The Munich Agreement of 1938 is one of the key events that preceded World War II. 80 years ago (September 30, 1938), at a conference of the heads of government of Great Britain (N. Chamberlain), France (E. Daladier), Germany (A. Hitler) and Italy (B. Mussolini), an agreement was signed on the accession of the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany.

The German Nazis used for their own purposes the desire of a part of the Sudeten Germans to reunite with their ethnic homeland, and Great Britain and France decided that to prevent a war it would be enough to convince the government of Czechoslovakia to grant autonomy to the Sudetenland. Thus, the decisive role in determining European policy was played by the Western powers, who had sufficient strength to stop a new world conflict, but they chose the path of concessions to the aggressor. The agreement signed in Munich was a vivid manifestation of the policy of "appeasement" that was pursued by London and Paris in order to achieve an agreement with Germany at the expense of the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe, to avert Hitler's aggression from themselves and direct it to the East, against the Soviet Union. It was a step towards the most destructive war in the history of mankind.

The significance of this event attracts the attention of scientists. He is the subject of many documentary publications and studies, including by Russian historians. A brief reconstruction of the events and their evaluations are given in summarizing works. The leading Soviet international experts, following a single concept of approach to this problem, analyzed the nature of pre-war events on the basis of published and archival materials, exposed the initiators of the policy of "appeasement of the aggressor" and revealed the position of the Soviet leadership and its attempts to avoid the crisis. They viewed the Munich Agreement as a conspiracy of Great Britain and France against the Soviet Union, and its goal was to direct Hitler's aggression to the East. However, this thesis was practically not expressed directly, but simply emphasized that the USSR was the only state that remained faithful to the policy of collective security, while France and Great Britain condoned the aggressor. In the article by O. Pavlenko, published in the collection "The Munich Agreement of 1938: History and Modernity", the definition of the Soviet concept was given: "The overall picture was developed under conditions cold war, therefore, from the very beginning, the image of Munich in Soviet historiography had a pronounced ideological orientation. It was intended to obscure the subsequent events of 1939." .

The general concept was developed in studies written in the USSR in the 1960s-80s, already on the basis of numerous sources from the archives of Germany, Czechoslovakia and other countries attracted by Soviet historians. These are the works of R.S. Ovsyannikov, V.G. Polyakov, V.T. Trukhanovsky, G. Tsvetkov, I.D. Ovsyany, F.D. Volkov, S.A. J. Sipolsa, G.N. Sevostyanova, A.G. Ivanova, collection of articles "Munich - the eve of the war".

The interpretation of the results of the Munich Conference in Russian historiography has undergone changes due to the collapse of the USSR and changes that implied a depoliticized approach to the coverage of history. Interest in the Munich Agreement in post-Soviet Russia even intensified, and the concept in the 1990s. began to be corrected due to the declassification of archives, and a certain role in changing interpretations was played by special attention to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and the emergence of a fundamentally new point of view for Russian historiography, contradicting the previous one about the “brilliant step of Soviet diplomacy”.

On the other hand, the activity of researchers was influenced by the belittling by a number of political scientists and historians of the role of the USSR in protecting the world before the Second World War and the mythologization of the policy of its former allies. The topic of secret protocols was raised again. In the course of discussions about the pact, new interpretations also appeared - questions were raised about whether Moscow and the Western European powers used all the opportunities to avoid the "shame of Munich", what role the "small" states of Europe played in these events.

A certain contribution to the formation of a new approach to the study of the international situation in 1938 was made by the collective work “Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin. 1939-1941" . The collection systematized various positions, probably for the first time questioning the thesis that the USSR found itself in diplomatic isolation after Munich, and showing the need to consider the positions of not only the USSR, Germany and the Western European powers, but also the "small" states of Central Europe - Poland, Hungary, countries of the Balkan Peninsula. One of the authors, Volkov, emphasized: “Small and medium-sized countries reacted especially sensitively to the pan-European shake-ups, becoming in one form or another the scraps of transactions of the Great Powers.”

Aspects of this difficult problem that were not considered before became the subject of the monograph by S.V. . 1933-1939. What was hidden behind the policy of "equidistance" of Minister J. Beck ", which examines the genesis of relations between Poland and Czechoslovakia in this difficult period.

At the turn of the 2000s. there was some summing up of the results of previous historical discussions. In the publications of V. Volkov, L. Bezymensky, D. Nadzhafov, there was still a harsh condemnation of the Soviet Union, but in later studies there is a partial return to the Soviet concept of the history of Munich. M.I. Meltyukhov stated, in particular: “Each state has the right to pursue any foreign policy. The USSR deliberately provoked international conflicts when they were in its interests, but its foreign policy was purely realistic and was focused on the USSR, and only on the USSR.

The 70th anniversary of Munich was the impetus for studying the problem at a new level. Researchers, using previously inaccessible materials - documents of intelligence agencies, archives of countries involved in the collusion and its victims - tried to look at the problem from new positions and develop topics and aspects of events that were not touched upon for various reasons. There were several currents in the presentation of the material.

