Munich Agreement 1938 [IWM Cat No.: 4998; Dept of Documents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In September 1938 Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, met the German Chancellor Adolf Hitler to discuss the future of the Sudetenland.  The Sudetenland was an area in Czechoslovakia that had been settled by Germans, and Hitler was demanding that this area should be incorporated into Germany as part of his plans for national self-determination. He had been actively working towards revising the terms of the Treaty of Versailles since his rise to power in 1933.  The Treaty, drawn up by the Allied victors of the First World War, had re-drawn Germany’s borders and imposed harsh reparations and disarmament.

Chamberlain’s agreement to Hitler’s demands during their meeting in Munich was acclaimed by the British public at the time, but later events deemed it to be an act of weakness.  This view has since been revised, as government archives of the time show that Britain’s exhausted defence capability after the ravages of the First World War left him little alternative but to agree with the terms.

This ‘piece of paper’ is the document Chamberlain waved above his head as he talked to the press after his return from Munich, declaring that he had won ‘peace in our time’.

To see more objects from our vast collections, visit: IWM Collections