"Munich" has been a byword for appeasement ever since. In September 1938 Hitler threatened war unless Czechoslovakia surrendered the Sudetenland, its German-speaking border region — and its ring of frontier defences. Desperate to avoid another European bloodbath, Britain's Neville Chamberlain and France's Édouard Daladier flew to Munich and, with Mussolini playing broker, gave Hitler what he demanded. The Czechs, whose country was being carved up, were not even allowed in the room. Chamberlain came home waving the paper and promising "peace for our time." It did not last six months: in March 1939 Hitler seized the rest of Czechoslovakia, and by September Europe was at war. Whether Chamberlain was a fool or a realist buying time to rearm is argued to this day — but Munich taught a lasting lesson about feeding an aggressor.

K&C's limited set — just 300 made, each with its own label — recreates a photograph from the conference: the four signatories around a table spread with a map of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland marked in green. Chamberlain with his cane, Daladier, Hitler in his brown Party tunic, and Mussolini. It links to the Hitler who walked away the winner — and, across the Channel, to the man who savaged the deal in Parliament as "a total and unmitigated defeat" and would soon replace Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, alongside the wider Nazi leadership like Göring. As a display piece it captures the exact moment the democracies blinked.

Model: LAH263 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / limited edition of 300 / four figures with table and maps