A number of researchers have expanded their understanding of the Munich Agreement. New archival materials allowed the historian and political scientist A.I. Utkin in his article to recreate a fairly complete picture of the Munich events of 1938, paying special attention to the negotiations between Hitler and Chamberlain on the Sudeten question, the discussion of the conspiracy of Churchill’s associates who advocated involving Moscow in the solution of the European conflict, as well as the actions of the USSR in this direction. The work of N.K. Kapitonova is also devoted to the analysis of Chamberlain's position, showing the impossibility of stopping the aggressor in the event that Great Britain provides guarantees to small European countries.

M. Krysin's version is also curious that the Eastern Pact could become an alternative to the Munich Agreement and stop the war. In the articles by V.V. Maryina, prepared on the basis of materials from the archives of the Czechoslovak Republic, it is confirmed that the division of Czechoslovakia was another step towards the outbreak of World War II, and from the point of view of Soviet-Czechoslovak relations, Munich meant the actual denunciation of their 1935 mutual assistance treaty.

The publication of new documents from the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service has fueled interest in the topic of Munich as a prologue to World War II. So, in 2008, immediately after the declassification of some materials of the SVR, articles by L.F. Sotskov and N.A. Narochnitskaya were published almost simultaneously. These authors spoke about the plans of the Western powers to pit the USSR and Germany quite openly, and if earlier they wrote about Munich as a conspiracy that accompanied the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, then they interpreted it as the main event that led to the world war. Narochnitskaya called it "the first absolute demolition of the entire system international relations and the beginning of a large-scale redistribution of European borders.

L.N. Anisimov continues the same line, noting that it was the “Munich Pact” that became the frontier for Germany’s active preparation for war, and also, on the basis of declassified documents of the SVR, he shows Poland’s involvement in the division of Czechoslovakia. The author draws a parallel between those sad events and the support of a number of European countries for the aggressive actions of the United States against Yugoslavia in 1999 and the deployment of American missile defense elements on the territory of European countries, which creates a potential threat to European security in present stage.

New trends have also emerged. And in this regard, the article by V.S. Khristoforov "The Munich Agreement - the prologue of the Second World War" is especially interesting. The documentary basis of the article was the materials of the Central Administration of the FSB and the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation on the history of the "Munich Pact", containing information about the situation on the borders of Poland and Romania, shortcomings in the combat training of the Red Army, information from residents of the NKVD about the situation in Berlin, London, Paris, Prague, information from the Soviet counterintelligence about the position of politicians and military of other countries, diplomatic correspondence of the organizers of the conference and interested states.

These materials allowed the author to significantly supplement the already known information about the Munich Agreement. In particular, he was able to show that thanks to the successful work of Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence, Stalin was fully aware of how the "Munich Pact" took place, as well as step by step to trace Moscow's actions during this period. Of interest are the materials that substantiate the author's conclusion about the possibilities of Czechoslovakia to successfully conduct defensive operations against Germany.

The legal side of the problem also attracted the attention of international experts. The articles by L.N. Anisimov and A.D. Shutov raise the question of the legitimacy of the "Munich Agreement" A.V. Nefedov draws parallels between Munich and the unilateral declaration of independence of the autonomous province of Kosovo, which led to the division of Serbia. He emphasizes that disregard for established rules of law can lead to no less tragic consequences at the present time. Research continues on the role of the countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe in the "Munich Pact", with special attention paid to the role of Poland.

Thus, it seems that the formation of Russian concepts has not yet been completed. There are trends towards the emergence of new doctrines and directions in the study of this problem.

The foreign historiography of the "Munich Agreement" is even more extensive and diverse. It should be noted that the ideological confrontation initially strongly influenced the formation of the positions of Soviet, German, British, American, Polish, Czech and other historians and political scientists, the fundamental difference in their assessments of the results of the conference in unleashing the war and the positions of the participants. The approach to the analysis of the problem largely depended on the national-historical and political approach in covering the history of one's state, various possibilities to present a general picture of the international situation in Europe in 1938.

Up until the 1980s. Western historiography was generally dominated by the belief that the Munich Agreement was an attempt to avoid war at all costs. Then, in British and French studies, the thesis about the “tragic mistake” of the Western European powers appeared, which did not quite correctly calculate the strategy for maintaining peace in Europe. But in recent decades began to write about the inevitability of this treaty. Thus, the English researcher D. Faber, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Munich Agreement, prepared a large study in which, without going beyond the traditional approach in evaluating these agreements, he focuses on the contradictions and mutual distrust between England and France, on the one hand, and The Soviet Union - on the other. He emphasizes that it was precisely this distrust that made the Munich Agreements possible, and after their signing reached its climax. Such a formulation of the question, according to M.V. Aleksandrov (MGIMO), allows us to raise the question of the inevitability, and possibly the need for "collusion". The historical discussion about the "Munich Crisis" does not seem to be over yet.

