<P> Today, it is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement, and the term has become "a byword for the futility of appeasing expansionist totalitarian states". </P> <P> Czechoslovakia was created in 1918 following the collapse of the Austro - Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I . The Treaty of Versailles recognized the independence of Czechoslovakia with a population that included three million German - speaking people, 24 percent of the total population of the country . The Germans lived mostly in an area called Sudetenland bordering on Germany and the newly created country of Austria . The Sudeten Germans were not consulted about whether they wished to be citizens of Czechoslovakia . Although the constitution guaranteed equality for all citizens, there was a tendency among political leaders to transform the country "into an instrument of Czech and Slovak nationalism". Some progress was made to integrate the Germans and other minorities, but they continued to be under - represented in the government and the army . Moreover, the Great Depression beginning in 1929 impacted the highly industrialized and export - oriented Sudeten Germans more than it did the Czech and Slovak populations . By 1936, 60 percent of the unemployed people in Czechoslovakia were Germans . </P> <P> In 1933 Sudeten German leader Konrad Henlein founded the Sudeten German Party (SdP) which was "militant, populist, and openly hostile" to the Czechoslovakian government and soon captured two - thirds of the vote in districts with a heavy German population . Historians differ as to whether the SdP was from its beginning a Nazi front organization, or evolved into one . By 1935, the SdP was the second largest political party in Czechoslovakia as German votes concentrated on this party while Czech and Slovak votes were spread among several parties . Shortly after the Anschluss of Austria to Germany, Henlein met with Hitler in Berlin on 28 March 1938, where he was instructed to raise demands unacceptable to the Czechoslovak government led by president Edvard Beneš . On 24 April, the SdP issued a series of demands upon the government of Czechoslovakia, that were known as the Carlsbad Program . Among the demands, Henlein demanded autonomy for Germans living in Czechoslovakia . The Czechoslovak government responded by saying that it was willing to provide more minority rights to the German minority but it refused to grant them autonomy . </P> <P> With tension high between Germans and the Czechoslovakian government, on 15 September 1938 President Beneš offered secretly to give 6,000 square kilometres (2,300 sq mi) of Czechoslovakian territory to Germany in exchange for a German agreement to admit 1.5 to 2.0 million Sudeten Germans which Czechoslovakia would expel . Hitler did not reply . </P>

The munich conference considered germany's demands on