Sudeten

Mountainous region in northeast Bohemia, Czech Republic, extending eastwards along the border with Poland. Sudeten was annexed by Germany under the Munich Agreement 1938; it was returned to Czechoslovakia in 1945.

Germany and the Czech Republic sought to bury decades of mutual antagonism in January 1997 by signing a joint declaration aimed at drawing a line under the vexed issue of the Sudetenland. Germany apologized for the suffering caused during the Nazi occupation. For their part, the Czechs expressed regret over the ‘injustices’ that took place during the expulsion of more than 2.5 million Sudetenland Germans after World War II. It took over two years to reach agreement.