German historiography has significant features - until the 1970s and 80s. neither in the FRG nor in the GDR was practically a single study devoted specifically to the "Munich Pact" written. During the Cold War period, the agreement was mentioned only in the context of research on World War II and its prerequisites. And the historiography of the GDR during this period completely followed the Soviet concept. In West German studies, the Munich problem was covered without mentioning the components of the conflict - the border disputes between Germany and Czechoslovakia, the positions of Poland and Hungary, and the agreement was viewed as a fatal decision of Great Britain and France.

At the turn of the 1970-80s. changes in the historiography of Germany. After summarizing the Czechoslovak and German studies on the relations between the two states, the collection “Munich 1938. The End of Old Europe” is the first West German comprehensive study of the 1938 agreement, and the articles showed the prerequisites for the conflict and considered the problem of the Sudetenland. The authors of the collection came to the conclusion that discrimination against the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia took place and Hitler's claims were theoretically substantiated. But the authors did not justify the German policy, which is typical for the entire Western historiography of the second half of the 20th century, since the legal condemnation of Nazism did not allow such concepts.

The difference between the researchers of the GDR and the FRG was that the former wrote that Hitler's claims were groundless and the German national groups felt they had full rights in Czechoslovakia, while the opposite point of view prevailed in West German historiography. In the articles of the West German historians P. Hoymos and R. Hilf, an attempt to look at the current situation from the standpoint of different countries, including Czechoslovakia and Poland, as well as from the position of the Germans - residents of the Sudetenland. Facts that were not previously advertised are mentioned, and the Munich Agreement is interpreted as a "springboard for the German expansionist policy to the East." R. Hilf's general conclusions boil down to the fact that all parties to the agreement are to blame in their own way for the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and for the fact that war could not be avoided. German researchers also began to pay attention to the role of Poland and Hungary in the Munich Agreement, which put forward their territorial claims to Czechoslovakia and put pressure on it.

There are many other lines of research on the eve of World War II. And as V.P. Smirnov (Moscow State University) rightly noted, despite the numerous publications of documents, the existence of extensive scientific literature in different languages, disputes around these events do not stop. First of all, this concerns the assessments of the Munich Conference. They are often painful, because they largely determined the fate of a number of countries and peoples, had a profound impact on their historical memory, national self-consciousness, and a sense of national pride.

Thus, it is obvious that in recent decades much has been done to study the period preceding the Second World War in general and the Munich Agreement in particular. The development of the topic continues, which is facilitated by a deeper study of archival materials, the involvement of new groups of sources, and the discussion of accumulated experience at conferences and round tables.

Yuri Petrov

History of international relations and foreign policy of the USSR 1917-1939. T. 1. M., 1961; History of diplomacy. T. 3. M., 1965; History of the Second World War 1939-1945. v. 2. M., 1974; History of international relations and foreign policy of the USSR. T. 1. 1917-1945. M., 1986.

Pankratova A.M. Capture of Austria and dismemberment of Czechoslovakia // History of diplomacy / ed. V.P. Potemkin. T. 3. Ch. 24. M.; L., 1945. S. 645-646.

Pavlenko O.V. Historiographic image of "Munich 1938" and problems historical memory// : History and modernity: materials of the Intern. scientific conf. Moscow, October 15-16, 2008. Moscow, 2008, pp. 388-408.

History falsifiers. M., 1948; Matveev A.A. The failure of the Munich policy (1938-1939). M., 1955; Polyakov V.G. England and (March - September 1938). M., 1960. Ovsyannikov R.S. Behind the scenes of the policy of "non-intervention" M., 1959; Trukhanovsky V.T. Foreign policy England in the first stage of the general crisis of capitalism 1918-1939. M., 1962; Tsvetkov G. US policy towards the USSR on the eve of World War II. Kyiv, 1973; Ovsyany I.D. The mystery in which the war was born (how the imperialists prepared and unleashed the second world war). M., 1975; Volkov F.D. Secrets of Whitehall and Downing Street. M., 1980; Stegar S.A. French diplomacy before World War II. M., 1980; Desyatnikov S.G. Formation of the English policy of connivance and encouragement of the aggressor. 1931-1940. M., 1983; Sipols V.Ya. Diplomatic war on the eve of the Second World War. M., 1988. "Munich - the eve of the war." Ed. VK. Volkov. M., 1988; Sevostyanov G.N. Munich and US diplomacy.// New and recent history. 1987, no. 4; Ivanov A.G. Great Britain and the Munich Agreement (in light of archival documents).// New and recent history. 1988. No. 6.

Subject to disclosure: USSR - Germany. 1939-1941: Documents and materials / comp. Y. Felshtinsky. M., 1991; Khavkin B. On the history of the publication of Soviet texts of Soviet-German secret documents in 1939-1941. // Forum of Recent Eastern European History and Culture. Russian edition. 2007. No. 1.

