The Godesberg Memorandum is a document issued by Adolf Hitler in the early hours of 24 September 1938 concerning the Sudetenland and amounting to an ultimatum addressed to the government of Czechoslovakia.
It was named after Bad Godesberg, where Hitler had met Neville Chamberlain for long talks on 23 September continuing into the next day.
At the time of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Sudetenland was a German-speaking part of the Empire which fell to the new state of Czechoslovakia, itself dominated by the Czechs. Initially, many Sudeten Germans wished to become part of the new German-speaking state of German Austria, and later they hoped to join Austria. However, the Treaty of Saint-Germain of 1919 confirmed the inclusion of the German-speaking territories within Czechoslovakia. By the beginning of 1938 most Sudetens aspired to be integrated into Nazi Germany.[ citation needed ]
Following an active propaganda campaign, Adolf Hitler began publicly to demand the "return" to Germany of a large part of the Sudetenland containing some three million German speakers. [1] : 61 In March 1938 France and the Soviet Union gave guarantees of military support to Czechoslovakia if Hitler began to use military force to seize the Sudetenland, but on 24 March Neville Chamberlain refused a French request to give the same pledge. [1] : 61–62
In early September 1938, Chamberlain sent Lord Runciman to attempt to negotiate a settlement of the crisis between the Germans and the Czechs. On 7 September the Sudeten Germans, led by Konrad Henlein, broke off the talks with Runciman, and on 12 September Hitler publicly advised the Sudetenlanders to stand firm for union with Germany. On 15 September Chamberlain flew to Berchtesgaden to meet Hitler, who demanded self determination for the Sudetenland. Upon his return to London after his Berchtesgaden summit, Chamberlain told his Cabinet that Hitler's aims were "strictly limited" to the Sudetenland and he felt it was quite possible to avoid war provided everyone played their part. [2] : 438 He also had discussions with the French, in which he agreed with them a joint proposal to all parties for the gradual transfer to Germany of the areas which had a majority of Sudeten Germans. [1] : 62
Chamberlain returned to Germany, meeting Hitler on 22 and 23 September at Bad Godesberg to propose this solution. [1] : 62 In presenting their peace plan for the transfer of the Sudetenland, the British delegation was most unpleasantly surprised to hear Hitler reject the terms he had himself presented at Berchtesgaden as now unacceptable. [3] Hitler now demanded an immediate transfer, including occupation of the Sudetenland by German forces, and he quickly issued the "Godesberg Memorandum" to clarify his public position. [1] : 62
In his Memorandum Hitler proposed a plebiscite, without identifying the exact area for it, and provided for the plebiscite areas to be occupied by both German and Czech forces, pending the outcome of voting. German forces should enter the Sudetenland by 1 October. [4] Hitler demanded the Sudetenland be ceded to Germany no later than 28 September 1938 with no negotiations between Prague and Berlin and no international commission to oversee the transfer; no plebiscites to be held in the transferred districts until after the transfer; and he also declared that Germany would not abandon war as an option until all the claims against Czechoslovakia by Poland and Hungary had been satisfied. This was seen as a signal that Hitler had decided to put an end to Chamberlain's peace-making efforts. [2] : 447 The arrangements for the transfer were to be decided bilaterally between the Germans and the Czechs and by no one else. [5]
The "memorandum" stated an ultimatum for Czech acceptance of it, expiring at 2 pm on 28 September 1938. If the Czech government would not agree to Hitler's demands by then, Germany would take the Sudetenland by force. [6] Chamberlain protested about being presented with an ultimatum, to which Hitler replied that the document was entitled "Memorandum", so could not be called an ultimatum. [7]
The Czechs announced on 28 September that they rejected the Memorandum, and the French ordered the mobilization of 600,000 men. The Royal Navy was also mobilized the same day. [1] : 62
Although Hitler was angry at the rejection of his memorandum, he also feared a war against both Britain and France. [8] He did not order an invasion on 28 September, having instead agreed to Chamberlain's proposal for a further meeting the next day, now at Munich, between four heads of government, Chamberlain for Britain, Hitler for Germany, Prime Minister Daladier for France and Mussolini for Italy, with no Czech or Soviet participation. On 1 October, a pact was signed which provided for possession of the Sudeten Province to be transferred to Germany, with Britain and France seeking to sweeten this bitter pill for the Czechs by guaranteeing the new borders of Czechoslovakia. There was also a separate agreement between the British and the Germans that stated that all future disputes between them would be the subject of negotiation. [1] : 62
On 1 October, German troops marched into the Sudetenland, which was immediately incorporated into Germany. Some 115,000 Sudeten Czechs and 30,000 Sudeten Germans, including Social Democrats, Communists and Jews, fled to what was left of Czechoslovakia. By 1 March 1939, the number of refugees, as reported by the Institute for Refugee Assistance, stood at almost 150,000. [9]
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Arthur Neville Chamberlain was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940 and Leader of the Conservative Party from May 1937 to October 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeasement, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement on 30 September 1938, ceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler. Following the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War, Chamberlain announced the declaration of war on Germany two days later and led the United Kingdom through the first eight months of the war until his resignation as prime minister on 10 May 1940.
