Editing Munich Agreement (section)

====Demands for autonomy====
[[File:Sudetendeutsche.png|thumb|Czech districts with an ethnic German population in 1934 of 20% or more (pink), 50% or more (red) and 80% or more (dark red)<ref>{{cite book|title=Statistický lexikon obcí v Republice československé I. Země česká|year=1934|place=Prague}}<br />{{cite book|title=Statistický lexikon obcí v Republice česko7slovenské II. Země moravskoslezská|year=1935|place=Prague}}</ref> in 1935]]
[[File:Konrad Henlein (1898-1945).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Konrad Henlein]], leader of the [[Sudeten German Party]] (SdP), a branch of the Nazi Party of Germany in Czechoslovakia]]
[[File:Edvard Beneš.jpg|left|thumb|upright|[[Edvard Beneš]], [[president of Czechoslovakia]] and leader of the [[Czechoslovak government-in-exile]]]]

The [[First Czechoslovak Republic]] was created in 1918 following  the [[Dissolution of Austria-Hungary|collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire]] at the end of [[World War I]]. The [[Treaty of Saint-Germain]] recognized the independence of Czechoslovakia and the [[Treaty of Trianon]] defined the borders of the new state, which was divided into the regions of  [[Bohemia]] and [[Moravia]] in the west and Slovakia and [[Subcarpathian Rus']] in the east, including more than three million Germans, 22.95% of the total population of the country. They lived mostly in border regions of the historical [[Czech Lands]] for which they coined the new name [[Sudetenland]], which bordered on [[Weimar Republic|Germany]] and the newly created country of [[First Austrian Republic|Austria]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Glassheim |first=Eagle |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/951158062 |title=Cleansing the Czechoslovak borderlands: migration, environment, and health in the former Sudetenland |date=2016 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |isbn=978-0-8229-6426-1 |series=Pitt series in Russian and East European studies |location=Pittsburgh, Pa |oclc=951158062}}</ref>

The Sudeten Germans were not consulted on whether they wished to be citizens of Czechoslovakia. Although the constitution guaranteed equality for all citizens, there was a tendency among political leaders to transform the country "into an instrument of [[Czech nationalism|Czech]] and [[Slovak nationalism]]."<ref>Douglas, R. M. (2012), ''Orderly and Humane'', New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 9</ref> Some progress was made to integrate the Germans and other minorities, but they continued to be underrepresented in the government and the army. Moreover, the Great Depression, beginning in 1929, impacted the highly industrialized and export-oriented Sudeten Germans more than it did the Czech and Slovak populations. By 1936, 60 percent of the unemployed people in Czechoslovakia were Germans.<ref>Douglas, pp. 7–12</ref>

In 1933, Sudeten German leader [[Konrad Henlein]] founded the [[Sudeten German Party]] (SdP), which was "militant, populist, and openly hostile" to the Czechoslovak government. It soon captured two-thirds of the vote in  districts with a heavy German population. Historians differ as to whether the SdP was a Nazi [[front organisation]] from its beginning, or if it evolved into one.<ref name="Eleanor L. Turk 1999. Pp. 123">Eleanor L. Turk. ''The History of Germany''. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999. {{ISBN|9780313302749}}. p. 123.</ref><ref>Douglas, pp. 12–13</ref> By 1935, the SdP was the second-largest political party in Czechoslovakia as German votes concentrated on this party, and Czech and Slovak votes were spread among several parties.<ref name="Eleanor L. Turk 1999. Pp. 123" />

Shortly after the ''[[Anschluss]]'' of Austria to Germany, Henlein met with Hitler in Berlin on 28 March 1938, and was instructed to make demands unacceptable to the democratic Czechoslovak government, led by President [[Edvard Beneš]]. On 24 April, the SdP issued a series of demands known as the [[Karlsbader Programm]].{{sfn|Noakes|Pridham|2010|loc=Vol. 3|pp=100–101}} Henlein demanded autonomy for Germans in Czechoslovakia.<ref name="Eleanor L. Turk 1999. Pp. 123" /> The Czechoslovak government responded by saying that it was willing to provide more [[minority rights]] to the German minority but was initially reluctant to grant autonomy.<ref name="Eleanor L. Turk 1999. Pp. 123" /> The SdP gained 88% of the ethnic German votes in May 1938.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hruška|first=E.|date=2013|title=Boj o pohraničí: Sudetoněmecký Freikorps v roce 1938|language=cs|publisher=Nakladatelství epocha|place=Prague|page=11}}</ref>

With tension high between the Germans and the Czechoslovak government, Beneš, on 15 September 1938, secretly offered to give {{convert|6000|sqkm|sqmi}} of Czechoslovakia to Germany, in exchange for a German agreement to admit 1.5 to 2.0&nbsp;million Sudeten Germans expelled by Czechoslovakia. Hitler did not reply.<ref>Douglas, p. 18</ref>