Chubaryan A. Was it possible to create an anti-Hitler coalition before? // Problems of peace and socialism. 1989. No. 8. S. 30-34; Volkov V.K. Munich: both collusion and capitulation // 1939: Lessons of history. M., 1990. S. 108-145.

Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin. 1939-1941 / ed. VK. Volkova, L.Ya. Gibiansky. M., 1999.

Maryina V.V. Once again about Munich (new documents of the Czech archives) // War. People. Victory: materials of the international scientific conference, Moscow, March 15-16, 2005 / IVI RAN. M., 2008. S. 19-50; She is. Once again about the "Munich Conspiracy" (New Documents from the Czech Archives) // Slavic Studies. 2006. No. 3;

Sotskov L. The goal of the Munich agreement is to turn Hitler to the east // Izvestia. 2008. 30 Sept. S. 1-2.

Natalia Narochnitskaya: “The West did not want Hitler to stop after Munich.” October 10, 2008 //URL Expert edition of the Links Historical Perspective Foundation The Munich Conspiracy. Historical aspects and modern analogies. To the 70th Anniversary of the Anglo-Franco-German-Italian Agreement of 1938. International Relations Series 2009. No. 1. P.3-25

Anisimov L.N. The Munich agreement of 1938 and modern realities and threats to European security.// Moscow Journal of International Law. 2009. No. 2. P.119-135. He is. The Munich Agreement of 1938 as a Tragic Boundary of the Beginning of the Second World War and Modern Realities. International relationships. 2013, No. 4, pp. 530-538; He is. The Scientist. 2013. No. 11. S. 63-80.

Khristoforov V.S. (Doctor of Law, Head of the Center for Publications of Sources on the History of the 20th Century, IRI RAS) The Munich Agreement - the Prologue of the Second World War (Based on Archival Materials of the FSB of Russia)// Modern and Contemporary History. 2009 No. 1. P.21-47.

Shutov A.D. The Munich agreement of 1938 - an invitation to the blitzkrieg.// World and Politics. 2009. No. 9. S. 5-19; He is. The Munich Agreement of 1938 and Poland // Diplomatic Service. 2009. No. 4. S. 57-62.

Nefedov A.V. Munich and Kosovo: historical parallels. // Scientific and analytical journal Obozrevatel. 2008. No. 6. S. 71-78.

Gatzke H. European Diplomacy between Two Wars, 1919-1939. Chicago, 1972; Gilbert M. Roots of Appeasement. N.Y., 1966; Eubank K. Munich. Norman, 1963; Ripka H. Munich: Before and After. N.Y., 1969; High R.H. Defense Policy Between the Wars, 1919-1938, Culminating in the Munich Agreement of September 1938. Manhattan, 1979;

Henig R. The Origins of the Second World War 1933-1939. L.-N.Y., 1985; Gilbert T. Treachery at Munich. London, 1988; Leibovitz C. Chamberlain-Hitler Deal. Edmonton, 1993; Lacaze Y. France and Munich: a Study of Decision Making in International Affairs. Boulder, 1995; The Munich Crisis, 1938. Prelude to World War II. London, 1999; Kitchien M. Europe between the Wars. New York, 1988; The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered: AJ.P. Taylor and the Historians. London, N.Y., 1999.

Faber D. Munich: The 1938 Appreasement Crisis. London, 2009, 518 p.

Aleksandrov A.M. Faber D. Munich: The 1938 Appreasement Crisis. //Journal of Russian and East European Studies. 2014. No. 1. P.178-183.

Picard M. Hitler in uns selbst. Erlenbach-Zürich, 1946; Meinecke F. Die deutsche Katastrophe. Wiesbaden, 1947; Winkler H.A. Mittelstand, Demokratie und Nationalsozialismus. Koln, 1972.

See, for example: Stern L. Main tendencies of the reactionary historiography of the second world war // Problems of the history of the second world war. M., 1959; Dalem F. On the Eve of the Second World War. 1938 - August 1939. Memoirs. T. 1. M., 1982.

Bruegel J.W. Tschechen und Deutsche 1918-1938. Muenchen, 1967; Letzter Versuch zum deutsch-tschechischen Ausgleich. Muenchen, 1987.

Muenchen 1938. Das Ende des alten Europa. Hrsg. Von Peter Glotz, Karl-Heinz Pollok, Karl Schwarzenberg. Essen, 1990.

Hilf Rudolf. Der Stellenwert von “Muenchen” in Geschichte und Gegenwart // Muenchen 1938. Das Ende des alten Europa. S. 445-463.

Heumos P. Struktur der Ersten Tschechoslowakischen Republik im Verhaeltnis zur Grundidee der westlichen Demokratie // Muenchen 1938. Das Ende des alten Europa. S. 1-27.

Hilf R. Ibid. S. 458, 461.

