Zone log

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Three EAC protocols
Short title: Zone logs
Title (engl.): Three minutes of the European Advisory Commission
Lancaster House in SW London . (2008)
Date: 1944/1945
Come into effect: with the Potsdam Agreement
Reference: Inter-Allied Documents of World War II
Contract type: Meeting minutes
Legal matter: trilateral foreign policy consultations
Signing: September and November 1944 and July 1945, respectively
Ratification : No
Please note the note on the applicable contract version .

Zone Protocol the colloquial term for three protocols ( english minutes ) of the meetings British , Soviet and American representatives of the Allied Advisory Commission for Europe ( European Advisory Commission EAC), where from 1944, so even during the Second World War , through planning of occupation zones in Germany , the geographical, in particular regional allocation, as well as occupation law issues were discussed. The content of these three minutes, like the details worked out in other EAC meeting minutes, belonged to the planning of a post-war order including the surrender of Germany .

The trilateral talks took place during and after the end of the fighting in Europe at Lancaster House in London , in late summer and autumn 1944 as well as in early summer 1945. Since meetings of the Allied Foreign Ministers and the EAC took place in London, it came about on misleading overlaps of the terms, the London Conference accordingly refers to a Foreign Ministers' meeting as well as an EAC.

The EAC was an advisory commission and the protocols were neither agreements nor binding decisions. However, because the zone protocols were ratified by the three powers, their content was reused at meetings of their heads of government or their foreign ministers and was incorporated into the agreements of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences , the protocols can be regarded as officially approved.

According to the last version of the protocol dated August 13, 1945, Germany was divided into four zones for the purpose of occupation, one of which was assigned to one of the four powers, and a special Berlin area under the joint occupation sovereignty of the four powers.

From the beginning of the occupation and the occupation by the corresponding Allied forces, the zone protocols were considered to be implemented without controversy. With the EAC proposals adopted in the Potsdam Agreement on the course of the western border of the zone of the USSR and, above all, on the occupation plan planned for the capital Berlin, lines of conflict were mapped out that contributed to the development of the Cold War in Europe.

In contrast to the provisional agreements on the expulsion or resettlement of the German population and the provisional determination of the Oder-Neisse line by the Allies, which were to apply temporarily until a peace treaty was reached, the borderlines proposed in the zone protocols between the zones of occupation and the aspects of occupation law were introduced for Berlin came about as an agreement without a subsequent peace treaty.

"The three heads of government confirm their view that the final definition of Poland's western border should be left to the peace conference."

- Berlin [Potsdam] Protocol , 1945

Process of the creation of the protocols

Before the minutes were laid down, there were already various ideas about the division of Germany . B. the plans of Henry Morgenthau ( Morgenthau Plan ) or Franklin Delano Roosevelt . In addition to the scenarios developed in the respective policies of the three states about the post-war order in Germany, there are also military strategies of the three powers - the source of the proposals presented in the zone protocols for the inter-allied negotiations on the division of Germany.

prehistory

Concepts of a future Europe began to mature with the Allied successes of Volgograd ( Battle of Stalingrad ), El Alamein ( Second Battle ) and Tunis ( “Tunisgrad” ) in late 1942 and early 1943. Various ideas of the division of Germany and a post-war order were discussed and drafted by several civil and military bodies in Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the USA.

Great Britain

The British Military Sub-Committee (MSC) presented the first partition plan . The 1942 from Churchill was ministry ( Winston Churchill's war cabinet) initiated and then by the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CSC) directed body MSC, worked on the Ministerial Committee on Reconstruction Problems .

Soviet Union

Curzon Line and Polish Land Gains 1919–1922

At the same time (early 1943), the premise of Soviet policy was not, as on the British side, the division of Europe or Germany, but plans to secure their own western border. The ambassadors of the USSR in Washington and London Maxim Maximowitsch Litvinow and Ivan Michailowitsch Maiski announced that the western powers could accept the former Curzon Line as the western border of the Soviet Union. The London-based Polish government-in-exile did not agree and insisted on the return of the Polish land gains in the Polish-Lithuanian War 1920 and in the Polish-Soviet War 1919–1921 . On April 25, the Soviet Union broke off its diplomatic relations with this government. The Katyn case (the uncovering of the massacre in 1943) suited the strategy of the then Soviet administration as an occasion. Another goal in this framework of the Soviet planning of their post-war policy was the creation of a security corridor in front of their western border.

