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Former eastern territories of Germany

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The term Historical Eastern Germany is not being used in this article to describe communist East Germany - the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Historical Eastern Germany or Former German Eastern Territories are terms which can be used to describe collectively those provinces or regions east of the Oder–Neisse line which were either parts of Germany from 1198 to 1806 (Holy Roman Empire) or after its unification in 1871 and were internationally recognised as such at the time. Germany lost part of the territories after World War I in Treaty of Versailles of 1919 and the rest at the end of World War II in 1945, when the territories were occupied and de facto annexed by the Stalinist regime of the Soviet Union and their Polish puppet state. About 15 million people became victims of Stalinist ethnic cleansing from the territories where they had lived for centuries. Germany officially recognised its present Eastern border at the time of its reunification in 1990.

History

Prussia (green) in the German Empire 1871-1918
Weimar Germany in 1925

East Brandenburg, Silesia, East Prussia, West Prussia, Pomerania and Province of Posen were incorporated into the German Empire by Otto von Bismarck in 1871. Germans did not make up all of the population in these areas, in some areas, such as the Province of Posen or the southern part of Upper Silesia, the majority was actually Polish, in others the population was predominantly German}.[citation needed]

The provisions of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I included transferring some German territories to other countries. Particularly, in Central Europe, these included:

With the defeat of Poland in 1939, at the start of World War II, many of the regions Germany lost after World War I were occupied and annexed by Nazi Germany, along with some other areas which had never been a part of a unified Germany before (such as Suwałki). These annexations were not recognised by the Allied governments, that after the 1942 Declaration by the United Nations where also known as the United Nations.

After World War II, as agreed at the Potsdam Conference, all the areas of Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line, whether recognised by the international community as part of Germany since 1871 or annexed by Germany during World War II, were placed under the jurisdiction of other countries. The majority of the German-speaking population east of the Oder–Neisse line that had not already been evacuated by Nazi German authorities or fled from the advancing Red Army in the winter of 1944–1945, was expelled without compensation, and with no consideration whether they were recent settlers who moved there during the Second World War or whether their families had lived in the region for several generations. Although in the post-war period German sources often cited the number of the expelled at 16 million people and the death toll at between 1.7[1] and 2.5 million[2], the numbers are considered by some writers to be "wildly exaggerated"[3]. Some present-day German estimates place the numbers at 14 million expelled and 500 thousand dead[4][3]. The exact numbers of civilian casualties therefore remain disputed.

Post World War II politics

Since 1945, referring to lands over which there was a transfer of jurisdiction as "East Germany" has had political connotations, which means that any article which discusses this issue is likely to be contentious. The contention has been somewhat dissipated over the last twenty years by three related phenomena:

  • The passage of time means that there are fewer and fewer people alive who have firsthand experience of these regions under German jurisdiction.
  • Until the Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany, the official German government position on the status of areas vacated by settled German communities east of the Oder–Neisse rivers was that the areas were "temporarily under Polish [or Soviet] administration." To facilitate wide international acceptance of German re-unification in 1990, the German political establishment recognised the "facts on the ground" and accepted clauses in the Treaty on the Final Settlement whereby Germany renounced all claims to territory east of the Oder–Neisse line. This allowed the treaty to be negotiated quickly and for German unification to go ahead quickly, which was seen as a priority by most of the German political establishment of the time.
  • The eastern expansion of the European Union (EU) which occurred on May 1st, 2004 means that any German who wishes to live and work in Poland, and thus east of the Oder–Neisse rivers, may do so, without requiring a permit. Some restrictions on the purchase of land and real estate will be in place for a period of a few years. Around October, 2007 Poland is likely to enter the Schengen Area and all border controls on its border with Germany will be eliminated, making movement across the border even easier.
Germany's territorial losses 1919-1945

The problem with the status of those territories recognised as German by the international community between 1920 and 1945 east of the Oder–Neisse rivers was that in 1945 the concluding document of the Potsdam Conference was not a legally binding treaty, but a memorandum. It regulated the issue of the eastern German border, which was to be the Oder–Neisse line, but the final article of the memorandum said that the final regulations concerning Germany were subject to a separate peace treaty. This treaty was signed in 1990 under the name of "Treaty on the Final Settlement" by both the German states and ratified in 1991 by the united Germany. This ended the legal limbo state which meant that for 45 years, people on both sides of the border could not be sure whether the settlement reached in 1945 would not be changed at some future date.

In the course of the German reunification process, Chancellor Helmut Kohl accepted the territorial changes made after WWII. This caused some outrage (and possibly cost some votes), especially among the Expellees who had hoped to get the land back. Some Poles were concerned about a possible revival of their 1939 trauma through a second German invasion, this time with the Germans buying all their land, which was cheaply available at the time. This happened on a smaller scale than many expected, and since the Baltic Sea coast in Poland has become popular with German tourists, Germans are now often welcome guests. The so-called "homesickness-tourism" which was often perceived as quite aggressive well into the 1990s has now the tendency to be viewed as a good-natured nostalgia tour rather than a source of anger and desire for reconquest of the lost territories.

Usage

The news media in the non-German speaking world have continued to use the term "(former) East Germany" to describe the five states that make up the old GDR region of the reunited Germany. They have done this because of the need to have a short label which their viewers and readers understand when describing the economic and social problem which have beset the region since 1990.

Some Germans, often from families expelled from eastern territories of Germany, use the term "eastern Germany" or "east Germany" to refer the area east of Berlin which had large settled German-speaking communities before World War II including those east of the Oder-Neisse rivers. The same people refer to the area from Berlin to the Elbe river, or possibly slightly further west, as "middle Germany" (Mitteldeutschland). Some governmental institutions in Germany, like the state of Saxony, still use the term middle Germany when referring to their territory. This can cause confusion when translated into English because, in English since the start of the Cold War, "East Germany" has referred exclusively the area of Germany of the former GDR and the 5 states which make up the same region today.

See also

Notes and references

In-line:
  1. ^ Template:De icon Hans-Ulrich Wehler (2003). Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte Band 4: Vom Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges bis zur Gründung der beiden deutschen Staaten 1914-1949. Munich: C.H. Beck Verlag. ISBN 3406322646.
  2. ^ Template:En icon Dagmar Barnouw (2005). The War in the Empty Air: Victims, Perpetrators, and Postwar Germans. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 143. ISBN 0253346517.
  3. ^ a b Template:En icon Frank Biess (2006). "Review of Dagmar Barnouw, The War in the Empty Air: Victims, Perpetrators, and Postwar Germans" (pdf). H-Net Reviews: 2. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)
  4. ^ Template:De icon Rüdiger Overmans (2004). Deutsche militärische Verluste im Zweiten Weltkrieg (German Military Losses in WWII). Munich: Oldenbourg. pp. 298–300. ISBN 3486565311.

Further reading

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