Habel F.-P. Eine politische Legende: Die Massenvertreibung von Tschechen. München, 1996. Mueller K. General Ludwig Beck. Studien und Dokumente zur politischmilitaerischen Vorstellungsweit und Taetigkeit des Generalstabschefs des deutschen Heres 1933-1938. Boppard, 1980.

Smirnov V.P. The Munich Conference and the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact in Discussions Soviet historians. // Bulletin of MGIMO University. 2009. No. 54. S. 185-203.

Munich Agreement 1938(in Soviet historiography usually Munich agreement) is an agreement drawn up in Munich on September 29, 1938 and signed on September 30 of the same year by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. The agreement concerned the transfer of the Sudetenland by Czechoslovakia to Germany. The following day, a declaration of mutual non-aggression was signed between Great Britain and Germany; a similar declaration by Germany and France was signed slightly later.

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background

The situation in Central Europe by 1938

The government has taken a number of measures to ensure the representation of the Sudeten Germans in the National Assembly, local government, education on mother tongue, however, the tension could not be relieved. Based on these statements, Hitler in February 1938 appealed to the Reichstag with an appeal "to pay attention to the appalling living conditions of the German brethren in Czechoslovakia."

First Sudeten Crisis

Hitler moved on to negotiations. Negotiations were conducted between Henlein and the Czechoslovak government through the mediation of the special representative of Great Britain, Lord Runciman (see Mission of Runciman).

On May 21, Lukasiewicz, the Polish ambassador in Paris, assured US ambassador to France Bullitt that Poland would immediately declare war on the USSR if it tried to send troops through Polish territory to help Czechoslovakia.

On May 27, in a conversation with the Polish ambassador, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet stated that "Goering's plan for the division of Czechoslovakia between Germany and Hungary with the transfer of Cieszyn Silesia to Poland is not a secret."

Second Sudeten Crisis

The agreement signed in Munich was the culminating point of the English "appeasement policy".

One part of historians considers this policy an attempt to rebuild the crisis-ridden Versailles system of international relations through diplomacy, through the agreements of the four great European powers, and to preserve peace at any cost. So Chamberlain, returning from Munich to London, at the gangway of the plane said: "I brought peace to our generation."

Another part of historians believes that the real reason for pursuing this policy is an attempt by capitalist countries to crush an alien system at their side - the USSR, which abandoned the idea of ​​a world revolution, which certainly affects the interests of the population of the whole world, but did not put forward its plans with the aim of making an agreed peaceful decision on discussion of the League of Nations, of which he was a member. Such assumptions were expressed by some Western politicians.

For example, British Deputy Foreign Secretary Cadogan wrote in his diary: “Prime Minister ( Chamberlain) declared that he would rather resign than sign an alliance with the Soviets. The slogan of the Conservatives at the time was: "For Britain to live, Bolshevism must die."

Quotes

How terrible, fantastic and implausible is the very idea that we should dig trenches and try on gas masks here, at home, only because in one distant country people quarreled among themselves about whom we know nothing. It seems even more impossible that a quarrel already settled in principle can become the subject of war.

original text(English)

How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel which has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war.

Consequences of the Sudeten Crisis

The rejection of the Sudetenland was only the beginning of the process of dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.

Germany's next steps after the resolution of the Sudeten crisis in Munich were not discussed. The parties did not object to Slovakia's exercise of the right to self-determination, and the preservation of the remainder of Czechoslovakia - the Czech Republic - was guaranteed by the Munich Agreement.

Poland and partition of Czechoslovakia

The policy of England led to the fact that Hitler could no longer stop in the implementation of his expansionist intentions. In this, Poland became his ally for a while.

Original text (German)

Der Führer und Reichskanzler hat heute in Gegenwart des Reichsministers des Auswärtigen von Ribbentrop den tschechoslowakischen Staatspräsidenten Dr. Hacha und den tschechoslowakischen Außenminister Dr. Chvalkovsky auf deren Wunsch in Berlin empfangen. Bei der Zusammenkunft ist die durch die Vorgänge der letzten Wochen auf dem bisherigen tschechoslowakischen Staatsgebiet entstandene ernste Lage in voller Offenheit einer Prüfung unterzogen worden. Auf beiden Seiten ist übereinstimmend zum Ausdruck gebracht worden, daß das Ziel aller Bemühungen die Sicherung von Ruhe, Ordnung und Frieden in diesem Teile Mitteleuropas sein müsse. Der tschechoslowakische Staatspräsident hat erklärt, daß er, um diesem Ziele zu dienen und um eine endgültige Befriedung zu erreichen, das Schicksal des tschechischen Volkes und Landes vertrauensvoll in die Hände des Führers des Deutschen Reiches legt. Der Führer hat diese Erklärung angenommen und seinem Entschluß Ausdruck gegeben, daß er das tschechische Volk unter den Schutz des Deutschen Reiches nehmen und ihm eine seiner Eigenart gemäße autonome Entwicklung seines Lebens gewährleisten wird.

