"I brought you eternal peace!" "Peace for an entire generation": The West hypnotized itself and got a disaster
Maxim Sokolov
Eighty years ago, on September 30, 1938, in Munich, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier signed an agreement according to which the Czechoslovakian lands along the German border ceded to the Reich from October 1. The Czechoslovakian representative was admitted into the company of serious politicians only at the time of signing the verdict on his country (although negotiations had been going on since September 28 - but without him) and only as an observer of the process of signing the signatures.
Returning to London, Chamberlain showed the document to the public and said: “I have brought you peace for a whole generation.” Six months later, on March 15, 1939, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist on the map, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia appeared in its place, and eleven months later, on September 1, 1939, the Second World War, which claimed 50 million lives.
It’s hard to come up with a stronger illustration of the concept of epic fail.
Before the Munich Agreements, Czechoslovakia had strong border fortifications in the west, and it was not easy to take it outright. In any case, her defensive capabilities were quite great. After September 30, 1938, the Czechoslovakian borders were defenseless, which greatly facilitated the abolition of the country on March 15, 1939.
Czechoslovakia was industrialized developed country, and the transfer of its heavy (read: military) industry into the hands of the Reich significantly increased Germany’s military potential. Czech factories regularly and disciplinedly produced weapons until the spring of 1945.
The Little Entente, founded in 1920 and consisting of Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, was an instrument of French influence in Eastern Europe. After Munich, the Little Entente finally gave up its life, and its members received an unequivocal signal from Paris: “The rescue of drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves.”
That is, France and Britain allowed the Reich’s position in the east to sharply strengthen, and de facto declared that we no longer needed Eastern European allies.
But let's look at the situation at that time through the eyes of Paris and London. Britain was still under the illusion of a “brilliant isolation” that had in fact long since ended. It seemed crazy to her to get involved in a serious conflict with Germany. Churchill, who argued that we would have to fight anyway, was a marginal originalist at that time, and Chamberlain’s point of view was more popular: “How terrible, fantastic and implausible is the very idea that we should dig trenches here at home and try on gas masks only because in one distant country people about whom we know nothing quarreled among themselves." A year later, this idea was widely used by German special propaganda - leaflets dropped on French and English positions asked: “Should you die for Danzig?”
France, which suffered heavy losses in the World War, retained its ambition for some time - see Clemenceau’s statement at Versailles, “The Boches will pay for everything” - but then broke down, and at the very time when the Boches began to issue counter-invoices. Paris was no longer ready to fight, which was later confirmed both in the “strange war” and in the disaster of May 1940. And Hitler, who assured that he was dealing with weaklings, in 1938, if anything could stop him, it was only an unequivocal demonstration of readiness for war.
Neither England nor France had such a readiness, and the Fuhrer showed the whole world that he could twist ropes out of them.
In domestic historiography it was often emphasized that the USSR showed readiness to defend Czechoslovakia with armed force if it asked for it and if Poland or Romania provided a corridor for the entry of troops. There were, of course, too many "ifs" here.
Both transit countries of the cordon sanitaire did not have much confidence in the USSR, and Poland directly stated that it would shoot down Soviet planes. There was also no consensus in Czechoslovakia itself. Let's say Soviet troops will enter Czechoslovakia, but what next? The question is not idle, because in 1938 the Comintern had not yet been dissolved.
But even if there was agreement to send troops, everything further would be guesswork. On the one hand, the Red Army at that time was far from being in in better shape, so the combat effectiveness of the hypothetical expeditionary force was highly questionable. On the other hand, the same can be said about the Wehrmacht of 1938, which was not yet the formidable force that it became in 1941. Six months earlier, during the Anschluss of Austria, when there was no resistance, German equipment, “rattled with fire, sparkling with the brilliance of steel,” was stuck on the march - “punctures, breakdowns, enthusiasm of the population.” If the Austrian army had been ordered to fight, things could have turned out unexpectedly.
