How did Hitler violate the Munich Agreement?

Hitler violated the Munich Agreement by invading Czechoslovakia. The Munich Agreement was signed on September 30, 1938, between Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. The agreement was meant to prevent further aggression from Hitler and was a result of his demands to annex the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia that had a substantial ethnic German population. According to the terms of the agreement, Hitler was allowed to annex the Sudetenland on the condition that he would not seek any further territorial expansion.

However, Hitler did not adhere to this agreement. On March 15, 1939, German troops marched into Czechoslovakia and occupied the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia, which subsequently became a German protectorate. Slovakia declared its independence and became a separate state that aligned with Nazi Germany. This flagrant disregard for the Munich Agreement destroyed any remaining trust other European powers had in Hitler and proved that his ambitions extended beyond the previously negotiated terms. It was a step that directly contributed to the outbreak of World War II because it showed that appeasement policies, like the one attempted at Munich, were ineffective against aggressive totalitarian regimes.