Adolf Hitler informs Czech President Emil Hácha of the imminent German invasion of Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939 in Berlin. Hácha suffered a heart attack during the meeting, and had to be kept awake by medical staff, eventually giving in and accepting Hitler’s surrender terms

In the evening of 14 March 1939, Hitler invited President Hácha to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Hitler deliberately kept him waiting for hours, while Hitler watched a film. Finally, at 1:30 a.m., on 15 March 1939, Hitler saw the President. He told Hácha that as they were speaking, the German army was about to invade Czechoslovakia. All of Czechoslovakia’s defences were now under German control following the Munich Agreement in September of the previous year. The country was virtually surrounded by Germany on three fronts.

Hitler now gave the President two options: cooperate with Germany, in which case the “entry of German troops would take place in a tolerable manner” and “permit Czechoslovakia a generous life of her own, autonomy and a degree of national freedom…” or face a scenario in which “resistance would be broken by force of arms, using all means.” By four o’clock, after suffering a heart attack induced by Göring’s threat to bomb the capital, Hácha contacted Prague, effectively “signing Czechoslovakia away” to Germany. French Ambassador Robert Coulondre reported that by half past four, Hácha was “in a state of total collapse, and kept going only by means of injections.”