By 1938 Nazi Germany had built up enough military muscle to think
about annexing all German-populated regions. Hitler's first objective was
the annexation of his native Austria. After the unsuccessful putsch of
1934 when the Austrian Nazis seized the government headquarters and killed
Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, Hitler for a time had to go carefully, but
then closer cooperation with Mussolini, who had hitherto been the most
determined opponent of an Anschluss, opened up new possibilities. On February
12, Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Austrian chancellor, was bullied into accepting
far-reaching German demands during an interview with Hitler. The Nazi leader
demanded that all power in Austria be handed over to the local Nazis who
then invited the German army to move in and help restore law and order.
On March 12, the Wehrmacht stomped into the Alpine republic which
was immediately declared a part of the German Reich. The majority of Austrians
enthusiastically welcomed the annexation hoping it would open up a better
future for the country in the wake of the dawnfall of the Habsburg Empire.
In any case, the Anschluss was the end of a sovereign European state and
there was nothing the world powers could possibly do about it…
Once again the other powers failed to do more than utter solemn
protests and Hitler rapidly turned toward his second objective, the disruption
of the Czechoslovak republic which then boasted one of the best armies
in Europe. The demands of the Sudeten German minority in Czechoslovakia
for greater autonomy were skillfully used by Hitler to create a situation
where Czechoslovakia's ally, France, and Britain brought heavy pressure
to bear on the Prague government. The situation culminated in Neville Chamberlain's
direct intervention to secure Czech acceptance of Hitler's ultimatum for
the cession of the Sudetenland to Germany. On October 1, just a day after
the Munich conference held by Britain, Germany, Italy and France, which
didn't even invite the Czechs to attend, the Wehrmacht occupied the Sudetenland
effectively depriving Czechoslovakia of one-fifth of its territory. Now
that the borderline was barely 40 kilometers away from Prague, Hitler realized
there was no stopping him now… The Munich Agreement, described by Chamberlain
as "peace with honor" and by Winston Churchill as "total
and unmitigated defeat", actually cleared the way for the Second World
War…
In summer the Japanese troops crossed the Soviet border from
the occupied northeastern China and deployed near Lake Khasan. Even though
the conflict never degenerated into an all-out war and the invaders were
speedily routed by the Red Army, it laid perfectly bare Japan's real intentions.
Threatened by a nightmarish prospect of a possible German attack in the
West and a Japanese invasion in the east, the Soviet leaders started giving
thought to mending fences with the Western powers…
The year 1938 was he last in the life of the great Russian actor,
producer and theoretician of the art of acting. Konstantin Stanislavsky's
fame rests chiefly on his theory of acting, his celebrated method emphasizing
the realistic and psychological sides of the human character. Stanislavsky's
method has since been widely emulated around the world.
Another big loss of the year was Karel Capek, the Czech writer
who gained an international reputation as playwright, novelist and essayist.
A very versatile author, Capek also wrote science fiction and satire books
making fun of the injustices of the centralized and machine-dominated society
he lived in. He was the first to introduce the word "robot' into English
and many other foreign languages.
1938 is the birth year of the great American rhythm & blues
singer Tina Turner. Hugely popular in the early-1980, Tina is still performing
to packed audiences worldwide.
In Russia, two great artists were born in 1938. Vladimir Vysotsky
and Rudolf Nuriyev both made stellar careers, each in his own right. Vystosky
was a very talented film and stage actor and a widely popular singer-songwriter
too, who left behind hundreds of songs still admired by millions of people
in Russia and other former Soviet republics. Rudolf Nuriyev was a great
ballet dancer and was widely recognized as the world's best dancer of the
1960s and 70s. Starting off in Russia, Nuriyev then emigrated to the West
where he joined the Royal Ballet company in London.
In the United States, engineer Chester Carlson invented a new
printing method called xerography which later became the heart of the internationally-acclaimed
Xerox printers.
In the same year of 1938, Walt Disney made the Snow White and
the Seven Dwarfs which was one of the first full-length animated cartoon
features the world had ever seen .
THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series
of historical programs is prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.
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