The signing of the Munich Agreement, 29 September 1938

The Munich agreement was signed on 29 September 1938 by (from left to right) the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940), the French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier (1884–1970), the Leader of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), and the Italian Fascist Leader Benito Mussolini (1883–1945). Standing next to Mussolini's right is the Italian Foreign Secretary Count Galeazzo Ciano (1903–1944); in the background between Hitler and Mussolini the Third Reich's Foreign Secretary Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946) (left) and his Secretary of State, Ernst Freiherr von Weizsäcker (1882–1951) (right), are visible. The settlement, signed in Munich, permitted Nazi Germany to annex the northern, southwest, and western areas of Czechoslovakia (German: "Sudetenland"), where mostly German speakers lived. Preceded by threats of military conflict by Nazi Germany in case the German minority in Czechoslovakia would not be granted autonomy and in an attempt to avoid war at all coats, the representatives agreed that the "Sudetenland" was to be occupied by Nazi Germany. Czechoslovakia, whose representatives were not invited to the conference, eventually had to capitulate a day later.

Munich Agreement, black-and-white photograph, 29 September 1938, unknown photographer; source: Bundesarchiv, 183-R69173 / CC-BY-SA,  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.