Neville Chamberlain

Neville Chamberlain holding the paper containing the resolution to commit to peaceful methods signed by both Adolf Hitler and himself on his return from Germany at Heston Airport on September 1938. He said: My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was born in 1869 and died in 1940. He became Prime Minister in 1937 and together with France's Edouard Daladier signed the Munich Pact with Germany. This allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland in exchange for a promise of peace. Chamberlain received a hero's welcome upon his return to Great Britain, declaring that the pact had provided "peace in our time." He also immediately took steps to bring the Britsh armed forces into a state of readiness for war. Hitler looked upon Chamberlain as an extremely wily chracter, and felt that he had been cheated out of war.

Not long after, Hitler took all of Czechoslovakia and then invaded Poland, starting World War II. In the spring of 1940, following British and French reverses in Norway, Chamberlain resigned and Winston Churchill became Prime Minister.