So speeches about readiness to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia were more propaganda, a diplomatic game, rather than a real alternative.
The consequences of Munich were severe, one might say fatal. The Western powers have demonstrated that the main thing for them is that they should not be touched, and that their allies in the east should be eaten by wolves. After which Hitler finally lost his caution, becoming convinced that as it was with Czechoslovakia, so it would be with Poland.
And all powers - both large and small - received a signal that the system of formal or informal alliances no longer existed. Every man for himself, one god for all.
If Prime Minister Chamberlain had announced to those greeting him at the London airport: “I have brought you a war for all of Europe,” he would have been closer to the truth.
“I brought you peace!” - British Prime Minister Chamberlain pronounces this phrase, waving a piece of paper with Hitler’s promise not to start a war with England, having returned from the Munich Conference, where he and Daladier fed Czechoslovakia to Hitler. After the signing of the Munich Agreement, Czechoslovakia was deprived of vast border areas inhabited mainly by Germans, Neville Chamberlain hoped that London had paid enough to avoid world war. After Normandy 2014, the likelihood is growing that the southwest of Russia, inhabited not by Germans at all, and not by mythical Ukrainians, but by the most natural Russians, like us, reader, will remain in the jaws of fascist Ukraine...
We know how cruelly Chamberlain was wrong, but how easy it is to understand his thoughts and feelings for anyone who was faced with arrogant, unrestrained and wild aggression. Such as the aggression of the modern USA...
V. Putin, upon returning from Normandy, can also wave papers and say: “I believe it is peace for our time,” like Chamberlain.
According to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, there have already been “noticeable changes” in Russia’s behavior in the Ukrainian conflict...
The news is as follows: “...Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the border service of the FSB of the Russian Federation to strengthen the security regime of the state border of the Russian Federation with Ukraine, Interfax reports. As the Kremlin press service clarified, this was done in order to exclude illegal crossings.
Moreover, about four thousand Ukrainians are already asking for asylum in Russia. Moreover, the Ukrainian junta announced the beginning of the closure of the eastern border of Ukraine, in particular, in the central part of Lugansk and in the south of Donetsk regions.
Despite the fact that Moscow called on the UN to create a humanitarian corridor in the south-east of Ukraine, but no one even thinks about creating it...
Do not rush to condemn him: each of us, both you and I, faced with such a level of aggression, would unwittingly turn out to be Chamberlain at the first moment. Putin doesn’t want war... It’s incredible... Putin doesn’t want it, and I don’t want it. I have two children, and there are tomatoes in the garden...
Any normal person, faced with such obsessed scum as the leadership of NATO countries, will first of all give up, try to sign non-aggression pacts and somehow pacify the aggressors, being satisfied with a little bloodshed.
Broad steps to recognize the legitimacy of Pedro Parashenko, who obviously was not elected (roughly imitating the election process) are steps towards Russian Munich.
Appeasing the aggressor after Odessa Khatyn and bloody rivers in the occupied South-West of Russia are steps towards Russian Munich.
The withdrawal of Russian troops from the American demarcation line of the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine" is steps towards Russian Munich.
Everyone understands this perfectly well, including those who play the role of modern Hitler. For example, in Normandy, Barack Obama called on Putin to accept the results of the elections in Ukraine and influence the militias. Obama said Putin could pull troops away from Ukraine's border, influence militias, recognize Ukraine's elections and help mend relations.
But what is being asked of Putin in relation to Novorossiya is exactly the same thing that Hitler asked of Chamberlain in Munich: to influence the Czechs to surrender, to withdraw troops, not to interfere in an act of aggression...
Russia today is very susceptible to blackmail by possessed dictators. Only Yeltsin’s Russia is more peaceful than Putin’s Russia, but there it was no longer about goodwill, but about the state clinical death state, motionless, like everything dead...
Russia madly, passionately desires peace. A world that is all the sweeter the more impossible it is...
How can we blame Putin for this? Whoever raises his hand to condemn does not understand the tragedy of Chamberlain.
