Munich Pact

MUNICH PACT, a treaty concluded at the four-power Munich conference of Sept. 29-30, 1938, by Neville CHAMBERLAIN and Edouard Daladier, prime ministers of Britain and France, and Adolf HITLER and Benito MUSSOLINI, dictators of Germany and Italy. The pact represented the high point of the policy of appeasement by Britain and France of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy before WORLD WAR II. Its immediate result was the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.

In September 1938 a crisis developed over Hitler's bellicose demands of self-determination for the German-speaking population in border areas of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia had a guarantee of French intervention if Germany invaded. At Berchtesgaden on September 15-16, Hitler accepted Chamberlain's unexpected proposal that the Sudeten Germans be separated from Czechoslovakia. When France acquiesced, Czechoslovakia had to. But at Godesberg on September 22-24, Chamberlain's mediation failed, for Hitler now insisted on immediate occupation of the Sudeten territories before exact new frontiers were fixed.

Mussolini then organized the Munich conference, at which Britain and France gave in to most of Hitler's demands without consulting Czechoslovakia. The four powers guaranteed Czechoslovak independence. Chamberlain returned to London with "peace in our time, and the Prague government capitulated. German troops took over the Sudetenland in October, but promised plebiscites were never held. Poland and Hungary occupied other areas. When in March 1939, Hitler completed the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, the other parties to the Munich pact took no action.