On 30 September 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from a conference in Munich. Together with France and Italy, he had signed a treaty with Hitler. It stated that Hitler could add Sudetenland, the predominantly German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia, to the German Empire. In exchange, Hitler abandoned his plans to usurp the rest of Czechoslovakia as well.
Later that day Chamberlain gave a speech in which he said: “A British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.” He believed that a war between Germany and Great Britain had been avoided. But many people did not believe so. The Munich Agreement symbolises a policy of appeasement. In their attempts to prevent war, the British and the French accepted Hitler's demands time and again.
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