The pathetic babble that NATO is not the Wehrmacht, Kerry is not Ribbentrop, that “they are a cultural nation, they will not attack us” - in fact, even those who pronounce it do not believe in it, like a spell. This is the same pathetic babble as the fact that “in Ukraine there are no fascists, no Banderaites, they are an invention of Russian propaganda”...
In fact, even the most dovish doves understand that there are Banderaites, and NATO is Hitler today. But how I want to extend, albeit at the cost of shame, peaceful coexistence, even if this requires cutting off a large chunk of ancestral territory from Russia.
Some of our Munich residents are even demanding that Crimea be given back; Rostov and Voronezh would probably be given back, just to get another piece of paper from Ribbentrop about “eternal peace.”
How can one not recall the phrase: “You wanted peace at the cost of shame - you will get both shame and war,” which Winston Churchill said after the Munich agreements...
It is important to understand that Novorossiya in 2014 is no different from Czechoslovakia in 1938, and that the aggressor cannot be fed with concessions.
An aggressor is a creature whose appetite comes while eating.
...Hundreds of NATO tanks have been deployed to the borders of Russia. Military transport ships with NATO tanks arrived in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda yesterday, June 5. The armored vehicles delivered to Lithuania will take part in major NATO exercises Saber Strike 2014. The ferries delivered Leopard 2A5 tanks, CV 9035 armored vehicles, new NATO M113 armored personnel carriers, Piranha infantry fighting vehicles, armored medical service trucks and a lot of auxiliary equipment to the port...
Do you think they will stop?
We've been idiots for almost three decades now. We lost 40% of the territory of the country in which we were born and of which we were citizens.
Russia is denied the right to protect Russians. But at the same time, it is Russia that is so-called. The “world community” declared him the aggressor who started the war.
And Russia, which has “tomatoes in the garden” every year, all this time continues in vain to appeal to the conscience of the so-called. “world community”, which has long been “deaf” and “blind”. We want peace, but peace is a solution to the two sides of the conflict.
You can't achieve peace if the other side is ready for war...
According to news agencies;
Eighty years ago, on September 30, 1938, in Munich, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier signed an agreement according to which the Czechoslovakian lands along the German border ceded to the Reich from October 1.
The Czechoslovakian representative was admitted into the company of serious politicians only at the time of signing the verdict on his country (although negotiations had been going on since September 28 - but without him) and only as an observer of the process of signing the signatures.
Returning to London, Chamberlain showed the document to the public and said: “I have brought you peace for a whole generation.”
Six months later, on March 15, 1939, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist on the map, replaced by the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and eleven months later, on September 1, 1939, World War II began, which claimed 50 million lives.
It’s hard to come up with a stronger illustration of the concept of epic fail.
Before the Munich Agreements, Czechoslovakia had strong border fortifications in the west, and it was not easy to take it outright. In any case, her defensive capabilities were quite great. After September 30, 1938, the Czechoslovakian borders were defenseless, which greatly facilitated the abolition of the country on March 15, 1939.
CC0 / Public Domain / Imperial War Museums /
Neville Chamberlain shows the public a document signed by Adolf Hitler and signifying the conclusion of the "Munich Peace"
Czechoslovakia was an industrialized country, and the transfer of its heavy (read: military) industry into the hands of the Reich significantly increased Germany's military potential. Czech factories regularly and disciplinedly produced weapons until the spring of 1945.
But let's look at the situation at that time through the eyes of Paris and London. Britain was still under the illusion of a “splendid isolation” that had in fact long since ended. It seemed crazy to her to get involved in a serious conflict with Germany.
Churchill, who argued that we would have to fight anyway, was a marginal original at that time, and Chamberlain’s point of view was more popular:
France, which suffered heavy losses in the World War, retained its ambition for some time - see Clemenceau’s statement at Versailles “The Boches will pay for everything” - but then broke down, and at the very time when the Boches began to issue counter-invoices.
