The Munich Agreement

The Debate that Started World War II

Heather Brunelli and Catie Howard

Senior Division
Group Website

Process Paper
 The Treaty of Versailles, The Cuban Missile Crisis and The Hepburn Act were all topics

we considered using for our National History Day project. However, during extensive research

on some of history’s most significant debates we came across the Munich Conference and

became, almost immediately, enthralled. We have always found The Holocaust and World War

II to be captivating, so it was natural for us to choose a debate not only from that time era, but a

potential cause of both events. It is indubitable that the Munich Agreement of 1938 was one of

the most significant debates in history. It was, perhaps, one of the greatest failures of

international diplomacy in the 20th Century, and consequently led to the Second World War,

eternally altering the narration of our world.

We began preparations for our project in August. For most of the month of September we

researched, using the internet. The most valuable internet article was The Conquest at Munich.

We knew the information we were obtaining would not be sufficient, so we read Explaining

Munich: The Search for Motive in British Policy, and The Greatest Treason: The Untold Story of

Munich. We furthered our knowledge by reading parts of Munich Prologue to Tragedy and

Munich. At a college library we also found a documentary by a professor which proved very

useful and inspired us to interview local college professor Dr. Hilwig. We also searched the

Time and Washington Post Archives. These articles provided a direct view of the opinions of the

historical event as they were happening.

Our reasoning for choosing to do a bebsite is multifaceted. As research progressed and

our knowledge expanded, we realized that we would need to choose a category in which a large

amount of information could be viewed in a simple, understandable, and straightforward manner.

We believe that the website category was the best way to accomplish this. To make the website
we used the National History Day program Weebly. All told, we spent close to 100 hours

researching, compiling, organizing, creating and revising the website.

One cannot reflect on the history of the 20th century without bearing in mind World War

II, and one of the leading causes, the Munich Agreement, the treaty which essentially awarded

Hitler parts of Czechoslovakia and allowed for further expansion of the Third Reich. If this

agreement had never been reached, Hitler wouldn’t have been awarded access and power to take

over countries throughout Europe, fundamentally stopping him at an earlier stage and enabling to

continue with his quest for expansion. If Hitler had not been given the upper hand in these

negotiations, it is not a stretch to believe that World War II would have been avoided. If Hitler

was forced to fight the combined armies of Czechoslovakia, France, and Great Britain in order to

take Sudetenland, history would certainly look different today. I cannot think of a more fitting

topic for this year’s National History Day Theme, Debate and Diplomacy: Success, Failures and

Consequences.