Dutch annexation plans after World War II

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" Laat vriendschap heelen, wat limit deelen " - "Let friendship heal what divides borders". Old border post on the former border near Wylerberg

After the Second World War , the Netherlands planned to annex large areas along the German-Dutch border from 1945 onwards . This was considered as a way of war reparation alongside cash payments and the hiring out of labor. The course of the state border between the Netherlands and Germany along the Outer Ems is still unclear. See the main article German-Dutch border question .

Bakker Schut

“German money, German signatures, German promises are worthless. For our silted polders, destroyed ports, railways and cities, the Dutch people demand German territory without Germans. ”The spelling“ Duitsch ”is out of date and should be written today as“ Duits ”.

A driving force behind the official and unofficial plans for the annexation was Frits Bakker Schut (1903-1966). He was a member of the State Commission to clarify the annexation issue ( Staatscommissie ter Bestudering van het Annexatievraagstuk ) as well as the study group area extensions ( Studiegroep Gebiedsuitbreiding ). The State Commission to clarify the annexation question was set up on August 25, 1945 by the then Dutch Foreign Minister Eelco N. van Kleffens . At the same time, Bakker Schut was secretary of the Dutch Committee for Territorial Expansion ( Nederlandsch Comité voor Gebiedsuitbreiding ).

Painting over a German border marker near Elten , 1949. The German border post was painted over in Dutch colors and marked with a capital N (as a symbol for the Netherlands)

Planning committee

The Dutch committee for area expansion had set itself the goal of attracting sympathy among the Dutch population for the area expansion through propaganda and public appearances. For example, the so-called Weser border (advertising slogan: Nederlands grens kome aan de Wezer ) was advertised. In the post-war period there was a deluge of such brochures.

State Commission

The State Commission to clarify the annexation issue was subordinated to a number of specially set up working groups that dealt with the exact feasibility of the plan in certain areas. Thus, all natural resources as were the working groups of coal , lignite , peat , natural stone , petroleum , iron ore , stone and potassium salts mapped and recorded. The same thing happened with all the larger industrial companies and agricultural areas in the planned annexation area. The ( Niedergrafschafter ) oil and gas fields as well as the largely untouched areas of the Bourtanger Moor attracted particular interest .

The final report of the Dutch State Commission to clarify the annexation question was submitted to the Dutch Ministry of the Interior at the end of 1945 . This report, known as the Bakker Schut Plan, envisaged three different annexation alternatives. Plan A included an annexation of all areas west of the approximate line Wilhelmshaven (then west of the Weser following), Osnabrück , Hamm , Wesel , further following the Rhine to near Cologne , then bend west to Aachen . The cities of Aachen, Osnabrück, Münster , Cologne and Oldenburg should also be annexed. Plan B essentially corresponds to Plan A with the difference that the densely populated areas of the cities of Neuss , Mönchengladbach and Cologne should be excluded from the annexation. Plan C provides for a smaller annex area, starting on a line east of Varel , encompassing the entire Emsland , the area around Wesel up to the vicinity of Krefeld .

The main supporters of the annexation plans were Queen Wilhelmina and the Catholic party. The Protestants and the Liberals were more cautious, while the Socialists rejected annexations on principle.

Territorial claims according to Bakker Schut

Map of the north-west German areas to be annexed according to Bakker Schut

The areas that should have been annexed according to Bakker Schut's plan were the administrative districts and urban districts of the time:

No. Name of the local authority Plan A Plan B Plan C
1 North Emden X X X
2 Wittmund X X X
3 Jever-Varel X X X
4th Aurich X X X
5 Weener-Leer X X X
6th Ammerland X X -
7th Oldenburg city X X -
8th Aschendorf-Hümmling X X X
9 Cloppenburg-Friesoythe X X -
10 Meppen X X X
11 Vechta X X -
12 County of Bentheim X X X
13 Lingen X X X
14th Bersenbrück X X -
15th Ahaus X X X
16 Steinfurt X X X
17th Tecklenburg X X -
18th Osnabrück city X X -
19th Osnabrück Land X X -
20th Munster Land X X -
21st Bark X X X
22nd Coesfeld X X X
23 Munster city X X -
24 Kleve X X X
25th Rees X X X
26th Ludinghausen X X -
27 Funds X X X
28 Moers X X -
29 Kempen-Krefeld X X -
30th Krefeld-Uerdingen X X -
31 Erkelenz X X -
32 Mönchengladbach X - -
33 Neuss X - -
34 Grevenbroich X - -
35 Heinsberg-Geilenkirchen X X -
36 Jülich X X -
37 Bergheim X - -
38 Cologne X - -
39 Aachen city X X -
40 Aachen country X X -
41 Düren X X -

Planned renaming of places

Renaming of places in the annexed area was also planned, although many German places had their own names in Dutch since ancient times.