Course of the EAC discussions for the minutes

The first protocol, dated September 1944, came into being after the three powers reached an agreement on the course of the border between the western zones and the Soviet zone.

The individual protocols

The 1st EAC zone protocol

1. EAC zone protocol September 1944 (map "A")

The first zone protocol was drawn up at the meeting of the EAC on September 12, 1944 in London and describes the first notions of the boundary between the one to be created

  • Eastern
  • Northwestern
  • Southwestern

Zone in Germany and the three parts to be created in the area of ​​Greater Berlin. The basis of the ideas are the borders of Germany from December 31, 1937 and Greater Berlin from April 27, 1920.

The north-western and south-western zones in Germany and Greater Berlin have not yet been assigned as British or American sub-areas. The relevant text passages provided for this are only documented with spaces, whereas the eastern zone and the north-eastern zone of Greater Berlin are already directly marked with "USSR".

In terms of the borders, the western borders of Thuringia , Anhalt and the Prussian province of Saxony are referred to. This means that the areas east of the Werra and west of the Elbe were not - as was often published - "exchanged for West Berlin ", but the areas in the west of the Elbe were already intended to be part of the Eastern Zone.

Original text:

Eastern Zone (as shown on the annexed map "A"): The territory of Germany (including the province of East Prussia ) situated to the East of a line drawn from the point on Lubeck Bay where the frontiers of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenberg meet , along the western frontier of Mecklenberg to the frontier of the province of Hanover , thence, along the eastern frontier of Brunswick ; thence along the western frontier of Anhalt ; the western frontier of the Prussian province of Saxony and the western frontier of Thuringia to where the latter meets the Bavarian frontier; then eastwards along the northern frontier of Bavaria to the 1937 Czechoslovakian frontier, will be occupied by the armed forces of the USSR, with the exception of the Berlin area, for which a special system of occupation is provided below.

The Soviet zone was supposed to encompass the eastern part of Germany including the explicitly mentioned East Prussia ; there was no provision for territories to be ceded to Poland.

The border between the two western zones (and here not yet assigned to any occupying power ) was defined as follows:

Northwestern Zone (as shown on the annexed map "A"): The territory of Germany situated to the west of the defined above, and bounded on the south by a line drawn from the point where the western frontier of Thuringia meets the frontier of Bavaria ; then westwards along the southern frontiers of the Prussian provinces of Hessen-Nassau and Rheinprovinz to where the latter meets the frontier of France will be occupied by the armed forces of ------.

Southwestern Zone (as shown on the annexed map "A"): All the remaining territory of Western Germany situated to the south of the line defined in the description of the North-Western zone will be occupied by the armed forces of ---- -.

This would have meant that today's federal states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg as well as the previously belonging to Bavaria Palatinate and the southern part of the country the People's State of Hesse had come to southwestern (ie later American) zone to Prussia belonging Rhine province and the province of Hesse-Nassau and the northern part of the People's State of Hesse ( Upper Hesse province ) to the north-western, i.e. British. The people's state of Hesse would have been divided by the layout of the occupation zones. This would have cut up the Frankfurt am Main area .

The (supplementary) 2nd EAC zone protocol

2. EAC zone protocol November 1944 (map "C")

The main points of this smaller protocol, also drawn up in London on November 14, 1944, are:

  • Allocation of the north-west zone of Germany and the areas of Berlin to the British occupation (replacement of the spaces mentioned)
  • Allocation of the south-west zone of Germany and the areas of Berlin to the American occupation (replacement of the spaces mentioned)
  • First ideas about the joint use of the ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven
  • More detailed description of the intended boundaries between the individual zones

The demarcation between the two western zones has been corrected as follows:

North-Western Zone (as shown on the annexed map “C”): The territory of Germany situated to the west of the line defined in the description of the Eastern zone, and bounded on the south by a line drawn from the point where the frontier between the Prussian provinces of Hanover and Hessen-Nassau meets the western frontier of the Prussian province of Saxony ; thence along the southern frontier of Hanover; that along the north-western, western and southern frontiers of Hessen-Nassau to the point where the River Rhine leaves the latter; thence along the center of the navigable channel of the River Rhine to the point where it leaves Hessen-Darmstadt ; Thence along the western frontier of Baden to the point where this frontier becomes the Franco-German frontier will be occupied by armed forces of the United Kingdom. [...]

