Belgian annexation plans after World War II

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After the German Reich the Second World War lost, planned Belgium from 1945 to areas along the Belgian-German border annex . This was considered as a way of war reparation along with cash payments and the hiring out of labor. In mid-April 1949, Belgium surprisingly announced that it had waived most of the claimed areas.

Actual Assignments

Map of area changes

On April 1, 1949 (before the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany), border areas were temporarily separated from the area of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate to Belgium . These included the following areas:

Originally, the inclusion of several German de facto - enclaves , surrounded by Belgian territory, planned. These exclaves still exist today, as the route of the Vennbahn is officially Belgian national territory and the places to the west of it thus cut off from German national territory. It is a matter of:

Furthermore, there are several forest areas in the area between the Belgian Elsenborn and the German municipality Kalterherberg.

The residents of these areas were to remain German citizens for the time being, despite the border changes.

Belgium had gradually withdrawn from its territorial demands after the war. According to the Allied resolution of March 26, 1949, some villages and the Vennbahn, which Belgium had particularly requested, were to be handed over. On April 15, 1949, Good Friday, however, there were signs of a change of opinion in Belgium. The Belgian government officially announced that it would give up most of the localities that were awarded to it. However, this renunciation was allegedly not the result of the ongoing protests of the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, but an insight into the inefficiency of the border correction by Belgium. Since the Vennbahn would, according to Belgian estimates, swallow up enormous funds for construction over the years, it was decided not to take over the neighboring villages in the military administration. In addition, the government did not see a majority in favor of these measures among the Belgian public.

The return of the annexed areas

The annexed areas were returned to Germany on August 28, 1958 on the basis of a German-Belgian border treaty concluded on September 24, 1956 ( Federal Law Gazette 1958 II p. 262 ). The places Losheimergraben and the western part of the municipality of Leykaul as well as some forest areas were excluded from the return . These areas remained with Belgium, as did the areas of Eupen and Malmedy , which were occupied in 1940 and annexed to the German Empire , which had previously been the territory of the German Empire and had become Belgium in the course of the Treaty of Versailles .

In January 2008, the Belgian district commissioner Marcel Lejoly considered that the planned dismantling of the Vennbahn tracks could have "international consequences". It cannot be ruled out that the areas will have to be returned to Germany. However, both the Belgian Foreign Ministry and the Foreign Office in Germany declared that the borders were finally contractually regulated and that no change would therefore take place. The German-Belgian border treaty of 1956, on which the Foreign Office refers, contains no indication of what should happen if the railway facilities mentioned in the treaty no longer exist. The option of rail transport has not been given up either, the planned cycle path on the route does not prevent this.

See also

literature

  • Herbert Elzer: Between the Rhine State and the Western European Alliance. Great Britain, France, the smaller Allied neighbors, and the occupation of northwest Germany in 1945 ; Düsseldorf writings on modern history and the history of North Rhine-Westphalia, 72; Essen 2006; P. 175 ff.
  • Wolfgang Woelk: The border region of North Rhine-Westphalia, the tract lands and the Dutch border corrections 1949 to 1963 , in: Center for Netherlands Studies, Yearbook 5/6, Münster 1995, pp. 85 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bettina Blank: The West German States and the emergence of the Federal Republic ; Munich 1995; P. 220.
  2. ↑ a b Landtag NRW 190, No. 442, Bd. 1, Main State Archives Düsseldorf, according to Woelk, p. 87.
  3. ↑ Belgium could lose national territory to Germany - Big questions about the end of a small railway. In: Tagesschau . January 9, 2008, archived from the original on September 19, 2008 ; Retrieved February 28, 2013 .
  4. ^ Belgium keeps its exclaves in Germany ( Memento of January 17th, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) . wdr.de on January 10, 2008 (in the Internet Archive )