Oder–Neisse line
Oder–Neisse line is an unofficial term for the modern border between Germany and Poland. The line generally follows the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, meeting the Baltic Sea in the north. A small portion of Polish territory does fall west of the line, including the cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście.
In post-war Poland, the government described the Oder–Neisse line as the result of "tough negotiations" between Polish Communists and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union at the time. However, according to the modern Institute of National Remembrance, Polish aspirations had no impact on the outcome; rather the idea of a westward shift of the Polish border was adopted synthetically by Stalin, who was the final arbiter in the matter. Stalin's political goals influenced his idea of a swap of western for eastern territory, thus ensuring Soviet leverage over both countries. Historian Włodzimierz Suleja argues the settlement also reflected an intention to set Poles and Germans against each other by entrenching a territorial dispute. As with before the war, some fringe groups advocated restoring the old border between Poland and Germany.
All pre-war German territories east of the line and within the 1937 German boundaries – comprising nearly one quarter of the Weimar Republic's land area of – were ceded to Poland and the Soviet Union under the changes decided at the Potsdam Conference. The majority of these territories, including Silesia, Pomerania, and the southern part of East Prussia, were ceded to Poland. The remainder, consisting of northern East Prussia, including the German city of Königsberg, was allocated to the Soviet Union, as Kaliningrad Oblast within the Russian SFSR. Much of the German population in these territories – estimated at 12 million in autumn 1944 – had fled in the wake of the Soviet Red Army's advance.
The Oder–Neisse line marked the border between East Germany and Poland from 1950 to 1990. The two Communist governments agreed to the border in 1950, while West Germany, after a period of refusal, adhered to the border, with reservations, in 1972. After the revolutions of 1989, newly reunified Germany and Poland accepted the line as their border in the 1990 German–Polish Border Treaty.
History
Background
The lower River Oder in Silesia was Piast Poland's western border from the 10th until the 13th century. From around the time of World War I, some proposed restoring this line, in the belief that it would provide protection against Germany. One of the first proposals was made in the Russian Empire. Later, when the Nazis gained power, the German territory to the east of the line was militarised by Germany with a view to a future war, and the Polish population faced Germanisation. The policies of Nazi Germany also encouraged nationalism among the German minority in Poland.While a process of Germanisation in lands east of the Limes Sorabicus line had already begun to take place between the 12th and 14th centuries, there were many areas in which the German population had hardly settled at all, such that this process of Germanisation extended well into the 19th and 20th centuries.
For example, on Rugia Island, the local Slavic culture and language persisted into the 19th century; this was also the case for many areas between the Oder–Neisse and interwar Polish border. About half of what was Farther Pomerania remained plurality Kashubian or Polish until the 18th and 19th centuries, with surviving majority Slavic pockets extending as far west as Dievenow. In 1905, Arnošt Muka observed that "there remained in that land an old Slav national grouping with types and means of settlement, customs and habits unchanged through to this day in the character and outlook of the inhabitants”. The situation was similar in the Western part of Silesia, where Polish and Silesian languages remained dominant by the end of 18th century in areas such as Ohlau, Groß Wartenberg and Namslau.
Before World War II, Poland's western border with Germany had been fixed under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. It partially followed the historic border between the Holy Roman Empire and Greater Poland, but with certain adjustments that were intended to reasonably reflect the ethnic compositions of small areas near the traditional provincial borders. The fate of Upper Silesia was to be decided in a plebiscite, which produced 59.8% votes in favour of Germany. The plebiscite took place amidst severe ethnic tensions, as German authorities and Freikorps clashed and persecuted the local Polish population, and the Poles organised massive strikes and protests. The plebiscite allowed both permanent inhabitants of the area but also people born in the region to vote, regardless of their current location or time spent living in Silesia. Voters who participated in the plebiscite despite not living in Upper Silesia were called "migrants", and made up 192,408 of the total electorate of 1,186,234. As these "migrants" voted overwhelmingly for Germany, the local Polish population considered the plebiscite to be fraudulent, resulting in three Silesian Uprisings. Eventually, the region was divided roughly equally, with some majority Polish regions remaining in Germany, and some German provinces being ceded to Poland.