South-Western Zone (as shown on the annexed map “C”): The territory of Germany situated to the south of a line commencing at the junction of the frontiers of Saxony , Bavaria , and Czechoslovakia and extending westward along the northern frontier of Bavaria to the junction of the frontiers of Hessen-Nassau, Thuringia and Bavaria; thence north, west and south along the eastern, northern, western and southern frontiers of Hessen-Nassau to the point where the River Rhine leaves the southern frontier of Hessen-Nassau; thence southwards along the center of the navigable channel of the River Rhine to the point where it leaves Hessen-Darmstadt; Then along the western frontier of Baden to the point where this frontier becomes the Franco-German frontier will be occupied by armed forces of the United States of America.

The description reads difficult because the flow direction of the Rhine is reversed in it and the points "where the River Rhine leaves the southern frontier of Hesse-Nassau" actually are the ones where the river in this province into flows. However, the People's State of Hesse ("Hessen-Darmstadt") is mentioned for the first time in the Second Protocol, which did not appear in the first Protocol.

In terms of content, the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau has now been assigned to the (now called American) southwest zone, while the Bavarian Palatinate is assigned to the (now officially British) northwest zone. This resolved the above-described conflict of a zone border right through the Frankfurt metropolitan area. By establishing the Rhine as a zone boundary in the Hessian people's state, the Hesse people's state was now divided along the river; the parts of the Rheinhessen province on the left bank of the Rhine were assigned to the British, the remaining parts of the country to the American zone. Was particularly affected the city situated on both sides of the river Mainz , whose right bank half of the southwest zone, left-bank districts including the center of the North West Zone have been assigned.

The (supplementary) 3rd EAC zone protocol

3rd EAC zone protocol July 1945 (map "D")

The main points of this last of the protocols, written on July 26, 1945, are:

  • The geographical allocation and description of a new French zone of occupation , known as the Western Zone , the proposed occupation area for troops of the French Republic (from 1949 Troupes d'occupation en Allemagne , TOA) in Germany,
  • the regulation of the assignment of the Bavarian district of Lindau on Lake Constance to the western zone, which was previously part of the south-western zone intended for occupation by US forces. This should allow a direct transition for French troops to the French zone in Austria , as well
  • a regulation of US-American rights of use of an enclave around Bremen, so that the US occupation troops should be able to transfer to the Bremen ports easier. The area initially included Bremen, Wesermünde (from 1947 Bremerhaven), the Wesermarsch , Osterholz and the western part of the Cuxhaven district .

The introduction of a proposed but not yet planned in detail French occupation zone was entirely at the expense of the areas of the two previous western zones.

The zone protocol was sent to the governments of the four allied powers on July 26th. Details of the boundaries of the French sector in the north-western part of Greater Berlin were not included, only the statement that this sector should be formed from both the United Kingdom and the United States.

The territories of the new or previous zones (excluding the eastern ones) were planned in the third protocol as follows:

North-Western Zone (as shown on the annexed map "D"): The territory of Germany situated to west of the line defined in the description of the Eastern (Soviet) Zone, and bounded on the south by a line drawn from the point where the frontier between the Prussian provinces of Hanover and Hessen-Nassau meets the western frontier of the Prussian province of Saxony ; thence along the southern frontier of Hanover; Thence along the south-eastern and south-western frontiers of the Prussian province of Westphalia and along the southern frontiers of the Prussian Regierungsbezirke of Köln and Aachen to the point where this frontier meets the Belgian-German frontier will be occupied by armed forces of the United Kingdom.

