The territorial changes of Germany refer to the changes in the borders and territory of Germany. Modern Germany was formed in 1871 when Otto von Bismarck, who then became Chancellor of the German Empire, unified a number of German states into the German Empire.[1] After the First World War Germany lost territory to her neighbours and the Weimar Republic was formed. This republic had significant territories to the east of today's Germany, most notably East Prussia. However during the period of Nazi rule massive territorial changes occurred. Initially Nazi Germany expanded territory quite dramatically; however the turning point was the invasion of Soviet Union, although the invasion saw the swiftest increase in Germany territory, as the allies started to defeat the Germans, territory was swiftly lost and it culminated in the division and occupation of Germany by the allies.[2]

Immediately after WWII Germany was split into British, French and American zones in the west and a Russian zone in the east; the capital Berlin was similarly divided. With the onset of the Cold War the western part of Germany was unified, becoming the Federal Republic of Germany (often informally called "West Germany") with an enclave in Berlin. The Russian zone became the communist state of East Germany (officially the German Democratic Republic).[1] As well as losing land it had gained during the war Germany also lost territory to the east. Most of the land east of the Oder-Neisse went to Poland. The remainder Königsberg went to Russia. In 1990 following the end of the Cold War East and West Germany were united.[1]

Background

German settlement in Eastern Europe

Part of the motivation behind the territorial changes are based on events in the history of Germany and Europe, especially Eastern Europe. Migrations that took place over more than a millennium led to pockets of Germans living throughout Eastern Europe as far east as Russia. The existence of these pockets was used by German nationalists and the Nazis to justify their territorial claims.

The rise of European nationalism

The territorial changes of Germany after World War II must be interpreted in the context of the evolution of global nationalism in general and European nationalism in particular.

The latter half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century saw the rise of nationalism in Europe. Previously, a country consisted largely of whatever peoples lived on the land that was under the dominion of a particular ruler. Thus, as principalities and kingdoms grew through conquest and marriage, a ruler could wind up with peoples of many different ethnicities under his dominion.

The concept of nationalism was based on the idea of a "people" who shared a common bond through race, religion, language and culture. Furthermore, nationalism asserted that each "people" had a right to its own state. Thus, much of European history in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century can be understood as efforts to realign national boundaries with this concept of "one people, one state".

Much conflict would arise when one nation asserted territorial rights to land outside its borders on the basis of a common bond with the people living on that land. Another source of conflict arose when a group of people who constituted a minority in one nation would seek to secede from the nation either to form an independent nation or join another nation with whom they felt stronger ties. Yet another source of conflict was the desire of some nations to expel people from territory within its borders on the ground that those people did not share a common bond with the majority of people living in that nation.

Formation of the German Empire

Prussia (green) in the German Empire 1871-1918

The North German Confederation, led by the Kingdom of Prussia, was combined with the southern states of Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria and Hesse to form the German Empire in 1871. In some areas of Prussia's eastern provinces, such as the Province of Posen, the majority of the population was Polish.

Heligoland

Britain ceded Heligoland to Germany in 1890 in accordance with the terms of the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty.

World War I

Brest-Litovsk

As part of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia's new Bolshevik (communist) government renounced all claim to Finland, the future Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Poland, Belarus, Ukraine.

Most of these territories were in effect ceded to the German Empire, intended to become economically dependent on and politically closely tied to that empire under different German kings and dukes.

Regarding the ceded territories, the treaty stated that "Germany and Austria-Hungary intend to determine the future fate of these territories in agreement with their population" with few other effects than the appointment of German rulers to the new thrones of Finland, Latvia and Lithuania.

