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The
Sudetenland province of Czechoslovakia was populated by largely
ethnic Germans. At the Munich Conference in September 1938, Great
Britain and France agreed to allow Germany to annex this area. This
consent, and the actual annexation on October 6, 1938, cost
Czechoslovakia its fortifications and most of its industry. However,
Hitler continued to consider Czechoslovakia a threat to his
southeastern border in the event that Germany would be involved in
war on another front. The Slovaks’ demand for autonomy from the
Czech government, and the Czechs’ dissolution of the government of
Slovakia, gave Germany a pretext to invade Czechoslovakia. On March
15, 1939, the Czech president, Emil Hacha, coerced by pressures and
threats, signed over control of Czechoslovakia to Germany with no
need for an act of war, ostensibly to assure Slovak autonomy. |
