London Protocol (1944)


In the London Protocol signed on 12 September 1944, the Allies of World War II agreed on dividing Germany into three occupation zones after the war.

History

The 1st EAC Zone Protocol

The first zone protocol was drawn up at the meeting of the European Advisory Commission on 12 September 1944 and signed by John Gilbert Winant, William Strang and Fedor Gusev at Lancaster House in London, and described the first notions of the boundary between the zones to be created: Eastern, Northwestern, and Southwestern zones in Germany, and the three parts of the area of Greater Berlin. The basis of the ideas were the and Greater Berlin from 27 April 1920.
The north-western and south-western zones in Germany and Greater Berlin had not yet been assigned as British or American sub-areas. The relevant text passages provided for this were only documented with spaces, whereas the eastern zone and the north-eastern zone of Greater Berlin were already marked directly with "USSR".
In terms of borders, the western borders of Thuringia, Anhalt and the Prussian province of Saxony were referred to. This meant that the areas east of the Werra and west of the Elbe were not – as was often published – "exchanged for West Berlin", but the areas in the west of the Elbe were already intended to be part of the Eastern Zone.
Original text:
The Soviet zone was supposed to encompass the eastern part of Germany, including the explicitly mentioned East Prussia, and no cession of areas to Poland was planned.
The border between the two western zones was defined as follows:
This would have meant that the present-day states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg as well as the Palatinate, which previously belonged to Bavaria, and the southern part of the People's State of Hesse would have come to the southwestern zone, the Rhine province belonging to Prussia and the province of Hesse-Nassau and the northern part of the People's State of Hesse to the north-western, i.e. later British. The people's state of Hesse would have been divided by the layout of the occupation zones. This would have cut up the Frankfurt am Main area.

The (supplementary) 2nd EAC zone protocol

The main points of this smaller protocol, also drawn up in London on 14 November 1944, were:
  • Allocation of the north-west zone of Germany and the areas of Berlin to the British occupation
  • Allocation of the south-west zone of Germany and the areas of Berlin to the American occupation
  • First ideas about the joint use of the ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven
  • More detailed description of the intended boundaries between the individual zones
The demarcation between the two western zones had been corrected as follows:
The description is confusing because the flow direction of the Rhine is reversed in it and the points "where the River Rhine leaves the southern frontier of Hesse-Nassau" are actually the ones where the river flows into this province. However, the People's State of Hesse is mentioned for the first time in the Second Protocol, while it did not appear in the first Protocol.
In terms of content, the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau was now assigned to the southwest zone, while the Bavarian Palatinate was assigned to the northwest zone. This resolved the above-described conflict of a zone border right through the Frankfurt metropolitan area. By defining the Rhine as a zone boundary in the Hessian people's state, the Hesse state was now divided along the river; the parts of the Rheinhessen province on the left bank of the Rhine were assigned to the British zone, the remaining parts of the state to the American zone. The city of Mainz, situated on both sides of the river, and its half on the right bank of the Rhine, was particularly affected by this the south-west zone, as the districts on the left bank of the Rhine including the city center were assigned to the north-west zone.

The (supplementary) 3rd EAC zone protocol

The main points of this last of the protocols, written on 26 July 1945, were:
  • The geographical allocation and description of a new French zone of occupation, known as the West Zone, the proposed occupation area for troops of the French Republic in Germany,
  • the regulation of the assignment of the Bavarian district of Lindau on Lake Constance to the western zone, which was previously part of the south-western zone intended for the occupation by US armed forces. This should allow a direct transition for French troops to the French zone in Austria, as well
  • a regulation of US-American rights of use of an enclave around Bremen, so that the transfer to the ports of Bremen should be made easier for the occupying forces of the US. The area initially included Bremen, Wesermünde, the Wesermarsch, Osterholz and the western part of the Cuxhaven district.
The introduction of a proposed, but not yet planned in detail, French occupation zone was entirely at the expense of the areas of the two previous western zones.
The zone protocol was sent to the governments of the four allied powers on 26 July. Details of the boundaries of the French sector in the northwest part of Greater Berlin were not included, only the statement that this sector should be formed from the two sectors of the United Kingdom and the United States.
The territories of the new or previous zones were planned in the third protocol as follows:
The procedure for planning a French occupation zone deviated massively from the previous orientation towards German state and Prussian provincial borders, the only exception to which was the new Rhine border between Mannheim and Wiesbaden. Instead, completely new borders were planned along previous administrative districts and counties. In addition to Hesse, which was already divided in the 2nd Protocol, other regions were affected by the division:
  • the Rhineland, whose northern half came to the British zone and the southern administrative districts of Trier and Koblenz to the French zone,
  • the historic Duchy of Nassau, whose western districts had now been separated and become part of the French zone,
  • Baden, of whose territory only the northern half was to belong to the US zone and the southern half to the French zone,
  • Wuerttemberg, not mentioned by name in the text, which was also divided into a north and a south half, in parts not even along district boundaries, but along the Stuttgart-Ulm autobahn, this traffic route remaining under US control
  • as well as Bavaria, which with the exception of the Palatinate belonged completely to the US zone, in that its district of Lindau changed to the French zone in order to create a land connection between the French zones in Germany and Austria, as already mentioned.

Aftermath

1945

;Poland's western border and Konigsberg area
At the Potsdam conference it was determined with regard to the borders of the Soviet zone that the areas east of the Oder and Lusatian Neisse were provisionally subject to Polish administration and were not to be treated as part of the Soviet zone. The Königsberg area, the northern part of East Prussia, was no longer part of this zone.
;Airfields Gatow and Staaken
In order to enable the British and Soviet occupying forces to use the two airfields, immediately after the Potsdam Conference, an area swap was carried out on the western city limits of Berlin for the locations or parts of Weststaaken, Weinmeisterhöhe, the Seeburger Zipfel and the eastern part of Groß Glienicke.

1947

;Ports of Bremen
After Wesermünde had been spun off from the enclave in the British zone, which was under US administration, in 1947 the US area was reduced to the territory of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, which was newly founded in the same year.