Edouard Daladier

Edouard Daladier (1884-1970) served as Prime Minister of France on three separate occasions between 1933 and 1940. He also served as Minister of War at the outset of World War II. Following the fall of France, he fled to Morocco on the assumption that the government would continue the struggle from there, but was arrested by the Vichy regime. He was interred at Germany's Buchenwald concentration camp and at Itter Castle in France. He was released in 1944 as the Allied Forces liberated France. After the war he continued to participate in French politics.

He is perhaps best remembered for representing France at the Munich Conference, at which he approved letting Germany seize control of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.

Edouard Daladier in The War That Came Early
Edouard Daladier represented France at the Munich Conference. Though France, like Britain, was obligated by treaty to protect Czechoslovakia from German aggression, Daladier and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain were desperate to avoid the need to fight another war against Germany. Thus, both wereprepared to allow Adolf Hitler to seize the Sudetenland unchallenged. However, when news of the assassination of Konrad Henlein reached the conference, Daladier and Chamberlain both assumed Hitler had arranged the event to give himself an excuse to invade Czechoslovakia. He had not, but he seized upon the opportunity to do so anyway, prompting France and Britain to go to war with Germany.

Under Daladier, French troops did cross over into German territory in October, 1938. French military intelligence was convinced that Germany was far stronger militarily than it actually was, so little actual fighting was done on German soil. Once Czechoslovakia was subdued, Germany turned on France with a vengeance.

Daladier was often depicted as a puppet of Jewish interests in German propaganda.