The (Sudeten German Free Corps, also known as the , and ) was a paramilitary Nazi organization founded on 17 September 1938 in Germany on direct order of Adolf Hitler. The organization was composed mainly of ethnic German citizens of Czechoslovakia with pro-Nazi sympathies who were sheltered, trained and equipped by the German army and who were conducting cross border terrorist operations into Czechoslovak territory from 1938 to 1939. They played an important role in Hitler's successful effort to occupy Czechoslovakia and annex the region known as Sudetenland into the Third Reich under Nazi Germany. The was a factual successor to , also known as , an organization that had been established by the Sudeten German Party in Czechoslovakia unofficially in 1933 and officially on 17 May 1938, following the example of the , the original paramilitary wing of the German Nazi Party. Officially being registered as promoter organization, the was dissolved on 16 September 1938 by the Czechoslovak authorities due to its implication in many criminal and terrorist activities. Many of its members as well as leadership, wanted for arrest by Czechoslovak authorities, had moved to Germany where they became the basis of the , conducting the ' first cross-border raids into Czechoslovakia only a few hours after its official establishment. Due to the smooth transition between the two organizations, similar membership, Nazi Germany's sponsorship and application of the same tactic of cross-border raids, some authors often do not particularly distinguish between the actions of (i.e. up to 16 September 1938) and (i.e. from 17 September 1938). Relying on the Convention for the Definition of Aggression, Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš and the government-in-exile later regarded 17 September 1938, the day of establishment of the and beginning of its cross-border raids, as the beginning of the undeclared German–Czechoslovak war. This understanding has been assumed also by the contemporary Czech Constitutional Court. Meanwhile, Nazi Germany formally declared that Czech captives would be considered prisoners of war from 23 September onwards. Background From 1918 to 1938, after the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, more than three million ethnic Germans were living in the Czech part of the newly created state of Czechoslovakia. In 1933, as Adolf Hitler assumed power in Germany, Sudeten German pro-Nazi leader Konrad Henlein founded Sudeten German Party (SdP) that served as the branch of the Nazi Party for the Sudetenland. By 1935, the SdP was the second largest