Why Czechoslovakia Did Not Fight Hitler

Why didn't Czechoslovakia fight Germany over Sudetenland? When German forces seized the Sudetenland in September 1938, many saw in it the death of any hope for peace in Europe. The promises Hitler made to limit his expansion were soon broken, and history would look back on the Sudeten crisis as the beginning of the end for European peace. But if it was such a serious issue, why didn't Czechoslovakia fight it? Why were German armies able to capture a large chunk of another country without that country trying to stop them? In this video, we'll find out. We should start with explaining the situation with Czechoslovakia, and what the Sudetenland even was. Czechoslovakia was a product of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Composed mostly of the former Austria provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, inhabited by Czechs and the mostly Slovakian provinces of Slovakia and Ruthenia along with portions of southern Silesia, it was a melting pot of many groups and languages. The Czechs and the Slovaks were the dominant ethnic groups, but the third largest were the Sudeten Germans. The Sudeten Germans were named for the Sudeten mountains bordering Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. But the term Sudetenland came to refer to all areas where German-speaking peoples predominated in the country, mostly in the north and west. Around one-third of all people in Bohemia and Moravia were Germans, and they made up about a quarter of the overall population of Czechoslovakia. These Germans had a sense of identity that was entirely separate to the Czechs and Slovaks, so much so that in October 1918, the Sudeten Germans of Bohemia and Moravia declared the creation of their own republic as the Austro-Hungarian Empire crumbled. Their declaration was completely ignored by the Allies, and they were rolled into the new nation of Czechoslovakia in the post-war settlement. There were many reasons why the Sudeten Germans had no interest in joining Czechoslovakia. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had been ruled by ethnic Germans, and they enjoyed a privileged place in politics and society. Suddenly finding themselves as an ethnic minority in a new state ended that position of power. The Sudeten Germans had also displayed intense loyalty to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, serving and dying in its armies at higher rates than Czechs or Slovaks. The resentment of being reduced to a minority after having sacrificed so much left many Sudeten Germans bitter. From the outset, the Sudeten Germans resisted Czechoslovakian control. The Czechoslovak troops immediately entered Sudeten areas to maintain order and were bitterly resented by the Germans. This culminated in a wave of protests in March 1919, particularly in Kaden, which spilled over into violence when Czechoslovak troops gunned down 52 Germans protesting against the exclusion of German voters from Austrian elections. In the first Czechoslovak local elections held in June, Sudeten German areas saw 90% support for German nationalist candidates. It was not an encouraging start. The Czechoslovak government struggled to respond to this Sudeten problem. Although German was made an official state language, German education was permitted and funded, and German nationalist parties were accepted into the political system, these actions could not overcome the simple fact that most Germans in the country simply did not want to be a part of Czechoslovakia. Despite the German issue and some early economic pains, as the country adjusted to post-war independence, Czechoslovakia enjoyed remarkable political stability through the 1920s and 1930s. A succession of three coalition governments passed power peacefully between mixes of socialist, conservative, and moderate parties, at a time when the rest of Europe was experiencing serious political polarization. Domestically, Czechoslovakia benefited from inherited industry from the old empire, which allowed it to bounce back from the war relatively quickly. The government also engaged in a system of land reform after 1919 that confiscated larger estates from land-owning elites to be redistributed for agricultural and industrial use. The result was a stable and growing economy that contributed to the country's political stability. Beyond its borders, Czechoslovakia also pursued a successful foreign policy that built alliances with various powers. It countered the potential threat of Hungary through alliances with other Eastern European nations like Romania and Yugoslavia, while forging close relations with France as an This brought Czechoslovakia into France's Cordon Sanitaire, with Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia to block German expansion in the East. These alliances allowed Czechoslovakia to claim a respected place among European nations, and it was an active participant in the League of Nations. Unfortunately, almost every one of these actions were unpopular with While ethnic German parties were allowed, they were easily drowned out by the Czech and Slovak parties, who did not care about German concerns. The majority of land and industry seized by the government after 1919 to power the country's economic revival was taken from Sudeten German owners who had formed the old imperial elite. Meanwhile, Czechoslovakia's foreign policy was clearly anti-German, appealing not only to the French who had spearheaded the Treaty of Versailles but even the Serbs in Yugoslavia who most Germans held responsible for starting the First World War in the first place with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. However, the stability achieved by the new government was a