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beastern Poland up to the Curzon Line (and, to ensure tran- bquility for itself, expel some three million Poles westward), the bPolish government demanded compensation. Stalin agreed that beastern Germany up to the Oder-Neisse River line would be giv- ben to Poland. The Yalta Conference gave its approval to the fait baccompli. bThe Poles, having learned to their eternal grief what a bhostile minority meant, determined that the German population bin Poland would go. Never again would they allow the state to bbe subverted from within. They were joined by the Czechs, who bhad a similar problem and determined upon a similar solution. bThree million Germans found themselves citizens of the bnew Republic of Czechoslovakia after the defeat of the Germans band Austro-Hungarians in World War I. They lived in an area bthat came to be known as the Sudentenland. When the area had bbeen part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Germans had blooked with disdain and contempt on the supposedly inferior bSlavic Czechs. All manner of political, economic, social, and cul- btural discrimination was practiced against them. The blow to bGerman pride, therefore, when they found themselves a minor- bity in a Czech Republic, was shattering. Many Sudeten Ger- bmans made no effort to conceal the fact that they were first and bforemost Germans. In the Czech Parliament, when a speaker bchallenged their desire to belong to the Reich, Josef Mayer in- bterpolated that the Sudetens would go to Germany “in the night band barefooted.” bThe rise of Hitler brought a tremendous upsurge of Sudeten bGerman nationalism, and demands for autonomy along with all bkinds of stories of persecution laid the ground work for Hitler’s bplans to annex the area and eventually seize all Czechoslovakia. bThe presence of the Germans in the Sudetenland gave Hitler his bexcuse. And so, in reference to Germans in Austria and Czecho- bslovakia, Hitler said on February 20, 1938: “Over ten million bGermans live in two of the states adjoining our frontier,” and bthat it was Germany’s duty to “protect” them. bThe German Nationalist Party in the Sudetenland, under bKonrad Henlein, was an eager fifth column. On April 24, 1938, bin a speech in Carlsbad, Henlein demanded “autonomy” for the bGerman border regions. The Czechs, instead of acting force- bfully, negotiated, giving both Hitler and the Sudetens greater b
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