World War 2 Timeline - The German occupation of Czechoslovakia

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Welcome once again to my World War 2 timeline series where I take you from the very beginnings of World War 2 all the way to the end with Japan surrendering and the Allies winning the war. I may miss some battles here and there and sorry about that but World War 2 is such a vast, huge, and monumental war in human history.

That it’s bound to happen but I hope you will be pleased and enjoy what I write and will learn something and be better from it now onto the story you came for the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.

The German occupation of Czechoslovakia

It all started way back when they signed the Munich Pact on September 30, 1938. Which basically gave Czechoslovakia to Germany in the name of peace. Although the agreement was to give Germany only the Sudetenland a part of Czechoslovakia which had 3 million ethnic Germans.

What came with this territory is that the Nazi’s got 66 % of Czechoslovakia’s coal, 70% of its iron and steel, and 70% of its electrical power. Basically giving the Nazis all they needed to make Czechoslovakia a vulnerable country and leave it open to fully conquering it and taking it over next winter.

The sad reality of the situation is that whatever deal and agreement they tried to make with Hitler on the Munich Agreement whether they tried to dissolve the communist party or tried to suspend all Jewish teachers in ethnic – German majority schools.

Rumors still continued to circulate about Hitler taking over and capturing and incorporating Czechoslovakia into the Nazi Regime. Even as far back as October 1938, he was already thinking of ways to more easily take over all of Czechoslovakia.

One way he tried was he tried to force the central Czechoslovakia government to give Slovakia its independence, which would have already made the weakened Czech state even more open and susceptible to Germanies conquest and capture.

In the end, Czechoslovakia did indeed declare its “independence” on March 14, 1939, albeit to Germany since they had no choice with the threat of impending invasion stopping all debate within Czechoslovakia. Then the following day on March 15, 1939, Hitler had a meeting with Czech President Emil Hacha who he himself considered weak and even possibly senile.

He talked with him and bullied him into letting him take his German troops into Czechoslovakia and have free uninterrupted passage into the country and if he did not comply or agree with him he was going to facilitate a bombing raid against Prague the Czechoslovakian capital until he did agree with him.

He clearly got the strong message which Hitler had made and he allowed the German troops free passage into the country that same day.

The troops first poured into the two provinces of Bohemia and Moravia which offered no resistance to the German troops and they captured it very easily and they were quickly made a protectorate (a protectorate is a small country or territory that is protected and controlled by a larger or more powerful country. Thus, a protectorate is an autonomous part of a sovereign state.) of Germany.

Hitler being a man on a mission and going through provinces very easily he made his way all the way down to Prague in the evening.

The Munich Pact according to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had pursued and achieved “peace in our time” was actually just in a hindsight a ploy by Hitler to temporarily stave off the Fuhrer’s craving thirst for blood and for land and domination.

Conclusion

I hope you learned something from the article I wrote above and thank you first and foremost for checking out and reading my article I greatly appreciate it.

I hope you learned something from it and you enjoyed it and now you can share your new found history with someone else and spread the knowledge and love of history all around. Once again thanks for reading my article hope you enjoyed it and I hope I can see you next time on my future articles.

Works Cited

“Nazis Take Czechoslovakia.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nazis-take-czechoslovakia.

“WW2 – Intro & First Years 1939 – 1941.” Pinterest, www.pinterest.com/pin/294422894366350144/.

“How Did Hitler Justify His Invasion of Czechoslovakia? | Socratic.” Socratic.org, socratic.org/questions/how-did-hitler-justify-his-invasion-of-czechoslovakia.