1938

The year in brief

In 1938 Hitler added Austria and the Sudetenland to the Reich. On 12 March German troops entered Austria unopposed, and on 13 March in Linz Hitler signed the law on its “reunification” with the Reich. On 30 September in Munich Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini decided that Czechoslovakia would hand the Sudetenland to Germany; its representatives were not admitted to the talks. Poland took Zaolzie, and Hungary southern Slovakia. In July at Évian delegates of 32 states almost all expressed sympathy for the refugees from the Reich and refused to take in Jews. On the night of 9–10 November SA, SS and party squads burned synagogues, and some 30,000 Jewish men were taken to camps. The pretext was the attack by Herschel Grynszpan, who was avenging his family’s expulsion to Zbąszyń. In China the Japanese took Xuzhou, and at Lake Khasan they fought the Red Army.