Examples:

Planned place names German names of origin
Clubs Cologne
Monniken-Glaadbeek Munich-Gladbach
Gulik Jülich
Emmerik Emmerich
Zelfkant Selfkant
Clover Kleve
Aken Aachen
Neder-Benthem (Bad Bentheim
Emmelkamp Emlichheim
Geelkerken Geilenkirchen
Monies Funds
Gogh Goch
Meurs Moers
Muenster Muenster
Nieuwenhuis Neuenhaus
Noordhoorn Nordhorn
Osnabrugge Osnabrück
Veldhuizen Veldhausen
Wezel Wesel
Hoog Elten High-Parents
Jemmingen Jemgum
Zwilbroek Zwillbrock

Eviction plans

There was no official information about the planned treatment of the German population living in the claimed areas . Residents of possibly affected areas feared being displaced in the event of an annexation. These fears were fueled by some of the plans published in brochures of the Dutch Committee for Area Expansion , for example in the brochure: Oostland - Ons Land (German: Ostland - our country ).

After that, the following should be expelled from the annex area immediately:

  • All residents of municipalities with more than 2500 inhabitants .
  • All persons who were members of the NSDAP and related organizations.
  • All residents of the annex area who settled there after 1933.

The rest of the population should be subjected to an optante regulation. According to this, people who spoke Low German and had no family ties (up to the second degree) to the rest of Germany could opt for Dutch citizenship . All others should be expropriated and expelled without compensation. As sympathizers for an annexation, the Dutch hoped for the Old Reformed , who mainly lived in the Lower County of Bentheim , who had close ties to their Dutch sister church and who used Dutch as the church language.

The implementation

The annexed Selfkant 1948–1963

Large-scale annexations by the Netherlands were rejected by the Allied High Commission on the grounds that Germany was already overwhelmed by the more than 14 million refugees from the German eastern regions and that further annexations and expulsions would worsen the problem. With the beginning of the Cold War, stabilization of West Germany was also in the foreground. Ideas for annexation in the context of the Morgenthau Plan were dropped under the new political conditions. In the Netherlands, too, there was strong opposition, especially from church circles, to the annexation efforts.

At the conference of interior ministers of the western allied occupation powers of Germany in London (January 14th to February 25th 1947), however, the Netherlands officially asserted a territorial claim to an area of ​​1840 square kilometers of German border territory. This area included the island of Borkum , the Niedergrafschaft and a border strip near the cities of Ahaus , Rees , Kleve , Erkelenz , Geilenkirchen and Heinsberg as well as areas around them. In 1946 around 160,000 people lived in these areas, more than 90 percent of whom were German-speaking. This area claim corresponded to a reduced and modified form of the original variant C of the Bakker-Schut plan. An important goal of the annexation demands was to cut off sea trade in Emden . Delfzijl was to take on its role . The Niedergrafschaft of the County of Bentheim borders on Dutch territory to the north, west and south. Since this area, in which there were also close linguistic and family contacts with the neighboring country, was therefore particularly affected by the annexation demands, even in a very moderate form, the “ Grafschafter District Administrator Rudolf Beckmann ” was founded in Bentheim on February 12, 1947. Bentheim Borderland Committee ”. The districts and cities concerned joined it and dealt in committees with the political and propaganda defense of the Dutch requests, for which, among other things, special reports were produced that contradicted an annexation for historical, economic or geographical reasons. The Dutch demands for annexation, which were also based on the intended reaching for the oil fields of the county of Bentheim and the Emsland as well as the wasteland there as a settlement area, are one reason for the implementation of an economic development program for this underdeveloped region ( Emsland plan ).

On the basis of the Paris Protocol of March 22, 1949, the USA , Great Britain , France and the Benelux countries decided on March 26, 1949 at the London Germany Conference to adjust the demarcation between the Benelux countries, France and Germany. Only smaller annexations of German areas in the Selfkant and Elten areas and in the county of Bentheim were enforced. Furthermore, a large number of minor border changes were made, including in the vicinity of Nijmegen ( Wylerberg ) and Dinxperlo . The occupation of these areas by Dutch forces began on Sunday noon, April 23, 1949 at 12:00.

