January 29, 1944 Operation Pied Piper

Nazi propaganda depicting German “Anschluss” with Austria

Intent on avoiding war with Nazi Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain convened in Munich in September 1938, to resolve German claims on western Czechoslovakia. The “Sudetenland”. Representatives of the Czech and Slovak peoples, were not invited.

For the people of the modern Czech Republic, the Munich agreement was a betrayal. “O nás bez nás!” “About us, without us!”

On September 30, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to London declaring “Peace in Our Time”. The piece of paper Chamberlain held in his hand bore the signatures of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Édouard Daladier as well as his own, annexing enormous swaths of the Sudetenland, to Nazi Germany.

To Winston Churchill, the Munich agreement was an act of appeasement. Feeding the proverbial crocodile (Hitler), in hopes that he will eat you last.

For much of Great Britain, the sense of relief was…