The Munich Agreement

JAN 01 1938 · 12:00

Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, and Mussolini at the Führerbau in Munich, 29 September 1938. Czechoslovakia had no seat at the table. Place: Führerbau, Munich · Czernin Palace, Prague Figures: Neville Chamberlain · Édouard Daladier · Adolf Hitler · Benito Mussolini · Edvard Beneš, in Prague · Vojtěch Mastný and Hubert Masařík, Czechoslovak observers Chamberlain arrives in Munich on the morning of September 29 in his third visit to Hitler in fifteen days. Daladier comes from Paris, Mussolini from Rome with a draft text prepared by the German Foreign Ministry the night before. The four leaders convene at the Führerbau on Königsplatz at 12:45 p.m. The Czechoslovak observers Mastný and Masařík are not admitted to the meeting. They are kept in a hotel, then in an adjacent room, briefed only on the outcome. Negotiations break for dinner, resume, break again. At 1:30 a.m. on September 30 the four leaders sign. The Sudetenland passes to Germany: 11,000 square miles, 28 percent of Czechoslovak territory, 3.5 million inhabitants (of whom 700,000 are Czech-speaking), most of the country's coal, most of its border fortifications, the Škoda works at Plzeň within easy striking distance of the new frontier.