Czechoslovakia was a state in Central Europe that came into being on 28 October 1918 after the breakup of Austria-Hungary.
Czechoslovakia, more precisely the Czechoslovak Republic, came into being on 28 October 1918 as a result of the breakup of Austria-Hungary, according to Czech Radio.[1] Slovaks, Czechs, Jews, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Rusyns, Moravians and Silesians lived together in it.[1]
The First Republic
The years 1918 to 1938 are known as the First Republic.[1] A radio programme about it cites developed industry, trade and culture. Among the fields that were at a high level it names the manufacture of machinery, locomotives, cars and weapons, glassmaking, porcelain production, the chemical industry, sugar refining and brewing.[1]
According to the same programme, between 1920 and 1935 the country ranked ninth among the richest countries in the world and tenth in industrial development, despite the economic crisis of the 1930s.[1] The programme names President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk as the symbol of the First Republic. It also mentions the writer Karel Čapek, the journalist Ferdinand Peroutka, the archaeologist Karel Absolon and the film industry of the time.[1]
Germans in the state
Czech Television reports that the German inhabitants of Czechoslovakia faced restrictions, typically in the area of language. Among the states of Central and Eastern Europe, Germans in Czechoslovakia had a relatively better position than elsewhere, perhaps with the exception of Estonia.[2] Their dissatisfaction with this position is often cited as one of the causes of the radicalisation of the Sudeten Germans.[2]
Seventeen days before the Munich Agreement was concluded, Adolf Hitler spoke at the Nazi Party rally about the suffering of the Sudeten Germans. Nazi propaganda meanwhile spread exaggerated or invented reports of violence by Czechs against Germans.[2]
The end of the First Republic
The era of the First Republic was ended by the so-called Munich betrayal and the subsequent creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. According to Czech Radio, this also ended the period of a state in which all the peoples and groups named above lived together.[1]