sudetenland

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a region in Czechia
{i} region in the northern Czech Republic
an area in the north west of the Czech Republic which Hitler attacked and took control of in 1938, just before World War II. Sections of northern and western Bohemia and northern Moravia around the Sudeten mountain ranges. Formerly part of Austria, the predominantly German-speaking area was incorporated into Czechoslovakia after World War I. Discontent among the Sudeten Germans was exploited in the mid-1930s by the Nazi Party and its local leader Konrad Henlein. The inflammatory situation convinced Britain and France that, to avoid war, Czechoslovakia must be persuaded to give the region autonomy. Adolf Hitler's demand that the region be ceded to Germany was initially rejected, but the cession was later accomplished by the Munich agreement. After World War II the region was restored to Czechoslovakia, which expelled its German inhabitants and repopulated the area with Czechs