As rumors of Nazi Germany's real intentions began to spread throughout the world, many began to feel that war was inevitable. Adolf Hitler's aggression started to be viewed with suspicion and many people felt that the world would have to go to war to stop Germany's increasing encroachment on other countries.
And then there was British prime minister Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain didn't support Hitler's push for lebensraum or his increasingly problematic statements against Jews and other minorities, but he had seen the damage the First World War had done to the continent of Europe. He wasn't eager to drag the United Kingdom into another long, destructive war. So when Hitler wanted to annex areas of Czechoslovakia he referred to as the Sudetenland, Chamberlain didn't see the need to push back. After all, the people in the area mostly spoke German, right? No need to push back on this issue. The result was the Munich Agreement, which emboldened Hitler and betrayed Czechoslovakia. Mr. Chamberlain arrived back in England proudly touting the accord as 'peace for our time'.
The agreement merely forestalled the inevitable war and emboldened Hitler into normalizing racism, genocide and extremism. Chamberlain's optimism would be short lived.
