glass and other light industry. The high number of unemployed people, hunger, fear of the future and dissatisfaction with the Prague government led to the flash rise of the populist Sudeten German Party (SdP) founded by Konrad Henlein, born in the suburbs of Liberec. Whilst he declared fidelity to the Republic, he secretly negotiated with Adolf Hitler. In 1937 he radicalised his views and became Hitler's puppet in order to incorporate the Sudetenland into Germany and destabilise Czechoslovakia, which was an ally of France and was one of the leading arms producers in Europe.
The city became the centre of Pan-German movements and later the Nazis especially after the 1935 election, despite its important democratic mayor, Karl Kostka (German Democratic Freedom Party). The final change came in summer 1938, after the radicalisation of the terror of the SdP, whose death threats forced Kostka and his family to flee to Prague.
In September 1938, after two unsuccessful attempts by the SdP to stage a pro-Nazi coup in Czechoslovakia, which was stopped by police and the army, the Munich Agreement in 1938 awarded the city to Nazi Germany and it became the capital of the Sudetengau region. Most of the city's Jewish and Czech population fled to the rest of Czechoslovakia or was expelled. The important synagogue was burned down.
After World War II, the town again became a part of Czechoslovakia, and nearly all of the city's German population was expelled, following the Beneš decrees. The region was then resettled with Czechs. The city continues to have an important German minority, consisting of anti-Nazi Germans who were active in the struggle against Hitler, as well as Germans from Czech-German families and their descendents. Liberec also has a Jewish minority with a newly-built synagogue and a Greek minority, originating from Communist refugees who settled there after the Greek Civil War in 1949.
Historical names
•
