The Anschluss with Austria (13th March, 1938) The Austrian government, led by Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg was

suffering from the attacks of the local Nazis there. Although they were given orders by Hitler, they would sometimes act on their own. In January 1938, the Austrian authorities uncovered a plot to kill the German ambassador, hoping that Germany will seize Austria. Therefore, Schuschnigg went to visit Hitler for crisis talks. Hitler demanded him to give the Nazis more authority and control over the workings of the Austrian government, for example, by appointing a Nazi supporter to be the Minister of Interior. To this stage, the Austrian government was in terrible trouble, as he was unable to gain support from both Britain and the Little Entente, which was an alliance between Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia against the restoration of the old regime of Austria-Hungary, supported by France. Therefore, he set up a plebiscite back in Austria, also known as a referendum. However, Hitler feared he might lose the elections thus quickly invaded Austria on 11th March 1938. In Vienna, 76,000 people were arrested as enemies of the Nazis. This reflected the repressive nature of Hitlers regime. By doing so, this revealed the weaknesses of Britain and France, as they do nothing more other than to protest against it. Furthermore, it showed as one more step towards the cooperation and friendship between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The importance of this event was it meant Czechoslovakia can now be attacked from not only the south, but also from the west and north. Hitler Gained the Sudetenland (29th September, 1938) The Sudetenland was originally a piece of land which belonged to Germany but was forced to be handed over to Czechoslovakia in the Treaty of St Germain, in September 1919. This piece of land contained around 3 million German speakers. The people who lived there were known as the Sudeten Germans, who were concentrated at the border areas. They were led by Konrad Henlein, who was supported by and received financial aid from Hitler. They were told to make unreasonable demands to the Czechoslovak government, led by the Czech President, Benes.