South-Western (United States) Zone (as shown on the annexed map "D"): The territory of Germany situated to the south and east of a line commencing at the junction of the frontiers of Saxony , Bavaria and Czechoslovakia and extending westward along the northern frontier of Bavaria to the junction of the frontiers of Hessen-Nassau, Thuringia and Bavaria; thence north and west along the eastern and northern frontiers of Hessen-Nassau to the point where the frontier of the district of Dill meets the frontier of the district of Oberwesterwald ; then along the western frontier of the district of Dill, the north-western frontier of the district of Oberlahn, the northern and western frontiers of the district of Limburg-an-der-lahn, the north-western frontier of the district of Untertaunus and the northern frontier of the district of Rheingau ; then south and east along the western and southern frontiers of Hessen-Nassau to the point where the River Rhine leaves the southern frontier of Hessen-Nassau; then southwards along the center of the navigable channel of the River Rhine to the point where the latter leaves Hessen-Darmstadt ; that along the western frontier of Baden to the point where the frontier of the district of Karlsruhe meets the frontier of the district of Rastatt ; that is southeast along the southern frontier of the district of Karlsruhe; thence north-east and south-east along the eastern frontier of Baden to the point where the frontier of Baden meets the frontier between the districts of Calw and Leonberg ; that south and east along the western frontier of the district of Leonberg, the western and southern frontiers of the district of Böblingen , the southern frontier of the district of Niirtingen and the southern frontier of the district of Göppingen to the point where the latter meets the Reichsautobahn between Stuttgart and Ulm ; that along the southern boundary of the Reichsautobahn to the point where the latter meets the western frontier of the district of Ulm ; that south along the western frontier of the district of Ulm to the point where the latter meets the western frontier of the State of Bavaria; that south along the western frontier of Bavaria to the point where the frontier of the district of Kempten meets the frontier of the district of Lindau ; then south-west along the western frontier of the district of Kempten and the western frontier of the district of Sonthofen to the point where the latter meets the Austro -German frontier will be occupied by armed forces of the United States of America. [...]

Western (French) Zone (as shown on the annexed map "D"): The territory of Germany, situated to the south and west of a line commencing at the junction of the frontiers of Belgium and of the Prussian Regierungsbezirke of Trier and Aachen and extending eastward along the northern frontier of the Prussian administrative region of Trier; thence north, east and south along the western, northern and eastern frontier of the Prussian administrative district of Koblenz to the point where the frontier of Koblenz meets the frontier of the district of Oberwesterwald; then east, south and west along the northern, eastern and southern frontiers of the district of Oberwesterwald and along the eastern frontiers of the districts of Unterwesterwald , Unterlahn and Sankt Goarshausen to the point where the frontier of the district of Sankt Goarshausen meets the frontier of the administrative district of Koblenz; that south and east along the eastern frontier of Koblenz; and the northern frontier of Hessen-Darmstadt to the point where the River Rhine leaves the southern frontier of Hessen-Nassau; then southwards along the center of the navigable channel of the River Rhine to the point where the latter leaves Hessen-Darmstadt; that along the western frontier of Baden to the point where the frontier of the district of Karlsruhe meets the frontier of the district of Rastatt; then south-east along the northern frontier of the district of Rastatt; thence north, east and south along the western, northern and eastern frontiers of the district of Calw; that eastwards along the northern frontiers of the districts of Horb , Tübingen , Reutlingen and Münsingen to the point where the northern frontier of the district of Münsingen meets the Reichsautobahn between Stuttgart and Ulm; that southeast along the southern boundary of the Reichsautobahn to the point where the latter meets the eastern frontier of the district of Münsingen; then south-east along the north-eastern frontiers of the districts of Münsingen, Ehingen and Biberach ; then southwards along the eastern frontiers of the districts of Biberach, Wangen and Lindau to the point where the eastern frontier of the district of Lindau meets the Austro-German frontier will be occupied by armed forces of the French Republic. [...]

The procedure for planning a French occupation zone deviated massively from the previous orientation towards German state and Prussian provincial borders, the only exception to which was the new Rhine border between Mannheim and Wiesbaden. Instead, completely new borders were planned along previous administrative districts and counties . In addition to Hessen, which was already divided in the 2nd Protocol, other regions were affected by the division:

  • the Rhineland, whose northern half (administrative districts Düsseldorf, Cologne and Aachen) came to the British zone, while the southern administrative districts of Trier and Koblenz to the French zone,
  • the historic Duchy of Nassau , whose western districts (on the Middle Rhine , in the Taunus and in the Westerwald ) have now been separated and part of the French zone,
  • Baden, of whose territory only the northern half should belong to the US zone and the southern half to the French zone,
  • Wuerttemberg , not mentioned by name in the text , which was also divided into a north and south half, in parts not even along district boundaries, but along the Stuttgart-Ulm motorway, with this traffic route remaining under US control,
  • as well as Bavaria, which with the exception of the Palatinate belongs completely to the US zone, in that its district of Lindau switched to the French zone in order to create a land connection between the French zones in Germany and Austria, as already mentioned.

