in 1938 germany took control of austria in what was known as the
German occupation of Czechoslovakia Following the Anschluss of Austria to Nazi Germany, in March 1938, the conquest of Czechoslovakia became Hitler's next ambition. The incorporation of the Sudetenland into Germany that began on 1 October 1938 left the rest of Czechoslovakia weak, and it became powerless to resist subsequent occupation. Part of the borderland region known as Zaolzie was occupied and subsequently returned to Poland after Czechoslovakia previously annexed it from Poland prior during the Polish-Soviet War. On 15 March 1939, the German Wehrmacht moved into the remainder of Czechoslovakia and, from Prague Castle, Hitler proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The occupation ended with the surrender of Germany following World War II.[1]
Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic is so called because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar, Germany from 6 February 1919 to 11 August 1919,[7] but this name only became mainstream after 1933. Between 1919 and 1933 there was no single name for the new state that gained widespread acceptance, which is precisely why the old name "Deutsches Reich" continued in existence even though hardly anyone used it during the Weimar period.[8] To the right of the spectrum the politically engaged rejected the new democratic model and cringed to see the honour of the traditional word "Reich" associated with it.[9] The Catholic Centre party, Zentrum favoured the term "Deutscher Volksstaat" ("German People's State") while on the moderate left the Chancellor's SPD preferred "Deutsche Republik" ("German Republic").[9] By 1925 "Deutsche Republik" was used by most Germans, but for the anti-democratic right the word "Republik" was, along with the relocation of the seat of power to Weimar, a painful reminder of a government structure that had been imposed by foreign statesmen, along with the expulsion of Kaiser Wilhelm in the wake of massive national humiliation.[9] The first recorded mention of the term "Republik von Weimar" ("Republic of Weimar") came during a speech delivered by Adolf Hitler at a National Socialist German Worker's Party rally in Munich on 24 February 1929; it was a few weeks later that the term "Weimar Republik" was first used (again by Hitler) in a newspaper article.[8] Only during the 1930s did the term become mainstream, both within and outside Germany.