On the same day at Prague Castle, Hitler declared: "I am not boasting, but I must say that I did it really elegantly." England and France accepted what had happened as a fait accompli, since they set themselves the task of delaying the war as long as possible. Hitler, on the other hand, received a new ally (Slovakia) and significantly increased his raw material and industrial potential.

Germany received significant stocks of weapons from the former Czechoslovak army, which made it possible to equip 9 infantry divisions, and Czech military factories. Before the attack on the USSR, out of 21 tank division Wehrmacht 5 were equipped with Czechoslovak-made tanks.

Danzig problem

Now it's Poland's turn.

On January 5, Hitler gave the Polish Foreign Minister Beck an honorary reception in Berchtesgaden, declaring the complete coincidence of interests of both countries in relation to the USSR, and noted that in view of the obvious danger of an attack from the USSR, the existence of a militarily strong Poland was vital to Germany. According to Hitler, each Polish division saves one division for Germany. To this, Beck replied that Poland, although it was anti-communist, would nevertheless not take part in any measures directed against the USSR, and would reject Germany's demands, since it did not have any guarantees from England and France in this matter. Thus, the war between Poland and Germany became inevitable.

On March 21, Hitler offers Poland, in exchange for recognizing the western borders of Poland, the Danzig corridor, the free harbor in Danzig and claims to Ukraine, to agree to the resettlement of the German population in the free city of Danzig and the exterritorial strip along the roads in East Prussia. The Polish government did not agree.

Chamberlain finally realized his mistake: the "policy of appeasement" pursued by him since 1937 did not justify itself. Hitler used England to strengthen Germany and began to threaten Eastern Europe.

On March 31, 1939, in his speech in the House of Commons, Chamberlain declared that in the event that the independence of Poland was threatened, the Government of England intended to guarantee this independence by all means at its disposal.

England and France accelerated the process of their armament. In France, the law on two-year compulsory military service, adopted back in 1935, came into full force.

In the same years, the United States violated its traditional non-interference in European affairs (the Monroe Doctrine). On April 14, 1939, after the entry of Italian troops into Albania, President Roosevelt addressed Mussolini and Hitler with a proposal in the form of an ultimatum, urging them to promise to refrain from attacking the states listed in his appeal for ten years, in which he directly asked: “We are ready do you guarantee that your military establishment will not be used against the next independent states? ..” And then followed a list of names of 31 countries, including Poland, Finland, the Baltic countries, Yugoslavia and the USSR

In 1938, Hitler began to become active, speaking out about his plans for Czechoslovakia. This caused quite a serious protest not only among various social groups but also among the military. Beck (Chief of the General Staff) dared to warn the Fuhrer against invading Czechoslovakia, assuming the complication of relations with France, Britain and Russia. This incident provoked the unification of disparate resistance groups in order to develop a coup plan to overthrow the Nazi regime.

The Munich Agreement was supposed to satisfy Hitler's demands. The Fuhrer did not want to put up with the existence of Czechoslovakia, and all three million Germans living there had to join the Reich. Chamberlain (British Prime Minister) was invited for negotiations.

Hitler on September 18, 1938 issues an order for five armies on combat readiness. The Fuhrer approves the list of officers for the posts of commanders in ten armies. All these actions were aimed at preparing an attack on Czechoslovakia.

The Munich agreement could resolve the issue peacefully. According to the agreement, Hitler received everything he demanded in Godesberg. The final Munich Treaty was signed on 20 November.

The agreement obligated Czechoslovakia to give up 11,000 miles of its territory to Germany. They were inhabited by eight hundred thousand Czechs and two million and eight hundred thousand Sudeten Germans. In addition, on these lands were located branches of the system of Czech fortifications, which were considered the most impregnable in Europe.

Divided the country. As a result of the signing of the agreement in Czechoslovakia, the existing system of highways and railways was violated, the telephone and Munich agreement deprived the country of 66% of coal reserves, 86% of raw materials for the chemical industry, 40% of timber, 80% textile industry, cement, brown coal, 70% of electricity.

Thus, overnight, the Munich Agreement turned a prosperous industrial power into ruined and torn apart. The Czechs, by agreement, had to leave the territories.

However, according to all the generals close to Hitler and who survived the war, if the agreement had not been signed, the Fuhrer would have invaded Czechoslovakia on October 1. At the same time, some believe that Russia, France and England, despite the doubts of the heads of powers, would have been drawn into the war.

Assessing the situation, it should be noted that on October 1, Germany was not ready to wage war against France, England, Czechoslovakia, and, moreover, against Russia. In the event of the outbreak of hostilities, Hitler would have lost quickly. This would lead to the end. Generals Witzleben, Halder and their supporters planned to overthrow the Fuhrer at the moment when he would give the order to attack Czechoslovakia. foiled their plans. The generals hoped for the firmness of England and the Western allies in the Czechoslovak question.

