization via a distribution containing coupons) of the goods in possession of the State. It is not innocent to note only the logic which applies then is that of restitution of the goods confiscated after the communist putsch of February 1948, attempting to repair expropriations of the Communist regime and him only and not those of the democratic regime of Beneš which had confiscated the German goods (but also those of the Catholic church), nor those of the Nazi regime which had, between 1939 and 1945, despoiled their properties of the Czechoslovakian Jews.The sudète question remains still extreme in 2005 at the time of the entry of the country in the European Union since it is undoubtedly with this question at the head that the Czech government negotiates an exemption with the European principles of free market and interdict for one ten years additional period the purchase of land goods by European citizens, fearing that exiled the sudètes can return in mass and repurchase the family goods in areas weakened by the economic transition and with the devalued land prices.
The text of the agreements of Munich
Agreement concluded in Munich for the payment from the germano-Czechoslovakian conflict.
(On September 29th, 1938, between Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy.)
Four powers: Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, taking account of arrangement already carried out in theory for the transfer in Germany of the territories of the Germans of Sudètes, are agreed following provisions and conditions regulating the aforementioned transfer, and of measurements which it comprises. Each one of them, by this agreement, is committed achieving necessary steps to ensure the execution of it:
1. The evacuation will begin on October 1st.
2. The United Kingdom, France and Italy are appropriate that the evacuation of the territory in question will have to be completed on October 10th, without none the existing installations being destroyed. The Czechoslovakian government will have the responsibility to carry out this evacuation without it resulting any damage with the known as installations from it.
3. The conditions of this evacuation will be given in detail by an international commission, made up representatives of Germany, of the United Kingdom, France, of Italy and Czechoslovakia.
4. The progressive occupation by the troops of Reich of the territories with German prevalence will begin on October 1st. The four zones indicated on the chart attached will be occupied by the German troops in the following order:
- zone 1, October 1st, th and 2nd;
- zone 2, October 2nd and 3rd;
- zone 3, October 3rd, 4th and 5th;
- zone 4, October 6th and 7th.
The other territories with German preponderance will be determined by the international commission and will be occupied by the German troops from here at October 10th.
5. The international commission mentioned in paragraph 3 will determine the territories where must be carried out a plebiscite.
These territories will be occupied by international quotas until the completion of the Plébiscite. This commission will also fix the conditions under which the plebiscite must be instituted, by taking for base the conditions of the plebiscite of the Saar. It will fix, moreover, for the opening of the plebiscite, a date which could not be posterior at the end of November.
6. The final fixing of the borders will be established by the international commission. This commission will be competent to recommend to the four powers: Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, in certain exceptional cases, of the modifications of range restricted with the determination, strictly ethnological, of the transferable zones without plebiscite.
7. II will exist a right of option allowing to be included in the transferred territories or to be excluded about it.
This option will be exerted within six month starting from the date of this agreement. A germano-Czechoslovakian commission will fix the detail of this option, will examine the means of facilitating the exchanges of populations and will settle the questions of principle which the aforementioned exchanges will raise.
8. The Czechoslovakian government will release, within four week starting from the conclusion of this agreement, all the Germans of Sudètes of the military formations or police force to which they belong, insofar as they wish this release.
Within the same time, the Czechoslovakian government will release the German prisoners of Sudètes who achieve sorrows for political offenses.
Munich, on September 29th, 1938.
The chancellor of Reich,
Adolf Hitler.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain,
Neville Chamberlain.
The president of the French Council,
Edouard Daladier.
The chief of the Italian government,
Benito Mussolini.
Appendices of the agreement
Appendix first
The government of Its Majesty in the United Kingdom and the French government concluded the agreement above, being of course that they maintain the offer contained in paragraph 6 of the Franco-British proposals of September 19th, 1938, relating to an international guarantee of the new borders of the Czechoslovakian State against any aggression not caused.
When the question of the minorities Polish and Hungarian woman in Czechoslovakia is settled, Germany and Italy, for their part, will also give a guarantee to Czechoslovakia.
Appendix II
The chiefs of the governments of the four powers declare that the problem of the minorities Polish and Hungarian woman in Czechoslovakia, if it is not regulated in the three months by an agreement between the interested governments, will be the subject of another meeting of the chiefs of the governments of the four powers assembled today.
Appendix III
All the questions which could be born from the transfer of the territory sudète will be regarded as spring of the international commission.
Appendix IV
The four chiefs of the governments joined together here are of agreement so that the international commission envisaged with the agreement in date of this day is made up of the Secretary of State to the Office of the foreign affairs, the three ambassadors accredited in Berlin, and of a member to be named by the Czechoslovakian government.
(Subject to translation conforms).
Note
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