Paris was no longer ready to fight, which was later confirmed both in the “strange war” and in the disaster of May 1940. And Hitler, who assured that he was dealing with weaklings, in 1938, if anything could stop him, it was only an unequivocal demonstration of readiness for war.
Neither England nor France had such a readiness, and the Fuhrer showed the whole world that he could twist ropes out of them.
Domestic historiography often emphasized that the USSR showed readiness to defend Czechoslovakia with armed force if it asked for it and if Poland or Romania provided a corridor for the entry of troops. There were, of course, too many “ifs” here.
Both transit countries of the cordon sanitaire did not have much confidence in the USSR, and Poland directly stated that it would shoot down Soviet planes. There was also no consensus in Czechoslovakia itself. Suppose Soviet troops enter Czechoslovakia, what next? The question is not idle, because in 1938 the Comintern had not yet been dissolved.
But even if there was agreement to send troops, everything further would be guesswork.
On the one hand, the Red Army at that time was far from in the best shape, so the combat effectiveness of the hypothetical expeditionary force was highly questionable. On the other hand, the same can be said about the Wehrmacht of 1938, which was not yet the formidable force that it became in 1941.
Six months earlier, during the Anschluss of Austria, when there was no resistance, German equipment, “rattled with fire, sparkling with the brilliance of steel,” was stuck on the march - “punctures, breakdowns, enthusiasm of the population.” If the Austrian army had been ordered to fight, things could have turned out unexpectedly.
So speeches about readiness to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia were more propaganda, a diplomatic game, rather than a real alternative.
The consequences of Munich were severe, one might say fatal. The Western powers have demonstrated that the main thing for them is that they should not be touched, and that their allies in the east should be eaten by wolves. After which Hitler finally lost his caution, becoming convinced that as it was with Czechoslovakia, so it would be with Poland.
And all powers - both large and small - received a signal that the system of formal or informal alliances no longer existed. Every man for himself, one god for all.
If Prime Minister Chamberlain had announced to those greeting him at the London airport: “I have brought you a war for all of Europe,” he would have been closer to the truth.
Maxim Sokolov
“I brought you peace,” said Chamberlain, returning from the signing of the Munich Agreement, which tore the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia and transferred it to Nazi Germany. A year later, World War II began...
Chamberlain firmly believed in the correctness of the policy of appeasing the aggressor. Barack Obama, who visited Moscow over the past two days, also seems to believe in the possibility of success, choosing a soft tone in dealing with the Kremlin. Who knows, maybe he's right.
The fact that Putin is not Hitler is indisputable. Even if you put make-up on him, even if professionally, even if you put make-up on his behavior and character. There won't be much similarity anyway. However, one can only see him as a liberal democrat only in a dream, for some a nightmare, for others a long-awaited one, but in any case he will remain only an illusion; in reality, the letters KGB will always burn in his eyes.
We can say that Putin works based on the interests of close businessmen, but it is obvious that 8 years of power, 4 of which, in fact, absolute power, were not in vain and he developed a desire to remain in history, a desire to feel his “greatness” and developed very, very strongly. It is enough to remember the face of this man at the inauguration of the receiver. It is enough to remember the seating arrangement in the office at the first meeting of the “prime minister” with the “president”; it is enough to remember that the malachite stationery set, which was still in Yeltsin’s office, and then in Putin’s, migrated with him to the Government House. This person cannot part with the symbols of absolute power. Monomakh’s hat is incredibly dear to him, not because it warms his head in winter, but because it warms his soul around the clock. And therefore it is obvious that in his actions he will often proceed from the interests of Russia as he himself, a KGB officer, sees them. Not the ex. There are no former KGB officers.