At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Polish delegation led by Roman Dmowski requested the inclusion of the city of Danzig in the Polish state, arguing that the city was "rightfully part of Poland" because it was Polish until 1793, and that Poland would not be economically viable without it. During the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the inhabitants of Danzig fought fiercely for it to remain a part of Poland, but as a result of the Germanisation process in the 19th century, 90% of the people in Danzig were German by 1919, which made the Entente leaders at the Paris Peace Conference compromise by creating the Free City of Danzig, a city-state in which Poland had certain special rights. The city of Danzig was 90% German and 10% Polish, yet the countryside surrounding Danzig was overwhelmingly Polish, and the ethnically Polish rural areas included in the Free City of Danzig objected, arguing that they wanted to be part of Poland.
The Oder–Neisse line as the concept of a future Polish border appeared among Polish nationalist circles in late 19th century; Jan Ludwik Popławski is considered to be one of the first advocates for the return of "Piast Poland", although his writings mainly focused on Upper Silesia, Opolian Silesia and the southern part of East Prussia, as these regions remained majority Polish. In 1918, Bolesław Jakimiak advocated for a Polish border along the rivers of Oder and Lusatian Neisse, possibly inspired by the proposals of Russian nationalists. He described the German expansion towards the formerly Slavic lands and considered it a "matter of historical justice" to have East Prussia, the entirety of Pomerania, East Brandenburg and both Lower and Upper Silesia become "integral parts" of a future Polish state. At the Paris Peace Conference, Polish commission supervised by Jules Cambon and headed by Roman Dmowski proposed a Polish border that would encompass the entirety of Upper Silesia and most of Opolian Silesia, including cities of Ratibor, Neustadt, Falkenberg, Brieg, Oels and Militsch in Poland. The entirety of Greater Poland was also to be ceded to the Polish state, along with Danzig, Warmia and Masuria. While the postulate of the Polish delegation gained acceptance of the rest of the conference, it was met with vehement protest from David Lloyd George, whose opposition led to border changes in favour of Germany.
Between the wars, the concept of "Western thought" became popular among some Polish nationalists. The "Polish motherland territories" were defined by scholars, like Zygmunt Wojciechowski, as the areas included in Piast Poland in the 10th century. Some Polish historians called for the "return" of territories up to the river Elbe. The proponents of these ideas, in prewar Poland often described as a "group of fantasists", were organized in the National Party, which was also opposed to the government of Poland, the Sanacja. The proposal to establish the border along the Oder and Neisse was not seriously considered for a long time. After World War II the Polish Communists, lacking their own expertise regarding the Western border, adopted the National Democratic concept of western thought.
After Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Poland, some Polish politicians started to see a need to alter the border with Germany. A secure border was seen as essential, especially in the light of Nazi atrocities. During the war, Nazi Germany committed genocide against Poland's population, especially Jews, whom they classified as Untermenschen. Alteration to the western border was seen as a punishment for the Germans for their atrocities and a compensation for Poland. The participation in the genocide by German minorities and their paramilitary organizations, such as the Selbstschutz, and support for Nazism among German society also connected the issue of border changes with the idea of population transfers intended to avoid such events in the future.
Initially the Polish government-in-exile envisioned territorial changes after the war which would incorporate East Prussia, Danzig and the Oppeln Silesian region into post-war Poland, along with a straightening of the Pomeranian border and minor acquisition in the Lauenburg area. The border changes were to provide Poland with a safe border and to prevent the Germans from using Eastern Pomerania and East Prussia as strategic assets against Poland. Only with the changing situation during the war were these territorial proposals modified. In October 1941 the exile newspaper Dziennik Polski postulated a postwar Polish western border that would include East Prussia, Silesia up to the Lusatian Neisse and at least both banks of the Oder's mouth. While these territorial claims were regarded as "megalomaniac" by the Soviet ambassador in London, in October 1941 Stalin announced the "return of East Prussia to Slavdom" after the war. On 16 December 1941 Stalin remarked in a meeting with the British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, though inconsistent in detail, that Poland should receive all German territory up to the river Oder. In May 1942 General Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, sent two memoranda to the US government, sketching a postwar Polish western border along the Oder and Neisse. However, the proposal was dropped by the government-in-exile in late 1942.