Under intense pressure from Adolf Hitler, Slovak leaders declared the independence of the Slovak Republic, severing it from a disintegrating Czechoslovakia. The new state, led by Catholic priest and politician Jozef Tiso, became a compliant satellite of Nazi Germany, clearing the way for the German occupation of the remaining Czech lands the following day.
Czechoslovakia had already been gutted by the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which stripped away the Sudetenland and left the country vulnerable. By March 1939, Hitler moved to finish the job, summoning Slovak leaders, including Jozef Tiso, to Berlin and pressuring them to declare independence, threatening that Slovakia would otherwise be divided between Hungary and Poland.
On March 14, the Slovak parliament complied, declaring the First Slovak Republic an independent state, though independence was nominal; the new government immediately signed a treaty of protection binding it tightly to Germany, effectively surrendering its foreign policy and military autonomy. Tiso's regime would go on to actively participate in the Holocaust, deporting the majority of Slovakia's Jewish population to death camps.
The declaration served Hitler's broader design perfectly: with Slovakia peeled away, the rump Czech state was left defenseless, and German troops marched into Prague the very next day, extinguishing what remained of Czechoslovak sovereignty without firing a shot. The episode stands as a grim case study in how nationalist ambition could be weaponized by a stronger power to dismantle a neighboring state piece by piece.