The Sudetenland is a border area of what is now the Czech Republic — mostly in the north and west, along the mountains near Germany and Austria. Before World War II about three million German-speaking people lived there, inside Czechoslovakia. In 1938 Hitler demanded the area, saying he was protecting those Germans. Britain and France, hoping to avoid a war, agreed at the Munich Conference to let Germany take it. Czechoslovakia was not invited to the meeting about its own land. This is the most famous example in history of appeasement — giving an aggressive leader what he wants and hoping he will stop. He did not stop. Six months later Germany took the rest of Czechoslovakia, and the war began in September 1939. After the war almost all the German-speaking people were forced to leave, and the area is Czech today. You should know this word less as a place and more as a reference. When a politician or writer says 'this is another Sudetenland' or mentions Munich 1938, they are warning that giving in to a bully now will cost more later. The word is usually said with 'the' in front of it.

蘇台德地區（今捷克境內的德語邊境區）。1938 年慕尼黑協定把它割給希特勒，是「綏靖政策」最有名的例子；現在多半當典故用。