Figure 1.--Hitler in his sppech attacking Czechoslovakia and President Beneš claimed that 0.6 million Germans had been driven from their homes. Here is an photograph that Goebbels Propagada Ministry manufactured to prove it. Some American used the Propaganda Ministry's suggested caption. The caption punblishged in the states read, "Sudeten's Look Back: Sudeten German refugees turn and look back at their hime town, Schwaderbach, Czrchoslakia, after arriving on German soil bear here--Schwaderbach, Georgenthal, Germany. The photograp was publishef September 24, 1938. It is almost laughable if we did not jnow what was going to happen to the Czechs. After the Germans launched the war we see counless images of refugees. These peoples are ot refugees. The photographer has placed an elderly man on crutches, but of coirse in reality he cold not have gone far. And look ar=t the shoes the women are wearing. These are not shoes that refugees wear.

Hitler delivered an incendiary speech at the annual Nuremberrg NAZI Party rally focusing on the Sudetenland and the crisis he created there (September 12). He attacked Czech Goverment and listed a series of fradulant claims and accusations. He labeled Czechoslovakia as a fraudulent state that violatied international law's emphasis of national self-determination--a cynical charge given on how he was prepared to carve up Eastern and Central Europw. He chsrged that Czecoslovakia was a Czech hegemony where neither the Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, Ukrainians, or Poles wanted to be in a state with the Czechs. Hitler accused Czech President Edvard Beneš of pursuing a goal of exterminating the Sudeten Germans. He claiming that the Czechs had forced over 0.6 million out of their homes, threatening to starve them--a baseless lie. Of course what he falsely accused the Czech Goverrment of doing was precisely what he was intent on doing once he began the War. He charged that the Beneš' government was also persecuting Hungarians, Poles, and Slovaks. He also accused President Beneš of branding non-Czechs as traitors if they did not support the Czech state. He proclaimed tht he, as the head of Grman Reich, would support the right of the self-determination of fellow Germans in the Sudetenland. He condemned Beneš for executing German protesters. He insisted that Beneš was both belligerent and threatening and that if war broke out, Beneš would forceng Sudeten Germans to fight their fellow Germans. Hitler also accused the Czech Government of being a French client state. He claimed that the French Minister of Aviation Pierre Cot had said "We need this state as a base from which to drop bombs with greater ease to destroy Germany's economy and its industry."

Created: 7:59 AM 8/13/2015
Last updated: 7:59 AM 8/13/2015