He looked at the world through the glass in the windows of the Lubyanka. And from there I saw that Russia’s interests are not economic development, not the development of civil society and democratic institutions, but global influence, the ability to authoritarianly, without discussions or agreements, direct the policies of foreign states that the Kremlin would take under its wing, political restoration Soviet Union both within Russia and on the world map as a whole. And to achieve this goal, he is ready to sacrifice the economic well-being of Russia, is ready to spend huge amounts of money to support states in confrontation, and is ready to conclude agreements that would drive Russia into economic bondage. All this is not only and not so much the business interests of Putin’s circle, but rather the ways he sees to achieve a global noble goal.
Obama had breakfast with Putin, ate black caviar with sour cream, admired the samovar inflated by a tarpaulin boot, listened to compliments addressed to him, and made responses. But in essence, the conversation with Putin did not produce anything that could be called progress, that would become a political sensation. Obviously, this conversation was largely intended to say: “I don’t want to quarrel with you.” There was probably nothing more they could say to each other. Too much different people, with diametrically opposed values.
dob-1R It is also obvious that Obama is placing his main bet on Medvedev, who has more than once declared his democratic views, and who has proven them with certain gestures. It is in dialogue with President Medvedev that Russia and the United States could reach a real consensus on many complex issues and, first of all, on Georgia and Ukraine. But this is possible only in dialogue with PRESIDENT Medvedev, with an independent and independently acting political figure. As long as “tandemocracy” rules in Russia, as long as decisions made by the president can be changed by the prime minister, it would be a big mistake to expect a real warming of relations between Russia and the United States.
It is obvious that Obama really wants “spring” in the bilateral partnership. But the danger is too great that the steps forward will be one-sided, and, seeing this, the United States will roll back into “winter.” In fact, the agreements reached between Medvedev and Obama on nuclear weapons are very reminiscent of similar ones concluded by Gorbachev and then Yeltsin. This means that during the 8 years of Putin-Bush rule, relations between the two countries could fall to late Soviet levels. Now there is a second chance. I would really like to hope that it will not be thoughtlessly missed.
After the First World War and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the problem of the Sudeten Germans arose, due to which a lot of blood would be shed.
The concept of the Sudetenland is quite vague. This is that part of Bohemia, Moravia, Sudeten Silesia, where the Germans then made up the majority of the population. Quite a few of them lived in other areas of the newly born Czechoslovakia. But it was in the Sudetes, according to researchers, that a special German ethnic group was formed.
The Sudeten Germans would prefer to become part of German-speaking Austria. But they were included in Czechoslovakia. There were three and a half million Germans in Czechoslovakia - approximately a quarter of the country's population. The Sudeten Germans desired a certain amount of autonomy. The government in Prague was categorically against it, also because the German Sudetenland, this blessed place, played an important role in the country's economy.
Compatriots as an excuse
1938 Hitler at a military reception. Photo: BundesarchivFor two decades, Germany was not interested in the fate of the Sudetenland. In Berlin, they remembered the Sudetenland only in 1938. Hitler wanted to annex Czechoslovakia, which had not only mineral reserves, but also a modern military industry, into the Third Reich. After the occupation, its factories will supply the Wehrmacht with weapons and ammunition.
The fate of the Germans living in the Sudetenland became a convenient pretext for intervention.
On September 12, 1938, the Fuhrer gave a speech in Nuremberg at the party congress. He suddenly spoke about the situation of the Sudeten Germans:
— The Czech state is trying to destroy them. I appeal to representatives of Western democracies: we are concerned about the situation of the Sudeten Germans. If these people are denied justice and help, they will get both from us. There is someone to protect the Germans in the Sudetes! I am a supporter of peace, but in this situation I will not hesitate.
Czechoslovakia turned to its allies, France and Great Britain, for help.
The Ambassador of Czechoslovakia in London was Jan Masaryk, the son of the country's first president. He joked bitterly that his main task was to explain to the British that Czechoslovakia was a country and not an exotic disease.
“There are so few deputies in the House of Commons who know where Czechoslovakia is,” Masaryk complained. — During a conversation with influential politicians, I showed them our country on the map. One of them thoughtfully remarked:
“What a funny shape your state has. You’d think there’s a big sausage in front of you.”
