German Reich within the borders of December 31, 1937

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Germany within the borders of 1937, as it existed under international law - due to the Allied reservation right  - until 1990, but from 1970 onwards it increasingly lost its importance.

The German Reich within the borders of December 31, 1937 is a term that was frequently used in West German politics until the 1970s when it came to the so-called German question . The 31 December 1937 was the first time at the Foreign Ministers' Conference in Moscow in 1943 as a deadline for defining the German frontiers named for the territorial expansion. In the London Protocol of 1944, at the Potsdam Conference of 1945 and in several subsequent legal acts, the victorious powers at the time referred to this date in order to capture “Germany as a whole” in geographical terms, which ultimately was “almost entirely unanimous” among the Constitutional and international lawyers .

Due to the continuity of the German Reich under international law in the form of the Federal Republic of Germany , the latter raised claims to the eastern territories of the German Reich until the Warsaw Treaty (1970) , which since the division of the Reich were formally only under Polish and Soviet administrative sovereignty. With German reunification in 1990 and the entry into force of international agreements , the question of Germany's borders was finally clarified.

Historical review

The actual date is historically irrelevant. It was about the need to define the territory of the Reich under international law , since not all territorial expansions of the German Reich were recognized under international law before the Second World War . The reorganization of the Saar area , which took place on March 1, 1935 after a referendum by the Saar and had been separated from Germany for 15 years as a mandate of the League of Nations , was undisputed . Before the annexation of Austria in March 1938 and u. a. Before the incorporation of the Sudeten German territories from October 1, 1938 as a result of the Munich Agreement, the boundaries of the German Reich were the last territorial status of Germany as a whole that was valid under international law until 1990 .

“All territorial changes that occurred after this point in time were reversed in 1945 by Allied acts. The freely elected German federal government , which has existed again since 1949, has always recognized these allied measures as effective. "

The fact that the last territorial status of the Reich tolerated under the aspect of appeasement policy was not taken as the basis, but December 31, 1937 (the old Reich ), was due to the fact that the Allied conferences during the war in Moscow and Yalta decided was to restore Austria and Czechoslovakia to their old national borders and retrospectively to declare the pre-war agreements with Germany that had been reached through destabilization policies ineffective.

This planning was implemented in the London Protocols on the Occupation Zones . The plan was to occupy all of Germany, which the Allies equated in Article 1 of the first Zone Protocol of September 12, 1944 with the territory of December 31, 1937. Furthermore, the London Additional Protocols of 1944 and 1945 were based on this date. In the Potsdam Agreement , the division of the occupation zones was changed again, but the reference to the borders of the German Reich from 1937 was not. The de facto annexation of the northern part of East Prussia by the Soviet Union and the already existing Polish administration of the areas east of the Oder-Neisse Line had led to discussions between the Allies at this conference, and Joseph Stalin rejected Harry S. Truman's proposal and Winston Churchills refuses to use the term "Germany" as a prewar Germany. Eventually, however, Stalin accepted the 1937 formula for defining Germany geographically. “You can go out from anywhere. You have to start from something. In this sense, one can also take the year 1937. ”On the question of the Polish western border, a compromise was reached between the western powers and Stalin, in which the border question was linked to the reparations policy. Until the border issues were settled in a peace treaty with Germany, the Western powers accepted the Polish administration of East Germany on the other side of the Oder and ultimately the (western) Lusatian Neisse : The Western Allies initially decided on the Glatzer Neisse , which flows much further east , but their resistance failed they maintained it until shortly before the Potsdam Conference , but because of the vehement rejection of the Eastern Neisse by the Polish delegation. These German areas should not be considered part of the Soviet zone of occupation . In return, Stalin agreed to the division of the reparations area and the postponement of the final definition of Poland's western border until the peace conference. The Soviet Union was supposed to satisfy its reparation claims primarily from its own zone of occupation, and Poland was also supposed to make up for it. De facto , this meant the separation of the eastern territories of the German Empire in favor of Poland and the Soviet Union. In constitutional practice, the 1937 limits never came into effect again.

The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany speaks in its article 116 of "the territory of the German Reich as of December 31, 1937". After 1945, no German government agency complained about territorial status that went beyond this. Until October 3, 1990, the Western Allies extended their rights with regard to Germany as a whole to include the Oder-Neisse areas , insofar as this affected the final territorial order.

The German domestic term as understood by the Federal Republic of Germany

Poster of the "Kuratorium Indivisible Germany"

An essential role in West German politics played during the Adenauer era , the Board of Trustees indivisible Germany , which so on 14 June 1954 three days before the first anniversary of the popular uprising in the GDR was founded. A widespread poster by the Board of Trustees showed Germany within the borders of 1937 with the slogan “3 divided? No way!".

