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Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.
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| 1938: The End of Illusions |
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pg. 139 |
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Three women greet Hitler with the Nazi salute during the German chancellor's tour of the newly acquired Sudetenland. The range of emotions portrayed in this photo is telling. While the woman on the far left is clearly enthusiastic and the one in the middle somewhat reserved and respectful, the woman on the right weeps openly as she salutes. Her tears suggest that she may have harbored deep-seated reservations about the incorporation of her homeland into Hitler's ever-expanding Third Reich.
Photo: William Galagher/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
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The incorporation of the Sudetenland into the German Reich included thousands of nonethnic Germans along with the German-speaking majority. After the signing of the Munich Treaty, approximately 200,000 people were expelled or fled from their homes. In this photo, armed Nazi soldiers supervise the expulsion of Czech citizens from Falknov and Ohri.
Photo: Czechoslovak News Agency
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Hitler accepts bouquets of flowers from children of the Sudetenland. Accompanied by Heinrich Himmler and other top officials, Hitler's staged tour through the Czech lands was choreographed to perfection. Cheering crowds, grateful schoolchildren, and members of the Austrian Nazi Party met him at every stop. The incorporation of the Sudetenland into the greater German Reich was a tremendous propaganda victory for Hitler. Since entering politics in 1919, Hitler had argued passionately for the creation of a German nation to house all ethnic Germans.
Photo: Schell Bilderdienst/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
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October 8, 1938: The Slovak Peoples' Party establishes Hlinkova Garda (Hlinka Guard), an antisemitic militia that will collaborate with the Germans.
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October 28, 1938: Germany expels Jews with Polish citizenship to the Polish border. Poles refuse to admit them; Germans refuse to allow them back into Germany. Seventeen thousand are stranded in the frontier town of Zbaszyn, Poland.
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November 1938: Father Bernhard Lichtenberg, a Roman Catholic priest in Berlin, condemns the German assault on Jews. One of the few German Catholics to denounce the immoral behavior of the government, Father Lichtenberg sermonizes: "Outside the synagogue is burning, and that also is a house of God."
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November 2, 1938: Sections of Slovakia as well as the Transcarpathian Ukraine are annexed by Hungary.
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| 1938: The End of Illusions |
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pg. 139 |
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The Holocaust Chronicle
© 2009 Publications International, Ltd.
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