page_title: Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford
section_title: Mission to Czechoslovakia
hierarchical_section_title: Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford / Political career / Mission to Czechoslovakia
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Procentní podíl německého obyvatelstva v soudních okresech podle sčítání lidu roku 1930 Deutsch: Prozentsatz der Deutsche Siedlungsgebiete in den böhmischen Ländern (Volkszählung, 1930) English: The percentage of the German population in the judicial districts according to the census of 1930 Esperanto: La procento de la germana populacio en la juraj distriktoj (censo de 1930)
context_page_description: Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford, PC was a prominent Liberal and later National Liberal politician in the United Kingdom. His 1938 diplomatic mission to Czechoslovakia was key to the enactment of the British policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany preceding the Second World War.
context_section_description: Runciman returned to public life when, at the beginning of August 1938, the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, sent him on a mission to Czechoslovakia to mediate in a dispute between the Government of Czechoslovakia and the Sudeten German Party (SdP), representing the ethnic German population of the border regions, known as the Sudetenland. Unknown to Runciman, the SdP, although ostensibly calling for autonomy for the Sudetenland, had instructions from Nazi Germany not to reach any agreement on the matter, and thus attempts at mediation failed. With international tension rising in Central Europe, Runciman was recalled to London on 16 September 1938.
  The published outcome of the mission - known as the Runciman Report - was issued by the mediator on 21 September 1938 in the form of letters addressed to Neville Chamberlain and Edvard Beneš, the President of Czechoslovakia. The report held the SdP responsible for breaking off the negotiations with the Czechoslovak government despite the fact that revised government proposals met “almost all the requirements” of the SdP. Runciman considered the actions of the Czechoslovak authorities to be “not actively oppressive, and certainly not ‘terroristic’” but “marked by tactlessness, lack of understanding, petty intolerance and discrimination”. The multiple complaints of economic and political discrimination voiced by the Sudeten Germans were, he believed, “in the main justified” and gave rise to a feeling of “hopelessness” – but “the rise of Nazi Germany gave them new hope”. Runciman, therefore, considered “their turning for help towards their kinsmen and their eventual desire to join the Reich as a natural development in the circumstances”. This led him to conclude “that these frontier districts should at once be transferred from Czechoslovakia to Germany".
  Neville Chamberlain agreed to the transfer of the border regions of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany at the Munich Conference on 30 September 1938. Archival evidence suggests that the recommendations of the Runciman Report were amended at a late stage of the drafting In order to provide justification for Chamberlain’s policy of territorial transfer.
  Further controversy arose from Runciman's use of his week-end leisure time in Czechoslovakia. This was spent mostly, but not entirely, on the country estates of members of the SdP-supporting Sudeten German aristocracy in a social and political environment hostile to the Czechoslovak government.
  In October 1938, following the Munich Agreement, Chamberlain reshuffled his Cabinet and appointed Runciman as Lord President of the Council. He held that post until the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939.
caption: Districts in Czechoslovakia with an ethnic German population of 25% or more (pink), 50% or more (red), and 75% or more (dark red) according to the census of 1930.[26]
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