What do they think in London?
Arthur Neville Chamberlain became British Prime Minister in the summer of 1937. In foreign policy he was an amateur. He believed that it was necessary to come to terms with the return of Germany to the ranks of the leading world powers. Return colonies in Africa or maybe even some territories in Europe to Germany. It's worth it. The Germans will forget about defeat in the First World War, calm down and stop being angry with the whole world.
Edward Frederick Wood, 3rd Viscount Halifax, became Foreign Secretary. Instead of a left hand, he had a prosthesis, which did not prevent him, a passionate hunter, from deftly handling weapons. Closed and silent, Lord Halifax almost never smiled. He decided for himself that Great Britain would not fight Germany over Czechoslovakia. Coolly remarked:
Hitler immediately felt that the British had written off the Czechs and would not fight for them.
In a conversation with the British Prime Minister, he threatened:
— Three million Germans found themselves outside the Reich, but their homeland must be returned to them. If the British Government does not accept the principle of self-determination of nations, there is simply nothing to negotiate. We are ready to risk a world war. The German war machine is a terrible instrument. Once it gets going, it will be impossible to stop it.
Returning home, Chamberlain told his ministers:
- Think about it, do we have a justification for starting a war? I think no. This morning I was flying over the Thames and was horrified to imagine that a German bomber might appear in our skies. We have no choice. We will have to let Germany occupy the Sudetenland because we have no power to stop it.
Fear! Only fear!
Western Europeans suffered the greatest losses in their entire history in World War I. Twice as many British, three times as many Belgians and four times as many French died in the First World War than in the Second World War.
England and France were mortally afraid new war. Peace at any cost! This is the reason for the policy of appeasement of Germany in the 30s.
— In France, the birth rate is generally low, in addition, we suffered heavy losses during the last war, said the Chief of the General Staff French army General Maurice Gustave Gamelin. “We will not tolerate new bloodshed.”
During World War I, on May 31, 1915, a German airship suddenly appeared over London and dropped several bombs. Airplane raids began in 1917. During the First World War, 670 British people died from raids, but the psychological shock was severe. Londoners hid in underground stations and did not want to leave.
When the fate of Czechoslovakia was being decided in September 1938, everyone was called upon to immediately obtain gas masks. Announcements were made during football matches, in cinemas before the start of a film, in churches. Special buses traveled around London distributing gas masks.
Widely known photograph of a mother with a stroller in the event of a gas attack in Great Britain in 1938 Londoners imagined with horror how clouds of poisonous gas would cover the city, how they would go blind and suffocate. Chemical weapons were feared in the same way as the atomic bomb is now. Pessimists predicted that London would be in chaos, with hospitals overflowing, transport disrupted, and crowds of homeless people demanding immediate peace...
“How terrible,” Neville Chamberlain lamented on the radio, “that we have to dig trenches because of a clash in a country far from us between peoples about whom we know almost nothing.” Much as we sympathize with a small country facing a large and powerful power, we cannot, under any circumstances, allow the British Empire to be drawn into war for that reason alone. War is a nightmare.
Meanwhile, the Second World War could only be avoided by a firm threat to start it.
Nazi Germany was still vulnerable and weak; Hitler would have retreated when faced with real danger. But the European powers were retreating.
And with every step, the weak threats of the West made less and less impression on Hitler. They threatened him, but he did not believe in the determination of his opponents and turned out to be right, because the Western powers made concessions again and again.
The leader of the French socialists, Leon Blum, addressed deputies from right-wing parties:
“It is quite obvious that tomorrow German troops will enter Prague, and then, perhaps, Paris!” Let us unite and create a government of national unity!
Right-wing deputies shouted angrily:
- Down with the Jews! Bloom is war!
