EN
Nazi Germany consciously and consistently sought to absorb Czechoslovakia. The instrument of breaking the Czechoslovak state became the German national minority headed by the dominating Sudeten-German party, working in the intentions of Hitler. Nazi diplomacy in 1938 set up the problem of the German national minority as an international one and launched a policy of direct coercion thanks to the appeasement of the Western powers. Following Berlin’s direction, it culminated in the adoption of the Munich Agreement of the Four Great Powers, Germany, Italy, Great Britain and France, and the truncation of the Czechoslovak state as the first step towards its destruction. The other was the definitive liquidation of the Czecho-Slovakia in March 1939.