powerful argument. Sudeten German participation in Czechoslovak elections slowly but steadily rose in the 1920s, and by 1925, German nationalist parties were able to claim a small place in the coalition government. With Germany and Austria racked by their own problems, the Sudeten Germans were slowly starting to accept their situation and realized the best way to protect their interests was to participate in their new country. But this reconciliation would not last. Germany saw the Sudeten German situation as a tragedy from the outset. Czechoslovakia's foreign policy was interpreted as hostile from its inception, and two countries were not on good terms in the 1920s. For example, in 1925, German foreign minister Gustav Stresemann pushed for the Locarno treaties to settle questions about Germany's borders. Germany promised to respect the borders with France and obey demilitarization rules outlined in Versailles in what was seen as one of the greatest diplomatic victories of the interwar period. However, Germany conspicuously avoided promising to respect the borders of Poland or Czechoslovakia. They could suffer French territorial demands, but to promise to do nothing about the Sudeten German issue was out of the question for them. The Great Depression only exacerbated the Sudeten issue. While Czechoslovakia weathered the depression better than some countries, it still saw a sharp decline in wages, employment, and productivity that hit the Sudeten Germans especially hard. As much as half of Czechoslovakia's unemployed people in 1930 were Sudeten Germans. Made worse by discrimination against ethnic Germans in government jobs and contracts, it was no surprise that extremist politics took root. The Sudeten Germans had intense national identity and plenty of reasons to resent the current political and economic system. By the early 1930s, organizations began appearing in Sudeten communities and openly calling for separation. The Czech constitution did not allow separatist parties, and several of these parties were banned. But that could not contain the problem. German sympathies assembled around the Sudeten Dutch Partei. Instead, led by Konrad Henlein, the SDP avoided a ban by not arguing for full independence, only autonomy for Sudeten Germans, but it was openly pro-German and echoed their beliefs on issues like race. The election of Hitler in Germany in 1933 was fuel to the fire. He had been openly criticizing Versailles for years and had weaponized the mistreatment of Sudeten Germans in his speeches throughout his career. Moreover, his perceived success in Germany increased support of the Sudeten SDP. In the 1935 election, the SDP received 63% of all Sudeten German votes. Prague was well aware of the potential for conflict. Seeking additional protection, Czechoslovakia even approached the Soviets in 1935 to sign a defensive pact in the event of a German attack. Stalin agreed, but only on the condition that Soviet assistance would only be given if the French responded first. Czechoslovakia could not conceive of a situation where France would not honor its existing commitment to oppose German expansion, so happily signed the agreement. Czechoslovakia hoped that the protection of Germany's two great enemies would make it impossible for Hitler to press the Sudeten issue with force. Starting in 1935, they also began construction of border fortifications to resist a German invasion. However, these fortifications had to be built in the Sudeten mountains, exactly where pro-Nazi sentiment was strongest. They were building these defenses on a foundation of sand. As Germany grew more belligerent from 1936, the Sudeten issue only got worse. In June 1936, Henlein and the SDP called for proportional ethnic representation in the National Assembly and greater government support for German culture, language, and education. The Czechoslovak government responded by meeting this demand, passing sweeping laws in February 1937, providing additional funding to Sudeten German issues, and promised to implement ethnic proportional representation inside the civil service and other government-run organizations. They hoped that giving into Henlein's more moderate demands would appease him. Unfortunately, the Czechoslovak government was among the first in Europe to learn that giving an inch to German fascism meant they would instead demand a mile. The SDP responded by demanding full ethnic autonomy for Germans and other ethnicities, with each ethnicity running its own affairs and electing its own representatives exclusively from their group. Obviously, this was unreasonable and was rejected, but the SDP and their German allies spun the rejection into an attack on Sudeten German rights. The turning point arrived on March 12, 1938, when German troops entered Austria. The government declared Anschluss, a union of the German-speaking peoples, under his flag, and faced no Austrian opposition as his tanks rolled across the border. Instead, Austrian citizens turned out in droves to welcome the troops, and the country was absorbed into the Third Reich without issue. This blatant violation of Versailles, and the annexation of an entire country, was met with a muted response from Germany's enemies. The Anschluss placed Czechoslovakia in mortal danger. If Germany could take all of Austria without anyone opposing him, what would stop him taking the Sudetenland, too? Support for it was similarly high among the Sudeten Germans as it was among the Austrians. Even worse was the fact that annexation of Austria, which bordered on Italy, completely cut Czechoslovakia off from France. If there would be an invasion, France would be little help, and with the USSR requiring the French to step in before they did, Czechoslovakia