“If you want to eat, help cook”
On the evening of September 26, Hitler spoke at the Sports Palace. His speech was broadcast on the radio. He lost his temper. Shouting:
— The Czech state was born in a lie. There is no Czechoslovak nation! There are Czechs and there are Slovaks. And the Slovaks did not want to have anything to do with the Czechs. Then the Czechs simply annexed them. Three and a half million Germans are deprived of the right to self-determination... We need the Sudetenland. If in five days, on October 1, Mr. Benes does not give it up, we will take it ourselves. Benes must make a choice: war or peace!
Chamberlain could not stand it. He sent Hitler a letter with a proposal
determine the fate of the Sudetenland at a conference with the participation of four powers - England, France, Germany and Italy. Without Czechoslovakia!
In addition to Neville Chamberlain, the leader of the Italian fascists Benito Mussolini and the French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier, who had recently promised to defend friendly Czechoslovakia, arrived in Munich to see Hitler. The conference began on September 29, 1938 at noon and continued until the evening. The British and French delegations refused to attend the banquet. After ten o'clock in the evening, the leaders of the four states and their advisers met again. By half past one in the morning everything was decided.
Signing of the Munich Agreement on September 30, 1938. Minister Ribbentrop shows the head of the French Foreign Ministry, Daladier, where to sign. Photo: RIA Novosti At the negotiating table, Hitler easily received everything he demanded. Czechoslovakia was deprived of the Sudetenland, where the Czechs built powerful defensive fortifications. Now the country was defenseless... German troops received the right to enter the Sudetenland, which was henceforth called Sudetenland. The international commission that was supposed to be created was supposed to resolve purely technical issues.
The plebiscite was supposed to be held in the areas that the Wehrmacht would occupy, so the result was not difficult to predict.
Nobody wanted to help Czechoslovakia. From the documents of the head of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, Otto Kuusinen, it follows that the Soviet leaders did not object to the division of Czechoslovakia and the annexation of the Sudetenland to Germany: Germans have the right to live in home country! Hatred of the Western powers outweighed reason:
“Czechoslovakia is a vassal of France and its assistant in protecting the Versailles system in Central Europe. This role of Czechoslovakia threatens the peoples of Czechoslovakia in that, against their will, they may be drawn by French imperialism into a war against both the USSR and Germany. We demand the right to self-determination both for the peoples of Czechoslovakia and for all other peoples, the right to secede and unite with any other state according to the will of the people themselves."
Neighbors Poland and Hungary took part in the division of Czechoslovakia, responding to Berlin's invitation. Hitler, in his own way, said to the head of the Hungarian government, Admiral Miklos Horthy:
- If you want to eat, help cook.
Poland got territories with a population of 240 thousand people ( part of the Teshin region. —Ed.), and Transcarpathian Ukraine with almost a million population went to Hungary.
The cowardice of Europe
Chamberlain: “I brought you peace...” Photo: RIA Novosti Neville Chamberlain's return to London was triumphant. Crowds gathered to greet the head of government. He visited Buckingham Palace, where he reported to the king, then convened a meeting of the cabinet. At his residence in Downing Street, Neville Chamberlain walked to the window and triumphantly shook a document signed by Hitler:
“My friends, for the second time in our history we are bringing an honorable peace from Germany. I believe this is peace for many years to come.
Only Winston Churchill in those days predicted tragic fate England itself:
- Don't think that this is the end. This is just the beginning. This is the first sip of the bitter cup that we must drink until moral health and courage return to us and we rise for freedom, as in the old days.
Winston Churchill was right. By showing weakness and indecisiveness, British politicians condemned their fellow citizens to death and suffering.
In the fall of 1938, France and England could jointly defeat the Wehrmacht and put an end to Hitler. In May 1940 they would be completely defeated.
France will be occupied. Britain will be left alone with the Wehrmacht. The bombing of British cities, especially London, will continue for five years. Thirty thousand Londoners will die, one hundred thousand houses will be destroyed to the ground.
