Sudetenland

Sudetenland was the name used before 1918 and in 1938-45 for the region inhabited by Sudeten Germans (German: Sudetendeutsche). The Sudeten mountains are directly adjacent to the Bavarian Wald mountains and are situated in Magna Germania recorded by various ancient and medieval historians. In 1918-38 and after 1945 the region was part of Czechoslovakia (from 1993, in the Czech Republic).

First under Bavarian, then Frankish rule this part of the land became known as Bohemia and part of Great Moravia, to where successive groups of Finno-Ugric and Slav language speakers had moved into Germania. They became a part of the Frankish/German-ruled kingdoms and and empire, ruled via tributary relationships, marriages etc.

The many different people, who had came to the area starting after AD 600, still remained there in the ninth and tenth centuries. They were for a large part lumped together and collectively called Slavs for centuries. Only after the 16th century with the Protestant Reformation are differences in languages recognized. All these groups of people were subjects to the Holy Roman Empire.

The later Habsburg imperial rulers inherited the land of Bohemia.

After the destruction of the Holy Roman Empire by 1806, Bohemia including the Sudeten or Bohemian mountains became a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Because of the constant movement of peoples in response to the changing boundaries resulting from inheritances , selling and trading of territories, the people who lived in the Holy Roman Empire then found themselves in an enclave of German people living in these Sudeten mountains and other areas of Bohemia. By the Versailles Treaty the land of Bohemia became part of the new state of Czechoslovakia.

Adolf Hitler forced the Munich Agreement which ceded the Sudetenland to Germany in 1939 and it was annexed to the Reich. After World War II the Sudeten Germans were expelled into Germany proper to safeguard the integrity of the Czech state.

The Munich-based Verband der Sudetendeutschen (Sudeten-German Federation) is a minor association that represents the people's rights.