– by Martin Wein – 23/6/2024  

This is not 1938. It’s 2024.

Since 1938, historical events have been called the 1938 equivalent, specifically in Israel. The year 1938 is usually a reference to the Munich Agreement, in which Western powers tried to “appease” Hitler and allowed for the breakup of Czechoslovakia, leading up to WWII. It is part of a politicised memory trope that has spread among countries in conflict across the world and is used often together with another “historical parallel” – a new Hitler. What is sure is that conflicts and all their indicators have reached an all-time high since the aftermath of WWII.

Several historians have already publicly subscribed to the notion that boils down to: 2024=1938/Russia=Germany/Putin=Hitler. But the same comparison happens in the Balkans (Serbia-Croatia etc.), the Caucasus (Armenia-Azerbaijan etc.), the Middle East (Israel/Palestine etc.). And it’s mutual. For Russia, for example, 2022 might have been perceived of as 1938, and they “learnt the lesson from history” and did a pre-emptive strike, like Israel In 1967, before losing what they truly considered theirs.

Czechoslovakia itself is so conveniently exotic that its actual prehistory, before 1938 (and after) can be largely ignored. Even some historians fall into these traps or get pressured to stand up for their political leaders and media policies. It’s questionable.

Czechoslovakia was a deeply problematic country that was “born in isolation” as the historian D. Perman once wrote, not least due to the massive statistical manipulations, which transpired at the Paris Peace Treaties negotiations, decades before, after World War I. Claiming ethnic boundaries, Czechs ended up being almost a minority in their own country, with Slovaks only third largest language group, and all in all Czechoslovakia was akin to a reborn Austria-Hungary. Of course, it is possible to see 1938 Events always and everywhere, but not every situation is really as similar if you take into account the specific historical circumstances of 1938 and it’s cultural context.

And the same holds true for 2024. Things are different now. Nuclear arms exist. Global ecological disasters exists. The global population has multiplied. War has changed. Diplomacy has developed. It is not the same world, and therefore it cannot be the same context. What may have held true in 1938, may not be the best of ideas in the nuclear age of mutually assured destruction, for example a pre-emptive strike against a nuclear power. And we have bigger worries, such as global climate change.

Essentially, it is hard to see any country, except possibly the U.S. with its military stationed in 178 countries, trying to “conquer the world.” Therefore, comparing a string of linked local conflicts to an attempted all-out global contest is – as of now – a bit of an exaggeration. We are not quite there yet, and maybe a Third World War can still be curbed. Alas, collective memories can easily become fateful self-fulfilling prophecies.

Dr. Martin Wein taught history at New York University and Tel Aviv University. He is a former research student of US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt. Dr. Wein has published on Prague Zionism, on the secret Czechoslovak military role in the foundation of Israel in 1948, on “global comparative genocide,” and on multi-religious relations in Europe and the Middle East, from the 19th century to the present.