I think I read somewhere that much of the heavy equipment used to take Poland and France was in Czech hands at the beginning of 1938. The Skoda works was a huge munitions plant that also changed hands without a shot being fired.

As I recall, the book argument went like so: capturing that equipment through war would have cost both German and Czech losses, whereas just turning materiel over to Germany strengthened then with no attritional loss of equipment, Czech or Nazi. Hitler increased his armament something like 25%, and picked up the factories producing heavy artillery, some 2 years before he invades France. The gain in knowledge, existing equipment, and factory capacity was an advantage that builds over the years, with the diplomatic resolution to Munich. If he had taken, say 15% material losses, in destroying half the Czech forces and only captures sabotaged factories, his army is not 125% or 150% in 1940, but 85% of it's 1938 strength. Do Poland and France fare better against that ? Does Poland soften it's diplomatic stance, after seeing Czechoslovakia get run over? Does it push the larger war back 12 to 18 months to where Stalin wakes up and starts prepping?

You're right about Hitler accumulating victories, in 1940. But 1938 was a different world. Hitler's only foreign victory before 1938 was the Rhineland annexation of 1936. Anschluss preceded Munich in 1938 spring.. Both areas were German speaking, and arguably more German than any Czech or Polish province. Czechoslovakia and Munich were the first conquests of a not-so completely German speaking area, and that Hitler getting away with it, basically scot-free, began that pile of foreign policy victories that accumulated until 1941. But prior to Munich no one knew all that was coming. France had alliances with the Little Entente countries (Balkans, Romania, Czechoslovakia) so technically it was more obligated to fight for the Czechs in 38 than the Poles in39. I mean that's why French pressured the Czechs into Munich. It wasn't worth a war, but their treaties had already committed them to one, if the Czechs fought. Better to talk the Czechs down.

I know why historians hate counterfactuals,lol.

I do like the inter war period. It is so full of the little " if only .." situations that make you think about t the carry on effects.

I've been meaning to read more on Bismarck. I've heard good references to the Jonathan Steinberg biography. Katya Hoyer "blood and Iron" books. ( I've heard A.J.P Taylor's book might be biased, but I can't remember how)

https://fivebooks.com/best-books/nineteenth-century-germany-richard-evans/#book-55461

Watch ken Burns "the dust bowl".

Not much changed on the frontier in that time I imagine. My family grew up in Illinois/Iowa farm country , and I don't think the horse really even got supplanted until WW2, judging by family photos.

Look for 1918 flu documentaries, I saw one that discussed the progression, and panic in small Midwest America in as in it spread from that army base. Quarantine photos and photos of towns keeping guard and what not.

I feel like another ken Burns show touched on the Midwest in that period, possibly "prohibition", or the jack Johnson one.. they're all spectacular documentaries, so you can't lose.

Also,.just found this website that sorts clips from his shows, sorted by dates, areas, characters

The 1920s: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/unum/playlist/1920s#19th-amendment

Barbara Tuchman's "a distant mirror" looked at the in-betweeners, the middle class guys of the 1300s.

She has a long intro where she said she wanted to cover more mundane life of peasants, but there was a dearth of source material written, since that population was largely illiterate.

I imagine it'd be like if someone in the year 3000 wanted to know what kind of airplanes the average peasant had in 2022. Or what kind of selfie camera junior high kids had in the 1970s. The technology just hadn't l worked it's way that far into society yet. Same with writing in the pre-guttenberg era. And the people who could afford a scribe, well, they prolly weren't writing about the farrier and the farmer, or the butcher and the baker. She also made a point that very little was written about women, either.

Anyway, good luck in your search

Also, Sudetenland was like the mountainous defensive part of Czechoslovakia. Germany in 1938 may have taken some serious time to overcome, and with Britain and France on the other side of a 2 front war, Germany would have had it's hands full, and that's 1938 Germany, only 5 years into Hitler's reign that started in 1933.

I have a memory of reading somewhere that a coup would have happened, before an invasion. Like General Beck and some other guys were all set to do the coup, until they heard Chamberlain was coming back to Munich. I think Munich was the third attempt to resolve with diplomacy, after another trip failed ( bad gotesburg?, sorry for spelling...I only listen to history audiobooks to help me sleep).

I believe some of the surviving generals testified that if Munich hadn't happened, Hitler wouldn't have backed down, and the plan to depose him would have gone forward. Of course, these men were also trying to live through Nuremberg, so their honesty and reliability is questionable.