Breaking the treaty: Hitler moves his troops

Hitler secretly rearmed the country in the 1930s and then started moving his troops in

direct violation of the Versailles Treaty. He occupied the Rhineland (so much for a

demilitarized zone), annexed Austria, and headed for Czechoslovakia, a country that

had been created after World War I. He considered himself within his rights there,

because he worked out a deal with the governments of Italy, France, and particularly

Great Britain to extend Germany’s power in Czechoslovakia.

Hitler asserted that the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia rightly belonged to

Germany, and the German-speaking residents of the region agreed. Italian dictator

Benito Mussolini, whose post-WWI rise was not unlike Hitler’s, arranged the meeting in

Munich at which Hitler, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (who was bending

over backwards to avoid conflict with Germany), Mussolini, and French Prime Minister

Edouard Deladier carved up Czechoslovakia, without consulting the Czechs.

Hitler also signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact with Josef Stalin, Lenin’s successor in Moscow.

(There’s more about both Lenin and Stalin in the earlier section “Revolting in Russia.”)

After claiming the Sudetenland, the Nazis plunged into Poland with the idea of dividing

that country with the Soviet Union.