On 14 March 1939, Germany forced the partition of Czechoslovakia, with Slovakia being declared as the nominally independent Slovak Republic with Germany annexing the remaining "Czech" part of Czechoslovakia as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia the next day. The abrupt partition of Czechoslovakia during 1939 prevented any actual combat operations of the B-534 to be conducted by the nation that had produced it. By then, high performance monoplanes such as the Bf 109 and Britain's leading models – the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire – were raising the bar of fighter/interceptor standards. The "Slovenské vzdušné zbrane" (Slovak Air Force) was organised out of the units of the Czechoslovak Air Force that were based in Slovakia at the time of partition, and inherited about 71 B-534s and Bk-534s.