In a thunderous closing address to the annual Nazi party rally, Hitler accused Czechoslovakia of oppressing its ethnic German minority and demanded justice for the Sudeten Germans, effectively threatening war unless the region was ceded to Germany. The speech triggered riots in Czechoslovakia and set in motion the diplomatic crisis that culminated weeks later in the Munich Agreement.
Hitler's speech before roughly 30,000 party faithful was less a demand for negotiation than a declaration of intent, delivered with the theatrical fury that had become his rhetorical trademark. He portrayed the three million ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland as a persecuted people, denied basic rights by the Prague government, and warned that Germany would not stand by indefinitely.
Sudeten German leader Konrad Henlein, backed and financed by Berlin, had already been agitating for autonomy; Hitler's speech emboldened Sudeten Nazis to launch armed uprisings within days, prompting Czechoslovakia to declare martial law in the region.
The crisis that followed brought Europe to the brink of war before British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Munich, ultimately agreeing on September 30 to let Germany annex the Sudetenland without Czechoslovak consent, in the policy that became a byword for appeasement. Hitler occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia within six months, exposing Munich's failure and hastening Europe's slide into world war.
Key people: Adolf Hitler, Konrad Henlein