The map of Europe was redrawn after the First World War, and many new countries were created. Three million Germans were forced to relocate to Czechoslovakia as a result of this. When Adolf Hitler ascended to power, he sought to unite all Germans into a single government.
In September 1938, he focused on the three million Germans who lived in the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia. Protests by Sudeten Germans erupted, prompting police brutality in the Czech Republic. Hitler claimed to have killed 300 Sudeten Germans. While this was not the case, Hitler used it as a pretext to station German troops along the Czech frontier.
During this time, Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, went to Berchtesgaden, Hitler's private mountain retreat, in an effort to address the crisis. Three of the papers in this collection are excerpts from Chamberlain's own meeting notes. The other two records provide valuable evidence of the kind of advice Chamberlain was receiving in the United Kingdom.
