Territorial evolution of Germany
The territorial evolution of Germany in this article includes all changes in the modern territory of Germany from its unification making it a country on 1 January 1871 to the present, although the history of both "Germany" as a territorial polity concept and the history of the ethnic Germans are much longer and much more complex. Modern Germany was formed when the Kingdom of Prussia unified most of the German states, with the exception of multi-ethnic Austria, into the German Empire. As a result of its loss in the First World War, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany cede about 13% of its territory to its neighbours; its colonies were lost at the same time. The Weimar Republic was formed two days before the end of fighting in WWI. This republic included territories to the east of today's German borders.
The period of Nazi rule from the early 1930s through the end of the Second World War brought significant territorial losses for the country. Nazi Germany initially expanded the country's territory dramatically and conquered most of Europe, though not all areas were added to Germany officially. However, the Nazi plan for the near future was the establishment of a Greater Germanic Reich including most of Europe. The Nazi regime eventually collapsed, and the four Allies occupied Germany.
Nazi annexations from the time of its annexation of Austria on 13 March 1938 were annulled while the former eastern territories of Germany before Nazi annexation of Austria were ceded to Poland and the Soviet Union and the Oder and Neisse Rivers became Germany's new eastern boundary. This territory became Poland's so-called "Recovered Territories", while approximately one-third of East Prussia became the Russian Federation's Kaliningrad Oblast. In the west, the Saar area formed one French-controlled protectorate with its own high autonomy.
The western part of Germany was unified as the Trizone, becoming the Federal Republic of Germany on 23 May 1949. Western-occupied West Berlin declared its accession to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 but was denied by the occupying powers. The Soviet zone of Germany in the east, including the Soviet sector of Berlin, became the communist German Democratic Republic on 7 October of the same year. On 1 January 1957, the Saar Protectorate became a part the Federal Republic of Germany, as provided by its Grundgesetz article no. 23. East Germany, including East Berlin, became parts the Federal Republic of Germany on 3 October 1990 – an event referred to as German reunification.
Background
German settlement in Central and Eastern Europe
Part of the motivation behind the territorial changes is based on historical events in the Eastern and Central Europe. Migrations to the East that took place over more than a millennium led to pockets of Germans living throughout Central and Eastern Europe as far east as Russia. The existence of these enclaves was sometimes used by German nationalists, such as the Nazis, to justify territorial claims.The rise of European nationalism
The territorial changes of Germany after World War II can be interpreted in the context of the evolution of global nationalism and European nationalism.The latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th 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. As principalities and kingdoms grew through conquest and marriage, a ruler could wind up with 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 19th century and the first half of the 20th century can be understood as efforts to realign national boundaries with this concept of "one people, one state". Many interior conflicts were a result of more or less pressurising citizens of alternative ethnicities and/or other native languages to assimilate to the ethnicity dominant in the state. Switzerland was the exception, lacking a common native language.
Much conflict would arise when one nation asserted territorial rights to land outside its borders on the basis of an ethnic bond with the people living on the 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 because people did not share a common bond with the majority of people of that nation.
History
Formation of the German Empire
Prussia
In 1701, the Kingdom of Prussia was established, which then expanded at the expense of the weakening neighboring powers. During the Great Northern War, in 1720, Prussia took a part of Swedish Pomerania with the city of Szczecin from Sweden. During the Silesian Wars, Prussia annexed the bulk of Silesia from the Habsburg monarchy in 1742. During the Partitions of Poland between 1772 and 1795, Prussia seized of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's western territory, including the regions of Greater Poland, Gdańsk Pomerania, Kuyavia, Warmia, northern and western Mazovia, and the Duchy of Siewierz, including the Polish capital of Warsaw. Subsequently, renaming them as South Prussia, West Prussia, New East Prussia and New Silesia. After the annexation of the Polish territories, Frederick the Great immediately sent 57,475 German families to the newly conquered lands in order to solidify his new acquisitions, and abolished the use of the Polish language. During the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia lost control of parts of the annexed Polish territories, which became the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw in 1807.Following the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia annexed several territories per the Congress of Vienna, that is Rhineland and Saarlouis from France, the western part of the just dissolved Duchy of Warsaw with the Chełmno Land and most of Greater Poland and Kuyavia, Lower Lusatia from Saxony, and the remainder of Swedish Pomerania with Stralsund from Sweden.
North German Confederation
The Prussian-led North German Confederation, founded in 1866, was combined with the southern states of Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria and Hesse and the formerly French newly merged Alsace–Lorraine to form the states and imperial territory of 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. Many Lorrainians were by native language French. Many Alsatians and Lorrainians of German language clung to France, despite their native languages.Heligoland
ceded Heligoland to Germany in 1890 in accordance with the terms of the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty. The Heligolanders, then still prevailingly fluent in their Heligolandic dialect of North Frisian, adopted German citizenship, like many other Frisians of Germany along the North Sea coast.World War I
The only territory that Germany annexed during the First World War was the German-Belgian-Dutch condominium Neutral Moresnet. Since 1914, Germany occupied the territory, and on 27 June 1915, it was annexed as part of Prussia. The annexation never received international recognition.Brest-Litovsk
As part of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia's new Bolshevik government renounced all claims to Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and 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, Lithuania, and Poland.
Territorial changes after World War I
Treaty of Versailles
The provisions of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I obliged Germany to cede some territory to other countries. Besides the loss of the German colonial empire, the territories Germany lost were:- Alsace–Lorraine, which became a part of the German Empire following the Treaty of Frankfurt on 10 May 1871, returned to French sovereignty without a plebiscite as a precondition to armistice with effect from the date of the armistice,.
- Northern Schleswig was given to Denmark after the Schleswig Plebiscite.
- Most of the Prussian provinces of Posen and West Prussia, which Prussia had annexed during the Partitions of Poland, were restored to the reborn country of Poland. Most of this territory had already been liberated by the local Polish population during the Greater Poland Uprising of 1918–1919. The remaining areas of both provinces were combined to become the new Prussian province of Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia. A sizeable German population still remained in the areas ceded to Poland, however.
- The Hlučín Region of Upper Silesia to Czechoslovakia.
- East Upper Silesia to Poland, after the Upper Silesia plebiscite in which 60% had voted in favor of remaining German and 40% wanted all of Upper Silesia to become Polish. The vote was designed to provide guidance on how to divide the area, and most of the areas voting for Poland were separated from Germany.
- The area of Eupen-Malmedy to Belgium, along with the Vennbahn railway line.
- The northern part of East Prussia as Memelland under the control of France, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, later transferred to Lithuania without a vote.
- The area of Działdowo in East Prussia to Poland.
- An area from the eastern part of West Prussia and the southern part of East Prussia Warmia and Masuria, to Poland ; the majority of the Slavic Masurians voted to remain part of Germany.
- The Saar area was to be under the control of the League of Nations for 15 years, after which a vote between France and Germany would be held to decide which country it would belong to. During this time, the region's coal was given to France.
- The port of Danzig along the delta of the Vistula became the Free City of Danzig under the League of Nations., 90% Germans.