effectively lost both of its protectors overnight. Although Hermann Goering personally assured the Czechoslovaks that Germany was not considering any military action regarding the Sudetenland, those promises rang hollow in Prague, and for good reason. On March 28, 1938, SDP leader Henlein met with Hitler in Berlin. He returned with a series of outrageous demands, including the self-governance of the Sudetenland, the total exclusion of all non-Germans from future settlement or politics, and millions in compensation for discrimination committed against the Sudeten Germans. The SDP had intentionally delivered demands that the government couldn't accept in order to create outrage and a pretext for an intervention. With the SDP polling at almost 90%, the Sudetenland crisis would not be allowed to All of Europe knew the Sudetenland was probably. Indeed, on May 30, Hitler secretly ordered work to begin on Operation Green, the German invasion of Czechoslovakia to be launched no later than October 1. On September 12, as his war preparation neared completion, Hitler publicly accused the Czechoslovakian government of attempting to exterminate the Sudeten Germans at a speech in Nuremberg. That same day, Henlein and the SDP crossed the line and demanded the unification of the Sudetenland with the German Reich. The SDP supporters and Sudeten parliamentaries were urged to take up arms and fight the Czechoslovak government directly. In response, the Czechoslovak government sent in the troops. Dozens of people would be killed in terror attacks and small-scale firefights in the following days, in what many believed was the start of the Second World War. With the crisis spiraling out of control, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain landed in Germany for a meeting with Hitler at his private residence in the Berghof on September 15. France and Britain were not ready for a new war in Europe and were desperate to avoid it by any means necessary. Paris and London recognized that the Sudeten Germans truly did prefer to join Germany than remain under Czechoslovak control, and neither of them were willing to risk war over a region that would welcome the new country with open arms. Chamberlain pleaded with the German Chancellor not to push further expansion and to de-escalate the situation before it was too late. He responded that he had no interest in Czechoslovakia at large, and his interests extended only to the freedom of the Sudeten Germans. If the Sudetenland could be united with the Reich, he promised that would be the end of it. History proved that the Sudetenland was merely a pretext. The German leader considered the existence of Czechoslovakia itself to be a problem and wanted the land for German settlement and industry. But Chamberlain returned to Britain convinced that Hitler was telling the truth. Meanwhile, in Czechoslovakia, the government declared martial law, issued an arrest warrant for Henlein and other SDP leaders, and outlawed various ethnic German political and parliamentary groups. Hitler responded by creating his own parliamentary, the Sudeten Duchess Freikorps, to support the ongoing revolt, and treated the government's response as persecution of German minorities. On September 24th, Hitler finally showed his hand in the Gothenburg Memorandum. Czechoslovakia would surrender the Sudetenland no later than 2pm on September 28th, or he would invade. All of Europe prepared for the outbreak of war. Shockingly, it was Benito Mussolini who averted it at the last minute. Late in the morning of September 28th, as Hitler was in a meeting with the French Foreign Minister, Mussolini called the German Chancellor and urged him to delay the deadline and attend a conference at the request of the British to resolve the issue peacefully. On September 29th, Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain, and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier met in Munich to resolve the crisis that had consumed European affairs for months. Conspicuously absent was anyone from the Czechoslovak government. The Munich conference decided that Hitler would get the Sudetenland without a fight. For Britain and France, it was a perfect solution that avoided war, and they returned home declaring the crisis solved. For Czechoslovakia, it was an unforgivable betrayal. They had not even been invited to the conference to decide the fate of their nation, and both France and Britain made it clear that they would be alone if they decided to resist Hitler now. Not that it would have mattered, Czechoslovakia lacked the military power to oppose Germany even if they wanted to. With Britain, France, and the USSR refusing to offer help, fighting back was simply not an option. Besides, no one could deny that the Sudeten Germans wanted to be under Hitler anyway. Why would Czechoslovakia fight a doomed war alone to maintain control over people who wanted to be rid of them? On September 29th, the Czechoslovak government formally agreed to the demands. Over the following days, they withdrew their military forces from the Sudetenland without firing a shot at German troops. Czechoslovakia found itself abandoned and betrayed by its allies, and unwilling to fight an unwinnable war to keep control over people who did not want them there. The fall of the Sudetenland foretold the fate of the rest of Czechoslovakia and much of Europe. The Czechoslovak government collapsed in shame after the loss of the territory, and the country was powerless to resist Hungarian demands on its territory in the following months. Finally, in March 1939, Hitler broke his promises and invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia as well, crushing the Czechoslovak Republic out of existence. you