Hitler began German expansion by annexing neighboring Austria in 1938. This act, known as the Anschluss, was conducted with what was claimed to be overwhelming Austrian support. Hitler claimed that Germans within Austria, a predominately German-speaking state, were begging to be joined with Germany to create a larger Germany. He strong-armed the Austrian chancellor into accepting Nazi politicians in his government, and then eventually occupied Austria, formally incorporating his homeland into Germany. He then turned to the Sudetenland, a region in neighboring Czechoslovakia with a large German presence. He again fabricated a crisis, claiming that Sudeten Germans faced persecution, and demanding that the Czechoslovak government cede Germany the territory or face war. At the Munich Conference of 1938, the powers of Europe, most prominently British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, pursued a policy of appeasement, granting Hitler the territory in return for a promise that he would not invade Czechoslovakia. He invaded that country within a few months, and invaded Poland (after concluding a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union) in September of 1939. While the Poles, unlike the Austrians or Czechoslovakia, staged military resistance, they were quickly overrun by the devastating combination of air power and mechanized forces. This new form of warfare, known as blitzkrieg, would be visited on much of Western Europe in 1940.
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