Changes

1945

Western border of Poland and Königsberg area

At the Potsdam conference it was determined with regard to the borders of the Soviet zone that the areas east of the Oder and Lusatian Neisse are temporarily subject to Polish administration and not (as in the zone protocols) are to be treated as part of the Soviet zone. The Königsberg area (from 1946 Kaliningrad Oblast ), the northern part of East Prussia, was no longer part of this zone.

Gatow and Staaken airports

In order to enable the British and Soviet occupying forces to use the two airfields, immediately after the Potsdam Conference, an area swap was carried out on the western city limits of Berlin for the locations or parts of Weststaaken , Weinmeisterhöhe , the Seeburger Zipfel and the eastern part of Groß Glienicke .

1947

Bremen ports

After Wesermünde had been hived off from the US-administered enclave in the British zone in 1947, the US territory was reduced to the territory of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen , which was newly founded in the same year .

The area of ​​Greater Berlin

Planning in the logs

Three text passages on the area of ​​Greater Berlin were already fully formulated in the first EAC protocol:

  • ... Germany ... will, for the purposes of occupation, be divided into three zones , one of which will be allotted to each of the three Powers, and a special Berlin area, which will be under joint occupation by the three Powers, and a special Berlin area , which will be under joint occupation by the three powers ...
  • ... will be jointly occupied with by the armed force of the USSR, UK and USA assigned by the respective Commanders-in-Chief. For this purpose the territory of "Greater Berlin" will be divided into the following three parts: ...
  • ... An Inter-Allied Governing Authority (Komendatura) consisting of three Commandants, appointed by their respective Commanders-in-Chief, will be established to direct jointly the administration of the "Greater Berlin" area. ...

This brought the USSR to the legal opinion, contrary to the requirements of the protocol text of September 12, 1944, that the Greater Berlin area was part of its zone, in which it only administered the western sectors of Berlin together with the other allies. In the note dated July 14, 1948, the Soviet Union wrote to the Western Allies: "Berlin lies in the center of the Soviet occupation zone and is part of this zone."

In contrast, the Western Allied victorious powers interpreted the status of the area of ​​Greater Berlin in such a way that it does not belong to any of the four zones of occupation, but is administered by them and the Soviet Union with equal rights as the seat of the Control Council. But the land and water routes of the Western Allies to Berlin led through the Soviet zone and thus enabled the USSR a. a. from 1948 to 1949 the Berlin blockade .

Historical background

In contrast to the Western Allies, the Soviet Union's interest in Berlin lay not only in its role as the capital of the German Empire , but also in having to do with the center of Prussia . In contrast to the other victorious powers, the fact that Berlin was in the eastern part of Germany created geographically favorable conditions for direct Soviet influence. The Soviet Union made itself primarily the carrier and advocate of Polish concerns and ideas that had developed during the long neighborhood with the Prussian Germans, so that they felt attacked less by Germany than by Prussia with the German attack on Poland in 1939 . This position was taken by the Polish government in exile in London.

The British side was prepared to take “historical, social and ethnic aspects” into account when drawing up future borders with the Poles: In a military memorandum from 1943 it was underlined that Poland's future border would have to be short to facilitate defense against “Prussia” and Poland "Constantly threatening 'Prussia' and undertaking a lightning campaign against Berlin" The Polish side emphasized that moving the Polish western border to the Oder-Neisse line, especially in the north, should guarantee that "Berlin could be permanently threatened" March 10, 1947, the Council of Foreign Ministers in Moscow confirmed the Control Council Act No. 46 of February 25, 1947, by which the Allied Control Council had dissolved Prussia. It was about taking Berlin from its dominant position in Germany. The focus of Germany should be shifted to the west and south-west. At the beginning of 1943, a program of the division of Germany “into a north-eastern (so-called colony) and a south-eastern (so-called metropolis) part was developed in Polish exile circles. The north-eastern part, namely Brandenburg, Saxony, Mecklenburg and Braunschweig, should in any case be subjected to much stricter control by the victors than the south-eastern part ”. In 1946 it was demanded“ that the role of Berlin must be an unalterable goal of Polish foreign policy to reduce it to that of a provincial town and to support everything that contributes to the shift in focus in Germany to the west or south. “This means that the same historical criteria were used for the status of Berlin, which was founded on once Slavic soil also reflected in the western border of the "Eastern Zone" - the later inner-German border.