The fate of the Sudeten Germans
Sudeten Germans in 1938, when Germany annexed the area. Photo: AP / TASS After the annexation of the Sudetenland, the Germans said: our compatriots have finally found their homeland. They proudly noted: we again mean something in the world. The Fuhrer returned to the Germans, who painfully experienced the collapse of the empire, the feeling of belonging to a great power and the equally important feeling that a master had appeared in the country.
Adolf Hitler smugly listed his achievements in the Reichstag:
“I brought millions of deeply unhappy Germans, torn from us, to their homeland. I restored the thousand-year-old historical unity of the German living space.
Society was divided into patriots and enemies. Doubt about the rightness of the authorities was equated with betrayal. Millions of Germans who might have been against the Nazis or at least expressed doubts remained silent.
How the Germans before the war rejoiced at the annexation of the Sudetenland to the Great German Reich! How did it all end? After the defeat of Nazi Germany, they lost everything!
On June 28, 1945, Czechoslovak Prime Minister Zdenek Fierlinger met in Moscow with Stalin and Molotov. He started talking about the eviction of Germans from Czechoslovakia.
“We won’t interfere with you,” Stalin replied. - Drive them away. Let them experience for themselves what it means to dominate others.
Czechoslovak President Edvard Benes deprived Germans of Czechoslovak citizenship by Decree No. 33 of August 2, 1945.
“We don’t want to live next to them,” Benesh said gloomily. - Therefore, they must leave the country. We have the moral and political right to demand this.
The Germans were given 24 hours to pack up, and they were allowed to take no more than fifty kilograms of property. The expulsion was accompanied by reprisals. As a result of the beatings and the unbearably difficult journey on foot, several thousand people died.
“We will consistently expel the Germans from the republic,” promised the head of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, “and populate the border area with Czechs and Slovaks.” We must get rid of the "fifth column".
Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Ivan Serov reported to Lavrenty Beria:
“All personal belongings and money are taken away from the population... Czechoslovak officers and soldiers open fire on the city at night. The German population, frightened, runs out of their houses, abandoning their property, and scatters. After this, the soldiers enter the houses, take away valuables and return to their units.”
All Sudeten Germans were expelled from the restored united Czechoslovakia. Munich 38 led to the fact that the very existence of the German people in the Sudetenland ceased.
Czechoslovak soldiers in the Sudetenland, 1945. Photo: Bundesarchiv The deal is not forgotten
Today, some historians say that the Munich agreements are not much different from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. But there is still a difference.
The Western powers refused to help Czechoslovakia, but they did not send their troops to participate in the destruction of this state and did not cut off a piece of its territory for themselves...
And the British and French realized their guilt! And they don’t try to take it off themselves. None of the politicians or historians think of justifying Munich-38: they say, there was such a time.
In the thirties, the concept of human rights did not yet exist, and states were not aware of their responsibility for what was happening in other parts of the world. After the war, much was revised. The Munich experience showed that security cannot be achieved by appeasing an aggressor and dictator. The world has no right to remain indifferent to the tragedies of other countries.
In 1967 public opinion in the West demanded to intervene in the civil war in Nigeria, in which millions suffered. Initially it was only about providing urgent assistance victims of internal conflicts. And at the end of the twentieth century, French socialists proposed the concept of humanitarian intervention:
not only to save the suffering, but also to support their just cause, if necessary - by military means. This is a war not for territories and resources, but for moral values.
In 2005, the UN General Assembly reached an agreement: it is necessary to protect the population of any country from genocide, civil war, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
Human rights are universal. Every state is obliged to protect them. If a country is unable to provide them to its citizens, the rest are obliged to do so. Human rights and individual interests are higher than the principle of non-interference in internal affairs.
It follows that sometimes a military operation is the only way to stop the destruction of people. But peacekeeping operations often attract criticism: are weapons suitable tool solutions to a humanitarian problem? Innocent people always die in war... And where is the line between saving people and imposing your will?
But one thing is certain: the feeling of unbearable shame over the shameful deal concluded in Munich in September 1938 does not leave Western society. The memory of the Munich agreement to a large extent determines today's practical politics.