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"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
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Introductory note: This column is drawn in major part from a previous column of mine entitled: "In Eastern Europe, 'It's Just Like 1939'." Well, now, as it happens, it isn't exactly like 1939, that is, not yet. However, given the realities in 1939, that is what the situation in East-Central Europe really was following the (in)famous 1938 "Peace in Our Time" settlement at Munich between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany, there indeed are a few similarities between that time and the present.
Thus, I am now calling the 1938 agreement "Munich I." [See the 2nd half of this column for the overall history of that event and its aftermath.] And I am projecting that we now face the possibility of a "Munich II." That is that a third party to an intra-European conflict, that is Russia's War on Ukraine, namely the United States, is trying hard to "settle" the war, at the expense of Ukraine.
In the context of the recently concluded Feb. 14-16 "Ukraine" conference, that just happened to be held in Munich, Germany (!!!), on what the next steps of the Western powers towards Russia and its invasion of Ukraine should be, there is indeed one major similarity between "Munich I" and "Munich II": a major Western leader, this time it is, of course, Donald Trump (who is no Neville Chamberlain), is prepared to give away a piece of Ukraine to placate a dictator, this time, ironically, a Russian, not a German, one.
Why "ironically," you might ask. Because at Munich I [again, see further, below] it was the predecessor of the current neo-feudal Russian state, the Soviet Union, that was prepared to come to the defense of the beleaguered country, while this time around, it is Russia, not Germany, that wants a chunk of that country.
The 2025 Munich Conference was originally focused on "what to do about Ukraine/Russia," primarily for the European powers, primarily in organizing for the continued defense of Ukraine, in face of the continued Russian aggression. But at the last minute, the focus was switched, at least in part, by the U.S Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance. Together, they clearly stated that what was coming was a decline in the U.S. commitment to that continued defense of the Ukrainian republic. This is why, in my view, what may (or may not, depending upon what the major European powers do) happen to Ukraine ---- that is its abandonment and subsequent dismemberment (just as happened to Czechoslovakia in 1938) --- can be characterized as Munich II.
Following those appearances by Hegseth and Vance, was the Trump-Putin meeting in Saudi Arabia (of all places), to "discuss the Ukraine problem." As is well known, Ukraine was not invited (just as Czechoslovakia was not party to Munich 1). Since that meeting, Trump has become openly antagonistic towards Ukrainian national interests in general, and its President, Volodymyr Zelensky, in particular. (The reasons for this rather dramatic change in U.S. policy are not entirely clear. They range from the Trump-attitude-towards-Biden-policies "anything you can do, I can do different," to "just what does Putin have on Trump?" (That collection could start with the "Pee-tapes" and go on to details of Trump financial mis-deeds. But is surely all speculation at this point.) In terms of what Trump would like to do with and to Ukraine, it appears (up to this date of writing, at least) to be, essentially to give it (or a major piece of it, over to Putin's Russia (while getting hold of a significant chunk of Ukraine's mineral and rare-earth resources for the U.S.).
In 1938, at Munich I, the British-French delegation handed over to Nazi Germany the Western half of Czechoslovakia resources, with, of course, its resources. Those resources included major industrial works like the Skoda plant, which could easily be converted to building tanks, and etc. for the Wehrmacht. (In one of those marvelous ironies of history, in 2000, the German auto manufacturer Volkswagen bought a significant piece of the Skoda works in the Czech Republic. A further irony of history is that Hitler, who in his youth had been an artist, contributed to the design of the first "volkswagen," pre-WW II.) By the following March, the Nazis had taken over the rest of the nation. As noted, in 2025, Trump is making it quite clear that he would like to give over a chunk of Ukraine, along with a goodly chunk of its mineral wealth, to Russia (with a chunk of that chunk going to the U.S.). Which is precisely what makes this deal, if Trump is able to push it through, "Munich II."
Of course, it remains to be seen exactly what will happen next. This time around, the major European powers, including the United Kingdom (even though it is no longer part of the European Union), are in the process of saying "not so fast." At the time of this writing [2-20-25], exactly what the European powers are prepared to do about the situation is uncertain. But on Feb. 17, a conference organized by President Macron of France did take place. It included the leaders of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Poland, Spain, The Netherlands, and Denmark, as well as European Council President Antonio Costa, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Interestingly enough, several of those governments, e.g., Italy and The Netherlands, can be categorized as right-wing. Thus, in terms of its international politics, and the division of third-party countries into two or more pieces, if that were to occur in the case of Ukraine, that would indeed make the most recent international conference in Munich, GFR, the beginning of a Munich II.
And now this column turns to an account of what actually happened at Munich I in some detail. As noted above, this text is drawn from a previous column of mine entitled "In Eastern Europe, 'It's Just like 1939.' Well, no."
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In 1939 Europe was post-Munich, 1938 (that is, "Munich I"). There were, and are many historical myths afloat about Munich I. The balance of this column is devoted to dispelling those myth(s) and summarizing what really happened there.
In 1995, the historians Clement Leibovitz and Alvin Finkel published a book entitled In Our Time: The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion (New York: Monthly Review Press). Its major conclusion was contrary to the history which had been on offer since the events themselves, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain wasn't attempting to appease Hitler. Based on both official sources that became available under the [British] Official Secrets Act (which 50 years after the fact releases documents termed "secret" at the time they were created) and other correspondence and dispatches, the authors told us what was really going on between the British and German governments of the time. Chamberlain was attempting to make a deal with Hitler, not to save the integrity of Czechoslovakia, but rather to have him point his guns in one particular direction, to include as targets neither the United Kingdom's Home Islands nor the British Empire at large [with protection for the French and their colonial empire thrown in].
