The slogan “On us, without us!” (Czech: O nás bez nás!) summarizes the feelings of the people of Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia and the Czech Republic) towards the agreement. [Citation required] With the handover of the Sudetenland to Germany, Czechoslovakia (as the state has just been renamed) lost its defensive border with Germany and its fortifications. Without it, its independence became more nominal than real. Czechoslovakia also lost 70% of its steel industry, 70% of its electricity and 3.5 million citizens to Germany.  Sudeten Germans celebrated what they saw as their liberation. The impending war, it seemed, had been avoided. An agreement was reached on September 29 and on September 30, 1938 at about 1:30 a..m, Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini and Édouard Daladier signed the Munich Agreement. The agreement was officially introduced by Mussolini, when the Italian plan was actually almost identical to Godesberg`s proposal: the German army was to complete the occupation of the Sudetenland by October 10 and an international commission would decide on the future of other controversial areas. . I believe that the solution to the Czechoslovak problem, which has just been resolved, is only the prelude to a broader settlement in which the whole of Europe can find peace. This morning I had another conversation with the German Chancellor, Mr Hitler, and here is the document that bears his name, just like mine.
Some of you may have already heard what it contains, but I would just like to read it to you: “. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval agreement as a symbol of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war again.  From September 29 to September 30, 1938, an emergency meeting of the main European powers was held in Munich, excluding Czechoslovakia or the Soviet Union, an ally of France and Czechoslovakia. An agreement was quickly reached on Hitler`s terms. It was signed by the leaders of Germany, France, Britain and Italy. Militarily, the Sudetenland was of strategic importance to Czechoslovakia, as most of its border defenses were there to protect against a German attack. The agreement between the four powers was signed in the context of an undeclared german-Czechoslovak war of low intensity, which had begun on September 17, 1938. Meanwhile, after September 23, 1938, Poland transferred its military units to its common border with Czechoslovakia.  Czechoslovakia yielded to diplomatic pressure from France and Britain and agreed, on 30 September, to cede territories to Germany in Munich. Fearing the possible loss of Zaolzie to Germany, Poland issued Zaolzie with an ultimatum with a majority of ethnic Poles that Germany had accepted in advance and Czechoslovakia on October 1.  Later in the meeting, a pre-agreed deception was undertaken to influence Chamberlain and exert pressure: one of Hitler`s aides entered the room to inform Hitler that other Germans had been killed in Czechoslovakia, and Hitler shouted in response, “I will avenge each and every one of them.