Executive Summary: The Munich Crisis

            The Munich Crisis was one of the many waypoints along the road to World War II. This Crisis began when Nazi Germany demanded the annexation of the Sudetenland, the Czech territory bordering Germany. Germany claimed the Sudetenland should belong to Germany because the citizens within the territory were Germanic and spoke a similar language. The Sudetenland was also of strategic significance, because the mountainous terrain also contained a majority of Czechoslovakian military defenses. If annexed, all of these defensive positions would go to Germany, leaving the remaining Czechs unable to repel or even slow down any invasion from an aggressive Germany.

            The players involved in this particular crisis were mainly Germany, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Czechoslovakia. The United States, France, and the United Kingdom were all responsible for holding Germany and the other Axis powers to the stipulations of the Versailles Treaty after World War I. Therefore, each violation by Germany of this treaty required action by the Allied powers of World War I, but if these powers failed to act there was nothing stopping Nazi Germany from committing such violations.

            The Munich Crisis itself was one instance of a game of chicken in a series of chicken games that inevitably led to Case White, the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. Games prior to this crisis (remilitarizing the Rhineland for instance) gave the reputation to the Allied powers as ‘swervers,’ giving Nazi Germany the confidence to continue its ‘unswerving’ course of action all the way to the start of World War II.