The Sudetenland is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia since the Middle Ages. Since the 9th century the Sudetenland had been an integral part of the Czech state both geographically and politically.
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The military occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany began with the German annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938, continued with the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and by the end of 1944 extended to all parts of Czechoslovakia.
Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein was a Sudeten German politician in Czechoslovakia before World War II. After Germany invaded Czechoslovakia he became the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Reichsgau Sudetenland under the occupation of Nazi Germany.
The Sudetendeutsches Freikorps (SFK) was a paramilitary organization founded on 17 September 1938 in Germany on direct order of Adolf Hitler. The organization was composed mainly of ethnic German citizens of Czechoslovakia with pro-Nazi sympathies who were sheltered, trained and equipped by the German army and who conducted cross-border terrorist operations into Czechoslovak territory from 1938 to 1939. They played an important role in Hitler's successful effort to occupy Czechoslovakia and annex the region known as Sudetenland into the Third Reich under Nazi Germany.
German Bohemians, later known as Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part of Czechoslovakia. Before 1945, over three million German Bohemians constituted about 23% of the population of the whole country and about 29.5% of the population of Bohemia and Moravia. Ethnic Germans migrated into the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electoral territory of the Holy Roman Empire, from the 11th century, mostly in the border regions of what was later called the "Sudetenland", which was named after the Sudeten Mountains.
Sir Nevile Meyrick Henderson was a British diplomat who served as the ambassador of the United Kingdom to Germany from 1937 to 1939.
The Czechoslovak government-in-exile, sometimes styled officially as the Provisional Government of Czechoslovakia, was an informal title conferred upon the Czechoslovak National Liberation Committee, initially by British diplomatic recognition. The name came to be used by other Allied governments during the Second World War as they subsequently recognised it. The committee was originally created by the former Czechoslovak President, Edvard Beneš in Paris, France, in October 1939. Unsuccessful negotiations with France for diplomatic status, as well as the impending Nazi occupation of France, forced the committee to withdraw to London in 1940. The Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile offices were at various locations in London but mainly at a building called Fursecroft, Marylebone.
1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1938th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 938th year of the 2nd millennium, the 38th year of the 20th century, and the 9th year of the 1930s decade.
Edvard Beneš was a Czech politician and statesman who served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938, and again from 1939 to 1948. During the first six years of his second stint, he led the Czechoslovak government-in-exile during World War II.
The European foreign policy of the Chamberlain ministry from 1937 to 1940 was based on British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's commitment to "peace for our time" by pursuing a policy of appeasement and containment towards Nazi Germany and by increasing the strength of Britain's armed forces until, in September 1939, he delivered an ultimatum over the invasion of Poland, which was followed by a declaration of war against Germany.
Events in the year 1938 in Germany.
A Total and Unmitigated Defeat was a speech by Winston Churchill in the House of Commons at Westminster on Wednesday, 5 October 1938, the third day of the Munich Agreement debate. Signed five days earlier by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the agreement met the demands of Nazi Germany in respect of the Czechoslovak region of Sudetenland.
The Runciman Mission to Czechoslovakia was an initiative of the British government initiative that was aimed at resolving an international crisis threatening to lead to war in Europe in the summer of 1938. The Mission, headed by a former British cabinet minister Lord Runciman, was sent to mediate in a dispute between the Government of Czechoslovakia and the Sudeten German Party (SdP), representing the country's mostly-radicalised ethnic German minority. The British mediators were active on the ground in Czechoslovakia during the late summer and issued their report shortly before the Munich Conference in September.
The following events occurred in September 1938:
The Carlsbad Programme was an eight-point series of demands, addressed to the government of Czechoslovakia, issued by Konrad Henlein, the leader of the Sudeten German Party (SdP), at a party gathering in Carlsbad on 24 April 1938.The programme demanded full autonomy for the mainly German-inhabited areas of Czechoslovakia, known as the Sudetenland. Under pressure from its allies, Britain and France, the Czechoslovak government reluctantly accepted the demands. But the SdP, instructed by Nazi Germany not to reach a settlement with the Czechoslovak authorities, broke off negotiations, thus precipitating the Munich crisis.
{{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)Hitler was furious upon hearing that the British, French, and Czechs had all rejected his Godesberg memorandum. Hitler knew, however, that Germany's armed forces were no match for those of France and Britain.