Returned in 1963

These areas were returned to the Federal Republic of Germany on August 1, 1963 after payment of 280 million DM on the basis of a state treaty ( Holland Treaty ). Only the Wylerberg remained permanently with the Netherlands. For the Dutch national road N 274, which connected the Dutch communities Echt and Brunssum through the Selfkant without any connection to the German road network , a border-free transit traffic was agreed. The part of this road in Germany was placed under German administration on January 1, 2002, as the transit regulation had become obsolete as a result of the Schengen Agreement . After the creation of intersections, it was incorporated  into the German road network as state road 410.

The Bentheim Border Region Committee, whose activities increasingly focused on the problem of the treaty countries , i.e. the largely inherited property of German farmers on the Dutch side, which had been expropriated without compensation after the war, dissolved on February 12, 1964, after Except for this point his task was fulfilled.

Elten butter night

The return of the annexed German territories was used by resourceful Dutch businessmen for a coup that went down in history as the " Eltener Butternacht": trucks full of goods subject to duty drove into the area to be returned to Germany, which actually changed states at midnight - customs were not charged ( more).

Overview of the areas annexed in 1949 (from north to south)

  • Uninhabited areas (total 0.30 km²) between Bad Neuschanz and Ter Apel
  • Uninhabited areas on both sides of the Nordhorn-Almelo Canal (0.03 km²)
  • Area northeast of Losser , eighteen residents (1 km²)
  • Border area between Rekken and the south of Haaksbergen
  • Uninhabited area near Kotten (0.09 km²)
  • German residential area ( Suderwick ), 342 residents, bordering Dinxperlo (0.64 km²)
  • The border community of Elten (19.54 km²) with 3235 inhabitants
  • Border area between boundary stones 652 and 650 near Millingen am Rhein
  • Wylerberg (ndl. Duivelsberg) (1.25 km²)
  • Border area between boundary stones 594 and 589 near Mook en Middelaar
  • Uninhabited areas between boundary stones 651 and 655 near Ottersum (0.05 km²)
  • Border area between the boundary stones 532 and 531 near Siebengewald , four inhabitants
  • Two stretches of land between the boundary stones 499 and 488 in the north of Arcen , 60 inhabitants (0.40 and 0.41 km²)
  • Areas near Sittard with a size of 41.34 km², 5665 inhabitants ( Selfkant with Tüddern , Mindergangelt , Heilder )
  • Border area near Ubach over Worms (Rimburg)
  • Border area between boundary stones 239 and 229 near Kerkrade , 130 inhabitants (0.88 km²)
  • Area near Eygelshoven , 110 inhabitants (0.11 km²)

With the exception of the Wylerberg, all areas returned to Germany in 1963 and 2002 (road N 274 near Selfkant).

See also

literature

  • Herbert Asche: The Bentheim Borderland Committee 1947–1964 . In: Yearbook of the Emsländischen Heimatverein vol. 11/1964, Lingen 1965, pp. 56–67.
  • Emsland landscape and district government Weser-Ems (Ed.): The Emsland development. A handout for teaching in seventh to tenth grades . Final editing: Helmut Lensing, Sögel 2000.
  • Fabrice Gireaud: From annexation to the Euregio. The German-Dutch relationship after the Second World War with a special focus on the County of Bentheim. In: Emsländische Geschichte Vol. 18. Ed. By the Study Society for Emsländische Regionalgeschichte, Haselünne 2011, ISBN 978-3-9814041-3-5 , pp. 348–448.
  • Christof Haverkamp: The Bentheim border region committee 1947-1964 and the German-Dutch relations . In: Emsländische Geschichte Vol. 15. Ed. By the Study Society for Emsländische Regionalgeschichte, Haselünne 2008, ISBN 978-3-9808021-6-1 ; Pp. 56-90.
  • Simon Hopf: Everyday life "between Mark and Gulden" - The Selfkant under Dutch order management 1949 to 1963 .
  • Georg Kip: Five years of the Bentheim Borderland Committee . In: Yearbook of the Heimatverein der Grafschaft Bentheim 1953 (Das Bentheimer Land vol. 41), o. O., pp. 104-108.
  • Helmut Lensing: Beckmann, Rudolf . In: Study Society for Emsland Regional History (Hrsg.): Emsländische Geschichte Vol. 11 . Haselünne 2004, pp. 236–245.
  • Tim Terhorst: Life between two borders - Elten under Dutch contract management 1949–1963 . 123 pages, Grin, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-638-60126-9 .
  • Wolfgang Woelk: The Dutch border corrections 1949-1963 in the politics of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and their effect on the population of the contract administration areas .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Text of the Holland Treaty