Despite the fact that the Soviet Union was in a military alliance with Czechoslovakia and France, Germany, Britain and France unanimously excluded Russia from the list of participants in the negotiations.

The signing of the agreement turned out to be a serious disaster for France. Chamberlain, by selling Czechoslovakia, not only saved Hitler from possible military setbacks, but also significantly strengthened his military power. This was accompanied by a fanatical desire, which was present in Chamberlain, to give the Führer everything he wanted.

With the signing of the agreement, the military strength of France was reduced to zero. Now french army was half German. The French production of weapons was significantly inferior to the German one. In addition, the Eastern Allies now distrusted France.

By handing over Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain made a historic mistake that inevitably led to war.

On September 29, 1938, the heads of four European states gathered in Munich: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, French Prime Minister Edouard Deladier, German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, who agreed among themselves to sign an agreement under which a significant part of Czechoslovakia , the Sudetenland, passed to Germany and became German territory. It should be added that in the division of Czechoslovakia, in addition to the above countries, Poland took an active part, which claimed the Teszyn region, and Hungary, which also grabbed a fair piece of the Czech pie.

In the spring of 1939, Hitler, without any collusion, negotiations, simply mechanically annexed the remnants of poor Czechoslovakia, the lands of Bohemia and Moravia. At the same time, we add that the Munich Agreement was preceded by the Anschluss of Austria. Thus, together with Austria and that part of Czechoslovakia that passed to Germany, the latter became the largest European country (excluding, of course, the Soviet Union) and surpassed both France and England in terms of population.

Churchill on the Munich Agreement: "This is only the beginning of reckoning ..."

In a word, the situation is paradoxical: England and France are helping Hitler to seize the territory of Czechoslovakia. How? Why? Let's consider the details. French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier was very afraid to return to his homeland after Munich, believing that for such a treacherous agreement, fellow countrymen would simply stone him and quarter him. However, this did not happen: the French greeted their prime minister with flowers and applause.

Neville Chamberlain had no flowers and applause, but support was visibly felt, at least from the British Parliament. And all for one simple reason: these two gentlemen, having made a not very good and correct step in Munich, brought to their countries, as they then considered, peace. As a matter of fact, Chamberlain returned to London with this phrase. Getting off the plane, he said: "I brought you peace." And it should be noted that few people, with the exception of Winston Churchill, already a well-known English politician at that time, doubted these words.

Many Western politicians, like Churchill, regarded the Munich Agreement as a manifestation of the astonishing political and strategic blindness of Chamberlain and Daladier. The U.S. ambassador to Spain, Bauer, wrote to another American diplomat, Dodd: “The Peace of Munich reduced France overnight to the position of a miserable second-rate power, depriving her of friends and universal respect, and dealt England such a crushing blow as she had not received for the past 200 years. A century and a half ago, for such a peace, Chamberlain would have been put in the Tower, and Daladier would have been executed on the guillotine. So the French Prime Minister was not in vain afraid of returning home.

Adolf Hitler receives Benito Mussolini, who arrived to conclude the Munich Agreement

In fact, having agreed with Hitler on the division of Czechoslovakia, Britain and France thought that they were concluding peace treaties that would guarantee, if not the complete exclusion of the next war, then at least a very, very long postponement of it. In fact, they deceived themselves, because they created the prerequisites for a real strengthening of Germany and its transformation into the most powerful Western European country of that period.

At the same time, the paradox of the situation was that the leaders of England and France urged Beneš, the President of Czechoslovakia, not to offer any resistance to the Germans, although he had such opportunities. Czechoslovakia, although not a large country by European standards, was well enough armed, had a two-million-strong army, more than a thousand tanks and aircraft. Germany, at that time, did not have sufficient means for a quality offensive. Suffice it to say that of the Germans then not even tanks, but tankettes, half were in a condition that required repair.

However, President Beneš made no attempt. On the one hand, he was afraid to fight alone, and on the other hand, he was afraid to call on the help of the Soviet Union. Why? Beneš was afraid of the sovietization of Czechoslovakia, Bolshevization, since the Communist Party in the country was quite strong.

Hitler marveled at how easily Chamberlain and Daladier agreed to the deal

That is, a strange situation turned out: the Western countries - the main opponents of Germany in World War I - presented Hitler with absolutely everything he wanted, thanks to the Munich Agreement, despite the fact that Hitler until the last moment was in deepest doubts about whether he would succeed or not .

“Do you think,” he said to the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs on January 16, 1939, “that six months ago I myself considered it possible that Czechoslovakia would be offered to me, as it were, on a platter by her friends? .. What happened can happen only once in stories". That is, Hitler himself was amazed at the ease with which Chamberlain and Daladier agreed to the Munich deal.

As for the Soviet Union, it had an agreement with Czechoslovakia, according to which it could provide military assistance to the dismembered country. But this did not happen, although in one of his speeches Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin said that the Soviet Union could also help Czechoslovakia unilaterally. But, as they say, words are words, and deeds are deeds.