Used borders of the German Empire

The last borders recognized under international law were those of the unsuccessful last attempt at peace in 1938, that of the Munich Agreement . The consequence of this was that it was ultimately not conducive to peace, but to promote war. It had made it possible for Adolf Hitler to be celebrated by his people as the savior of peace. The Commission could not use these limits. A repetition of this “donation peace ” (→  appeasement policy ) would have contradicted the spirit and will of the Tehran Three Powers Declaration to create the basis for a lasting European peace. In the absence of other international legal boundaries in this region, which were not at the expense of a third country, the choice could only fall on the borders before the Munich Agreement - i.e. those that were in effect on December 31, 1937.

As already mentioned, the borders of Greater Berlin from 1920 were used for sector planning for the German capital.

Historical references

Influence of governments in exile

While the minutes were being drafted in the late summer of 1944, the commission found itself in two dilemmas when it met at Lancaster House in London . Such commissions usually meet after a war. But with the beginning of the war and the establishment of Czechoslovak and Polish governments in exile in London, there were interest groups for a post-war situation that had an impact on the Tehran conference at the end of 1943. While Edvard Beneš remained an accepted negotiating partner for the Allies as the Czech president-in-exile from 1940 onwards, the Polish government-in-exile fell into a rift with the Soviet Union, so that the Lublin Committee was supported by it from 1944 . The respective governments-in-exile were in exchange with their resistance movements in the countries occupied by Germany, which, as the war progressed, made more radical demands on the Germany to be defeated and exerted pressure on the negotiating positions of the governments-in-exile.

Western border of the Soviet occupation zone

The representatives of the Soviet Union were the first to know where the western border of their zone of occupation should run, which was already accepted by the American representative on May 12, 1944, while the Western powers had not yet laid down precise ideas by September 12, 1944 and the French still did were not involved.

theses

The latter may have been a result of the fact that the Russians, in a Pan-Slavic context, had been involved in the discussion about the Germans' drive to the East since the second half of the 19th century, after, for example, Paul de Lagarde, with his impact until 1945, had demanded in 1886 that the Germans need "land at our door, in the area of ​​the penny postage" for their farmers. If Russia does not want it, it is forcing the Germans "to embark on an expropriation procedure, that is to say to war, for which we have from time immemorial kept reasons that cannot be fully enumerated". Moreover, would the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to think (1918), against which the account of the October Revolution Russia lying on the ground could not defend himself.
The Pan-Germans had most explicitly appealed in 1891 to the resumption of the "German urge to move east". With this they wanted to remember that since the 10th century under Henry I (Eastern Franconia) the Slavs on the Elbe and Saale were initially displaced (cf. Germania Slavica ), the Wendenkreuzzug took place in 1147 , until the last Slavic Swantewit on June 15, 1168 - The sanctuary on Rügen was destroyed and in the 12th and 13th centuries the German eastern settlement was established on a large scale.
The first chairman of the Pan-Germans, Ernst Hasse , like Friedrich Ratzel, in memory of the Ostsiedlung in 1895, had expressly spoken out in favor of border colonization in the Eastern and Southeastern European Slavic countries, which was most attentive to Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937) in his book from 1919 / 20 “ The new Europe . The Slavic standpoint ”was observed and reflected back to Charlemagne , because the pan-German historical perspective with its claim to colonization reached back to him.