CDU election poster for the House of Representatives elections in West Berlin in 1967

The "Eastern border of the German Reich of December 31, 1937" (cut-off date) continued to be marked on official maps and in school atlases up to the New Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt's social-liberal coalition and more strongly than the political post-war borders : on the one hand the inner German demarcation line and on the other the Oder -Neiße line. With regard to the reservation of later all-German and peace treaty regulation, there were no concerns under international law despite the Eastern Treaty, if the old borders of the German Reich were also drawn on official maps. With regard to the former German eastern territories, however, the Federal Republic could no longer assert after the conclusion of the Eastern Treaties that the Polish or Russian state power effectively exercised was illegal or that there was a legal or political right to return. Irrespective of this, "outside the area in which the Federal Republic may exercise its territorial sovereignty , there was German state territory in terms of status law , in which foreign states had indeed enforced their territorial sovereignty, but had not yet achieved full territorial sovereignty (because of the [continued] four-power rights and the peace treaty reservation ) [ had]".

Certain circumstances can be " subject to domestic laws even outside the area of ​​territorial sovereignty [...] ". So the defined in autumn 1979 § 1 para. 2 VAT Act (old version) domestic term as the territory of the German Reich within the frontiers of 31 December 1937, which for the sales of a West German company with business partners from the East , the same rules as for sales in the Federal Republic. This was preceded by a government draft of May 5, 1978 to amend the Value Added Tax Act (UStG) introduced in connection with the reorganization of VAT within the framework of the European Community , but which was rejected by the opposition majority in the Federal Council . She justified this with the fact that “the retention of the previous domestic term did not include the exercise of sovereign power outside the scope of the Basic Law”. With the so-called Hermes report , a statement by the Federal Foreign Office requested by Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and signed by State Secretary Peter Hermes on the definition of the domestic term in the sales tax law, which the Federal Government later adopted, it was established that under the "international law [not] clearly defined domestic term "was to be understood as the sovereign territory , and as a result the definition of the term valid at that time would have to be" eliminated due to Art. I of the Warsaw Treaty ".

This should better do justice to the Warsaw Treaty and the Basic Treaty, in that the new wording "wants to prevent disputes with the People's Republic of Poland [...] [...]". However, this is countered by the fact that the mere "making or adhering to a legal assertion [as well as the legislation of the Federal Republic of Germany within the boundaries of 1937 ...] can never be" violence "in the sense of the prohibition of the use of force" and "abstract legal norms in itself cannot yet represent an encroachment [into foreign sovereignty] ", but" only the sovereign enforcement of a legal norm and its application in a specific individual case [...] ". Such did not take place at any time, however, since the Federal Republic did not exercise any state power on the territory of the GDR, but “the sovereign power of each of the two German states is limited to its national territory” .

United Germany from 1990

Germany in the current borders of the old Federal Republic and the former GDR (gray + red), as they were established on October 3, 1990. The two-plus-four treaty and the subsequent border treaty with Poland from 1990 implicitly declared the assignment of the German eastern territories (light red).

With the Two-Plus-Four Treaty of 1990, the German Federal Government assured the signatory states that the border running along the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers would be recognized as a binding state border with Poland . Specifically, this means: the German-Polish border treaty confirms the eastern border for Germany as an “inviolable” Polish western border.

“There is no longer any legal basis for the inclusion of other areas of the German Reich within the borders of December 31, 1937, to which Art. 23 sentence 2 GG had raised (...). The Federal Republic of Germany has become identical to the continuing German Reich in the area defined by its constitution and international law . The previous partial identity (...) has become a full subject identity . The Federal Republic thus entered into the legal and obligations of the German Reich in full. "

- Klaus Stern : The constitutional law of the Federal Republic of Germany - Volume V , p. 1964

