Wanfried Agreement
The Wanfried Agreement of September 17, 1945 was a treaty in occupied Germany after the Second World War . The subject matter was an exchange of territory between the US and the Soviet occupation zones . The border change became necessary because the Bebra – Göttingen railway ran on a short section through the Soviet occupation zone. The place of negotiation was named Wanfried for the agreement .
background
After the boundaries of the occupation zones had been established (see: Zone Protocol ) between the victorious powers along the former Hessian - Thuringian border, an important supply line for the US occupying power , the Bebra-Göttingen railway as part of the north-south route , ran between Bad Sooden Allendorf and Eichenberg over a length of four kilometers through the Soviet occupation zone. After war damage had been repaired, the line was provisionally open again from August 10, 1945. Then Soviet armed forces occupied the Werleshausen halt in this section . They interrupted the important connection between the supply port of the US Army in the exclave of Bremerhaven and the main part of the American occupation zone in southern Germany. From September 13 to 15, the route was blocked again by the Soviet side. In order to avoid further disputes, the two occupying powers involved agreed on September 17, 1945 to swap territory to correct the border. The contract was negotiated and signed at Gut Kalkhof, located on today's B 249 just outside Wanfried. The eponymous negotiation place Wanfried itself is not in the exchanged areas, but about 25 km southwest near the border on the Hessian side.
The negotiators were Brigadier General William Thaddeus Sexton on the US side and Major General Vasily S. Askalepow on the Soviet side. Since a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of vodka as a symbol of the participating countries changed hands after the contract was signed, the railway line was also jokingly called the “whiskey-vodka line”.
Agreements for the exchange of territories have taken place at other border sections, but only the Wanfried Agreement has the status of a treaty between the victorious powers concerned and is thus on an equal footing with the Potsdam Agreement . A representation of the events can be found on site in the border museum Schifflersgrund .
object
The Hessian villages
The district of Witzenhausen with a total of 429 inhabitants and a municipal area of 761 hectares became part of the Soviet occupation zone. The Eichsfeld villages
in the former Prussian district of Eichsfeld , based in Heiligenstadt , with 560 inhabitants and an area of 845 hectares, were added to the American occupation zone. The treaty came into force with immediate effect, and the areas ceded had to be cleared militarily by the evening of September 19, 1945, two days after signing.
As a result of the area swap , the Bebra – Göttingen section of the route from 219.021 to 223.063 and the Werleshausen stop within it came into American hands. The southern end of the handed over section of the route was in the middle of the Werra bridge near Oberrieden , the northern end in the Bebenroth tunnel near Unterrieden .
consequences
The people living in the designated areas stayed there with their property.
The Deutsche Reichsbahn presented the old border course in its course book until the winter timetable period 1953/1954 . Since it was unclear on the western side whether territorial claims should be asserted or whether the map basis was simply out of date, there were considerations in the 1950s for a western bypass between Oberrieden and Eichenberg.
With the founding of the GDR and the establishment of the border barriers, the new affiliation of the exchanged locations was in fact sealed. After German reunification in 1990, the purpose of the contract of unhindered rail traffic had ended, but the agreement with the exchange of territory was not reversed. The five former Hessian villages still belong to the new Free State of Thuringia and the two former Thuringian villages to the federal state of Hesse.
Further exchange agreements
- On November 13, 1945, the Barber-Lyashchenko Agreement on the exchange of territory between the British and Soviet zones of occupation was concluded.
- Another agreement of the occupying powers in 1945 concerns the British sector of Berlin and the surrounding Soviet occupation zone, it led to the exchange of parts of Staakens for Groß-Glienicke and Engelsfelde .
- In July 1945, the eastern part of the district of Blankenburg with the places Blankenburg, Hasselfelde and Stiege and the Thuringian towns of Bad Sachsa and Tettenborn in the County of Hohenstein were exchanged between the British and Soviet occupation zones.
- Agreement of September 1, 1945 between the British and Soviet occupying powers on an exchange of uninhabited land in the Unterreichsfeld between the Pferdeberg and Lindenberg near Teistungen and between Ecklingerode and Fuhrbach for the purpose of straightening the border.
- Border shift between the Soviet and British occupation zones at the Besenhausen manor , as the zone boundary ran through the middle of the estate.
literature
- Ansbert Baumann: Thuringian Hessians and Hessian Thuringians. The Wanfried Agreement of September 17, 1945 is still effective today . In: Germany archive. In: Journal for United Germany. Bertelsmann, Bielefeld 37.2004, No. 6, pp. 1000-1005, ISSN 0012-1428 .
- Ansbert Baumann: The Wanfried Agreement of September 17, 1945 (= Thuringia. Sheets on regional studies, No. 55). State Center for Civic Education Thuringia, Erfurt 2005, eight pages.
- Artur Künzel: Contributions to the recent history of the city of Witzenhausen . In: Writings of the Werratalverein Witzenhausen . Witzenhausen 1981, 4, pp. 28-36.
- Ralf Roman Rossberg : Border over German rails 1945–1990 . EK-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1991, ISBN 3-88255-829-6 , p. 134-136 .
- Josef Keppler: Wanfried Agreement without whiskey and vodka. On the area and population exchange in western Eichsfeld in 1945. In: Eichsfeld-Jahrbuch 18 (2010), pp. 183–198.
Web links
- Text of the Wanfried Agreement on Werleshausen.de
- Agreement (with annexed map) relating to boundary changes between the United States and the Soviet zones of occupation in Germany. Signed at Wanfried, on September 17, 1945. In: United Nations Treaty Collection. United Nations, 1956, pp. 357-363 , archived from the original ; accessed on August 10, 2020 (English, English and Russian text of the Wanfried Agreement).
- Grenzmuseum Schifflersgrund , is located on the ground affected by the Wanfried Agreement and is a reminder.
- Documents and pictures of the Wanfried Agreement
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rossberg (1991), p. 134
- ^ Result of a first name search in the Wanfried local history museum and documentation center on German post-war history
- ^ Text Wanfrieder Agreement on Werleshausen.de
- ↑ Exchange of territory on the Northeim – Nordhausen railway line
- ↑ Information board no. 11 of the Grenzlandmuseum Eichsfeld