Territorial changes after World War I

Treaty of Versailles

Germany after Versailles

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     Annexed by neighbouring countries      Administered by the League of Nations      Weimar Germany

The provisions of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I obliged Germany to transfer some territory to other countries. Besides the loss of the German colonial empire the territories Germany lost were:

• Alsace-Lorraine, the territories, actually annexed by France in 1681, which were ceded to Germany in accordance with the Preliminaries of Peace signed at Versailles on February 26, 1871, and the Treaty of Frankfurt of May 10, 1871, were restored to French sovereignty without a plebiscite as a precondition to armistice (i.e. and therefore not as a clause of the Treaty of Versailles) with effect from the date of the Armistice (November 11, 1918). (area 14 522 km², 1,815,000 inhabitants (1905)),
• Northern Schleswig including the German-dominated towns of Tondern (Tønder), Apenrade (Aabenraa), Sonderburg (Sønderborg), Hadersleben (Haderslev) and Lügum in Schleswig-Holstein, after the Schleswig Plebiscite, to Denmark (area 3 984 km², 163,600 inhabitants (1920)),
• The Prussian provinces Posen and West Prussia, which Prussia had annexed in Partitions of Poland (1772-1795), were returned to the reborn Poland. This territory had already been liberated by local Polish population during the Great Poland Uprising of 1918-1919 (area 53 800 km², 4,224,000 inhabitants (1931), including 510 km² and 26,000 inhabitants from Upper Silesia).
• West Prussia was given to Poland to provide free access to the sea, along with a sizeable German minority, creating the Polish corridor.
• The Hlučínsko Hulczyn area of Upper Silesia to Czechoslovakia (area 316 or 333 km², 49,000 inhabitants),
• The east part of Upper Silesia, to Poland (area 3 214 km², 965,000 inhabitants), although during the Upper Silesia plebiscite 60 % voted in favour of remaining inside Germany
• The area of German cities Eupen and Malmedy to Belgium
• The northern part of East Prussia as Memelland under control of France, later transferred to Lithuania without plebiscite.
• The area of Soldau in East Prussia (railway station on the Warsaw-Gdańsk route) to Poland (area 492 km²),
• From the eastern part of West Prussia and the southern part of East Prussia Warmia and Masuria, a small area to Poland (see East Prussian plebiscite),
• The province of Saarland to be under the control of the League of Nations for 15 years, after that a plebiscite between France and Germany, to decide to which country it would belong. During this time the coal went to France.
• The port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) with the delta of Vistula river at the Baltic Sea was made the Freie Stadt Danzig (Free City of Danzig) under the League of Nations. (area 1 893 km², 408,000 inhabitants (1929)).
• Germany acknowledges and will respect strictly the independence of Austria.

Sudetenland

The Sudeten Germans had attempted to prevent the German language border areas of former Austria from becoming part of Czechoslovakia in 1918. They had proclaimed the German-Austrian province Sudetenland in October 1918, voting instead to join the newly declared Republic of German Austria in November 1918. This had been forbidden by the victorious allied powers of the First World War (the Treaty of Saint-Germain) and by the Czechoslovak government, partly with force of arms in 1919. Many Sudeten Germans rejected an affiliation to Czechoslovakia, because they had been refused the right to self-determination promised by US president Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points of January 1918.

Silesian uprisings

The Silesian Uprisings (Polish: Powstania śląskie) were a series of three armed uprisings (1919–1921) of Poles in the Upper Silesia region against Weimar Republic in order to separate the region (where in some parts Poles constituted a majority) from Germany and join it with the Second Polish Republic.

Interbellum

German territorial losses, 1919-1945

Territorial claims of German nationalists

By World War I, there were isolated groups of Germans or so-called Schwaben as far southeast as the Bosphorus (Turkey), Georgia, and Azerbaijan. After the war, Germany's and Austria-Hungary's loss of territory and the rise of communism in the Soviet Union meant that more Germans than ever constituted sizable minorities in various countries.

German nationalists used the existence of large German minorities in other countries as a basis for territorial claims. Many of the propaganda themes of the Nazi regime against Czechoslovakia and Poland claimed that the ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) in those territories were persecuted.