According to a letter from the Federal Ministry of the Interior, people who were born on the other side of the Oder and Neiße in the area of ​​Germany within the borders of 1937 are not registered as being born “ abroad ”. However, this only applies if you were born before August 2, 1945, the day of the decisions of the Potsdam Conference.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel-Erasmus Khan , The German State Borders , Part II, Chapter III, p. 98 ; see. ibid., pp. 99-102.
  2. ^ Rudolf Laun (ed.): International Law and Diplomacy . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1963, p. 11 f.
  3. ^ Resolution of the League of Nations Council of January 17, 1935 on the implementation of the referendum in the Saar area and protocol of March 1, 1935 on the re-establishment of Germany in the government of the Saar area (based on: Société des Nations, Journal Officiel , 1935, p. 530).
  4. ↑ Klaus Stern , The State Law of the Federal Republic of Germany - Volume V, p. 1964 ff.
  5. ↑ Jochen Abr. Frowein : The constitutional situation of Germany within the framework of international law . In: VVDStRL 49 (1990), p. 32.
  6. ↑ Wolfgang Benz : Potsdam 1945. Occupation and rebuilding in four-zone Germany , Munich 1986, ISBN 3-423-04522-1 , p. 98.
  7. ↑ a b Gerrit Dworok: "Historikerstreit" und Nationwardung. Origins and Interpretation of a Federal Republican Conflict . Böhlau, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-412-50238-6 , p. 117 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  8. ^ Daniel-Erasmus Khan, Die deutscher Staatsgrenzen , 2004, pp. 319–323.
  9. ^ Hermann Graml : The Allies and the division of Germany. Conflicts and decisions. 1941-1948. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-596-24310-6 , pp. 97 ff.
  10. ↑ Eckart Klein , Germany's legal situation , in: Werner Weidenfeld , Karl-Rudolf Korte (ed.): Handbook on German Unity 1949–1989–1999. Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-593-36240-6 , p. 286 f.
  11. ↑ Thus, for example, Article 116 of the Basic Law uses this date for the temporal and territorial definition of the term German (→  German citizenship ); on the German Citizenship Act (StAG) cf. also Dieter Blumenwitz, The German domestic term in the light of constitutional and international law , in: Ingo von Münch (Hrsg.), Staatsrecht - Völkerrecht - Europarecht: Festschr. for Hans-Jürgen Schlochauer on his 75th birthday on March 28, 1981 , de Gruyter, Berlin 1981, p. 27 .
  12. ↑ On this now: Information on educational media in the Federal Republic of Germany VIII, border representations in school atlases , 1979, with contributions by I. v. Münch , JA Frowein and D. Blumenwitz
  13. ↑ See also Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 8, 1979, p. 9.
  14. ↑ See, for example, controversial boundary lines in atlases. Politics with red dots . In: one day . Spiegel Online , April 1, 2014, accessed on October 25, 2014 (see in particular photo no. 9 ).
  15. ^ Rudolf Bernhardt , in: Association of German constitutional law teachers , Rudolf Bernhardt, Norbert Achterberg, Dietrich Rauschning (eds.), Germany after 30 years of the Basic Law , “5. The borders on official maps ”, edition 38, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1980, ISBN 3-11-008364-7 , p. 45 .
  16. ^ Rudolf Bernhardt, in: Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer, Rudolf Bernhardt, Norbert Achterberg, Dietrich Rauschning (Eds.), Germany after 30 Years of the Basic Law , Edition 38, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1980, p. 50 .
  17. ↑ Dieter Blumenwitz, The German Inland Term , in: Staatsrecht, Völkerrecht, Europarecht, FS for H.-J. Schlochauer , 1981, p. 26 .
  18. ↑ Dieter Blumenwitz, in: Staatsrecht, Völkerrecht, Europarecht , FS Schlochauer, 1981, p. 27 .
  19. ^ Rudolf Bernhardt, in: Vereinigung der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer, Rudolf Bernhardt, Norbert Achterberg, Dietrich Rauschning (Eds.), Germany after 30 Years of the Basic Law , Edition 38, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1980, p. 44 f.
  20. ↑ See also Germany policy: In the trash can . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1979 ( online - October 8, 1979 ).
  21. ↑ BT-Drucksache 8/3012 ( PDF )
  22. ↑ Dieter Blumenwitz, in: Staatsrecht, Völkerrecht, Europarecht , FS Schlochauer, 1981, pp. 28 ff .; See also the publication of the Hermes report in the Frankfurter Rundschau on August 26, 1979.
  23. ↑ 38th meeting of the finance committee on June 2, 1978 (excerpt from short minutes 38/15).
  24. ↑ Dieter Blumenwitz, in: Staatsrecht, Völkerrecht, Europarecht , FS Schlochauer, 1981, p. 33 ff. , See also further explanations there.
  25. ↑ Dieter Blumenwitz, in: Staatsrecht, Völkerrecht, Europarecht , FS Schlochauer, 1981, pp. 36–37 , 41 .
  26. ↑ Art. 6 sentence 1 basic contract
  27. ↑ FAZ , June 17, 2009, p. 10.

literature

  • Dieter Blumenwitz : I think of Germany. Answers to the German question. Bavarian State Center for Political Education , Munich 1989, 3 parts (2 volumes, 1 map part).
  • Gilbert Gornig : The status of Germany under international law between 1945 and 1990. Also a contribution to the problems of state succession. Fink, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-7705-4461-7 ( Treatises of the Marburger Gelehrten Gesellschaft 27).
  • Bernhard Kempen : The German-Polish border after the peace settlement of the two-plus-four treaty. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main [a. a.] 1997, ISBN 3-631-31975-4 , ( Kölner Schriften zu Recht und Staat 1).
  • Daniel-Erasmus Khan : The German state borders. Legal history basics and open legal questions. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2004, ISBN 3-16-148403-7 ( Ius Publicum 114) (also: Munich, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 2003), pp. 89 , 99 ff. , 301 .
  • Herbert Kraus : The international legal status of the German eastern territories within the imperial borders as of December 31, 1937. Self-published, Göttingen 1962.
  • Boris Meissner , Gottfried Zieger (ed.): State continuity with special consideration of the legal situation in Germany. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1983, ISBN 3-8046-8622-2 ( Constitutional and international law treatises of the study group for politics and international law 1).
  • Ingo von Münch (Ed.): Constitutional Law - International Law - European Law. Festschrift for Hans-Jürgen Schlochauer on his 75th birthday on March 28, 1981. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1981, ISBN 3-11-008118-0 .
  • International Law and Diplomacy. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1970, ISSN  0020-9503 .

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