Hitler and the Munich Pact

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A. Plan of Investigation The investigation assesses to what extent the Munich agreement could be held as a success for Hitler. In order to evaluate the outcome of the events in Munich in 1938 to Hitler, the investigation is focused on examining how successfully Hitler achieved his aims, to what extent the Munich Agreement went along with his ideology and popular opinion in Germany and how did it help to promote Hitler’s standing. The written accounts of historians are used to evaluate the role of the Munich Agreement to Hitler. The two sources: “Hitler: The Study in Tyranny” written by Alan Bullock and “The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler” produced by Robert Payne, are evaluated in the essay for their origins, purposes, values and limitations. The investigation does not examine the results of Munich Agreement on Czechoslovakia or the participant countries and does not assess the later stages of the policy of the Third Reich towards Czechoslovakia. B. Summary of Evidence The problem of Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia had come into existence in 1918 at the treaty of Versailles as a successor of Austro-Hungary. It was nearly as multinational as the Empire had been. Out of population of some 15 million, nearly a third were neither Czech nor Slovak. Three and a half million Germans, close to a million Hungarians and nearly half a million Poles were incorporated into the new state. To make matters worse, these minorities dwelled in territories which bordered their ethnic homelands, which rendered the claim that they should rejoin their mother countries on the principle of self-determination. On such grounds, in May 1938, Hitler began to prepare for an attack on the Sudetenland, the territory with the majority of the German-speaking inhabitants in Czechoslovakia. On May 21, Czechoslovakia also partially mobilized as a response to German
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