On the eve of the signing of the Munich Agreement, the USSR Ambassador to Czechoslovakia Aleksandrovsky reported to Moscow: “In the last conversations with me, he (Beneš) every time convulsively grabbed the opportunity of our help and called me to talk just when he received another strong blow from England and France” .

Handshake between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain at the Munich Conference

Moreover, there are archival studies, according to which on September 27, three days before the signing of the Munich Agreement, Beneš asked the Soviet government to send 700 bombers and fighters to Czechoslovakia. Somewhat earlier, Litvinov, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, secretly met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania in Switzerland. At this meeting, the ministers agreed that in the event of a German attack on Czechoslovakia, the Romanian government would agree to allow 100,000 Soviet soldiers, as well as artillery, tanks and aircraft, to pass through its territory (then Romania was not yet an ally of Germany, but, on the contrary, was itself afraid of German aggression). On September 23, the Romanian government sent a note to Litvinov with a proposal to consolidate this agreement in writing and an expression of readiness to immediately open its air space for the transfer of Soviet aviation to Prague. However, the Soviet government ignored both the Romanian proposals and Benes' appeals to Moscow with a request for direct military assistance in protecting the independence of Czechoslovakia, made on September 26-28. Why?

There is one reason for this, as many believe: at that time Hitler was much dearer to Stalin than all Western democracies, which, in fact, he confirmed some time later at the 18th Party Congress.

The USSR had the opportunity to provide assistance to Czechoslovakia alone

On the other hand, there was another factor: if the Soviet Union sent its troops into Czechoslovakia in accordance with the Soviet-Czech treaty, then it would be in opposition not only to Germany, but also to England, and France, and Poland, and opponents from the USSR in this situation it would be much more. That is, in fact, he would have found himself in a position “without allies”, except for Czechoslovakia itself.

But there could be another scenario. Suppose England and France would fulfill their allied agreements with Czechoslovakia (and they were), would not surrender it to Hitler in Munich, but would enter the war; then the London-Paris-Moscow axis could have been formed, and events would have developed differently. But, as they say, history has no subjunctive mood.

By the way, if we return to the Soviet Union and the position of the Soviet leadership, we can find another very important detail: at that time there was an interesting personnel change, reshuffling, castling. In May 1939, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Litvinov was relieved of his post, as expected, at his own request, and replaced by Molotov. This replacement was not just personnel, they say, one is better than the other, behind it was a certain message sent to Hitler, Germany and Europe in general. What are we talking about?

Leon Trotsky with guards, 1917

The fact is that, firstly, Litvinov was an ardent supporter of the conclusion of a tripartite pact of mutual assistance between Great Britain, France and the USSR (he was the minister of anti-German, anti-Hitler sentiments), and, secondly, he was a Jew. Stalin, having removed Litvinov and appointed Molotov to the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, certainly gave a certain signal, a curtsey to Hitler. Moreover, the new minister was instructed to purge the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in modern terms, from persons of Jewish nationality, from Jews.

I must say that Molotov was a good executor of the wishes of Joseph Vissarionovich, a very clear functionary who saw the party line, where it (this line) leads, and what is expected of him in this post.

The well-known Sovietologist, American historian Walter Lacker, assessing Stalin’s policy of that period, wrote: “Stalin and his closest associates had a deeply rooted hostility towards the Western powers, an “anti-Western syndrome” ... To put it bluntly, they to a certain extent preferred Hitler to Churchill, Roosevelt and French leaders. Western countries were considered the real enemies of the Soviet Union, while the attitude towards Nazi Germany was much more ambiguous. If Stalin had more respect for Hitler than for Western leaders, then the same is true of Hitler's assessment of Stalin ... ".

Trotsky: "Compromise on the corpse of Czechoslovakia does not ensure peace..."

Among other things, if we talk about Soviet politics, then we must not forget that during the Munich Agreement, Trotsky was still alive, who, although from afar, also sent his signals regarding the current situation. A supporter of the permanent revolution, he, naturally, criticizing Stalin, spoke about the defense of Czechoslovakia and the assistance of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, which, by definition, could not please the “father of nations” and forced him to act the other way around.

Literature

• d.h.s. Rem Simonenko. Munich (documentary essay): part 1, part 2
• S. Kretinin. Sudeten Germans in 1918-1945: A people without a homeland. Voronezh, 2000.
• A systemic history of international relations. Ed. Bogaturova A. D.- M: Moscow Worker, 2000, chapter 10. ISBN 5-89554-138-0
• Malaya soviet encyclopedia. T.8 - M: 1939, p. 449
• AGREEMENT BETWEEN GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE AND ITALY September 29, 1938
• Krejci, Oskar. Geopolitics of the Central European Region. The view from Prague and Bratislava" Bratislava: Veda, 2005. 494 p. (free download)

Notes

Links

• "Natalia Narochnitskaya: 'The West did not want Hitler to stop after Munich'"

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