It turns out that what Chamberlain was really trying to achieve at Munich had everything to do with: A) trying to keep Hitler focused on his much-touted and much-repeated 1930's policy/slogan 'Drang Nach Osten' ("Drive to the East") in order to achieve the destruction of the Soviet Union, and B) preventing the Red Army of that nation from taking up a prominent place in Central Europe. (For maps, see Click Here: iatlas.com/maps/europe/19390823/.)
Eastern Europe in 1939
The "situation in Eastern Europe in 1939" actually in part goes back to a diplomatic/military operation that took place at the end of the 18th Century, the Partition of Poland between the Prussia, the Russian Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Thus, Poland as a nation disappeared from the map of Europe until it was restored to its existence over a century later by a combination of the victory in World War I over Prussia and Austria-Hungary by the Western Powers in World War I, and (ironically) by the defeat of the Russian Empire by Prussia in the same conflict. The victors' Treaty of Versailles (1919), restored the nation of Poland and thus re-configured the borders of Eastern Europe. In so doing, it did leave behind one territorial anomaly which came to play an important role in starting the next World War: "East Prussia." It was a piece of the former Prussian Empire that had been connected directly to the Prussian Empire, which was now left as part of the new, renamed nation of Germany, separated from it however, by a goodly chunk of Polish territory.
As is well-known, once Hitler and the Nazi Party took over Germany in 1933, very early on they began to re-arm (which had been forbidden to it by the Versailles Treaty). But the Western Powers did nothing to deal with that development (a policy called "Appeasement"). Nazi Germany's first overtly military operation was to "Remilitarize the Rhineland" (1936), an action explicitly prohibited by the Versailles Treaty. Again, the Western Powers did nothing. Then, in 1938 came the Munich Agreement, which [as noted above] gave a goodly chunk of Western Czechoslovakia to the Nazis, without a fight. The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, famously advertised the Agreement as "Peace in our Time." But, as it happened, it was quickly proven to be nothing of the sort. Just a few months later, in March 193,9 Nazi Germany occupied eastern Czechoslovakia, that is "Slovakia," without a fight.
(As it happened, operating outside of its borders had begun in 1937, when Germany, in cooperation with Mussolini's fascist Italy, had begun to aid the fascist revolutionary forces in Spain, led by Francisco Franco, while the "democratic" Western Powers, including the United States, refused to sell arms to the elected government of the Spanish Republic. Only the Soviet Union did, in an effort that was limited in part by distance and German/Italian control of the Mediterranean.)
What Chamberlain was really trying to achieve at Munich had everything to do with: A) trying to keep Hitler focused on his much-promoted "Drang Nach Osten" ("Drive to the East") in order to achieve the destruction of the Soviet Union, and B) preventing the Red Army of that nation from taking up a prominent place in Central Europe. For the Soviet Union had pledged to the Czechs, who had a well-equipped and trained army of their own ready to fight the Wehrmacht, with full ground and air military support.
As the deadline for the threatened German invasion approached, early on the morning of Sept. 30, 1938, the Red Air Force had many planes warming up on their runways, ready to attack the Nazis from just a couple of hundred miles away, just awaiting a "yes" from the Czech government. But, under enormous pressure from the British and French governments, that final "go" never came from President Benes. The Red Air Force stayed on its runways and the Czechs were left to the tender mercies of the Nazis, giving up the first non-German-speaking territory seized by them in the run-up to World War II. (The first foreign territory seized by the Nazis was Austria, in an operation called the "Anschluss.")
Chamberlain thought that he had a long-term deal. As for the event of the following March (Hitler fully occupied the Slovakia portion of the former nation), well, for the Brits and the French, wasn't Hitler just continuing the desired Drang Nach Osten? But then, in the summer of 1939, Hitler raised the ante by threatening to invade Poland over what was called the "Polish Corridor" that separated Germany from its long-held slice (pie-shaped, actually) of old Poland and Russia, called "East Prussia." Again, the Soviet Union, which by this time was getting very concerned with German expansionism accompanied by increasingly virulent German anti-Soviet propaganda, was trying hard to negotiate a mutual pact with the British and the French for the defense of Poland.
But a major condition for the USSR was that the Poles had to agree to let Red Army units move right up to the Polish-German border. They could not be sitting hundreds of miles away from the initial front, subject to heavy German air bombardment as they tried to move their troops and equipment over the Polish railways (which, as it happened, had a different gauge from the Russian ones making such movements even harder) to what would be the front lines. However, even in the face of the Nazi threats, the last thing that the far right-wing Polish government of the time wanted was to have the Red Army in its living room.
When the Soviet Union finally gave up trying to make an anti-fascist alliance with the Western Powers, in order among other things to give themselves some breathing room-and-time ahead of the Nazi attack that they knew would come eventually, they concluded the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 25, 1939. The strongly "anti-Communist" Poles who might well have been saved by a well-placed Red Army, then suddenly found the Wehrmacht in their living room. As it happened, for self-protection, the Soviets invaded on Sept. 17, !939, and the Polish government went out of existence.
And so, that was the ultimate end for Chamberlain's "Peace in our time" Munich I. Of course, it remains to be seen what the outcome(s) of Munich II will be.
(Article changed on Feb 23, 2025 at 11:06 PM EST)
(Article changed on Feb 24, 2025 at 12:02 PM EST)
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