The zone boundary required by the USSR roughly corresponded to the border of the East Franconian Empire at the time of Henry I's assumption of government around 920, whereby it was now additionally claimed that the former Ottonian rulership centers of Quedlinburg and Magdeburg with the core areas around the Palatinate in Erfurt , Tilleda, which reached to Thuringia , Wallhausen and Allstedt and the Memleben monastery were added to the Soviet sphere of influence. That made Hubertus Prinz zu Loewenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg in his small German history (1953) as follows comment on the limits: " They run today as roughly where they were 1,000 years ago, before King Henry I the pagan Magyar storm from Asia the unstrut brought to a standstill - a terrible warning for all the peoples of Europe to reflect on their common mission at the last hour. "In 1957, Walther Hofer wrote in the final review of his decades-long collection of documents on National Socialism:" Not only did Germany and half of Europe lay in ruins, but Bismarck's legacy, the unity of the empire was wasted, the work of the Prussian kings destroyed, indeed a centuries-old one historical development, namely the German colonization in the east , reversed, the soldiers of the Soviet Union stand on the Elbe [...]. The Third Reich did not become a thousand-year Reich, but the twelve years of its existence were enough to squander the historical work of a thousand years. "

In these two statements it is noticeable that both Löwenstein and Hofer viewed the western border of the former Soviet occupation zone and later German Democratic Republic less as an internal German , but rather as one between Russia as the victorious Slavic nation and (western) Germany. This reflects what was up for negotiation in the Paulskirche in 1848 and what German historiography recorded in the form of Hans Rothfels both in 1935 and in a new edition in 1960. As in 1832 at the Hambach Festival, West German liberals had called for the restoration of the Polish state, which was divided between Prussia , Austria and Russia. The East Prussian MP Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan was condescending and arrogant towards them, accusing them of naive ignorance, and referred to a situation that Hans Rothfels, who was involved in Ostforschung after his forced retirement in 1934 alongside Albert Brackmann , cited encouragingly : “ If we wanted to be ruthlessly fair, then we should not just publish poses, but half of Germany. For the Slavic world once extended to the Saale and beyond. “ Heinrich Wuttke , also a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly, wrote the following in 1846 and in a second, increased edition in 1848 in his anti-Polish pamphlet“ Germans and Poles ”:“ Our ancestors even stole more from the Slavs than they are now demanding The Slavic world once reached as far as the Saale and sank deep into the heart of Germany. "(See also Polish West Research .)

The agreements on the course of the Oder-Neisse line , behind which the Polish-national claims were also based on the memory of the 10th century, were made in chronological order to determine the course of the inner German border . Josef Stalin , in whom the Pan-Slavic traditions were as anchored as the Pan-German ones in Hitler, assured the Poles in July / August 1944 that with the Oder-Neisse line as the western border they would also have a claim to Stettin and Breslau . At the end of the war he declared on May 9, 1945: “ The centuries-long struggle of the Slavic peoples for their existence and independence ended with the victory over the German occupiers and German tyranny. "

See also

literature

  • Jochen Laufer: Pax Sovietica. Stalin, the Western Powers and the German Question 1941–1945. Cologne / Weimar / Vienna, Böhlau 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20416-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Wettig: The Four Power Agreement in the acid test. Berlin Verlag, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-87061-216-9 , p. 13.
  2. ^ Boris Meissner: Russia, the Western Powers and Germany. In: Treatises of the Research Center for International Law at the University of Hamburg. Volume 5, Nölke Verlag, Hamburg 1953, p. 35 ff.
  3. ↑ Chris Madsen: The Royal Navy and German naval disarmament 1943-1947. In: Cass series naval policy and history. Frank Cass publishers, London 1998, ISBN 0-7146-4373-4 , p. 3 ff.
  4. ^ Tony Sharp: The Wartime Alliance and the Zonal Division of Germany. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1975, ISBN 0-19-822521-0 , p. 3 ff.
  5. ↑ Boris Meissner, ibid, p. 16 f.
  6. ↑ See the last version of August 13, 1945 (German) .
  7. ↑ a b c Original English text of the 9th EAC meeting (the so-called 1st zone protocol - September 12, 1944 in London)
  8. ↑ Tony Sharp, ibid, p. 207.
  9. ↑ Lucius DuBignon Clay: The papers of General Lucius D. Clay: Germany, 1945-1949. Volume 1, Indiana University Press, 1974, ISBN 0-253-34288-0 , p. 34.
  10. ^ Wilhelm Cornides, Hermann Volle, To the peace with Germany , Oberursel / Ts. 1948, p. 121 f.
  11. ↑ Helmut Brandt, System of rule and self-administration in the four-part Greater Berlin , pp. 455-459. In: Gedächtnisschrift Hans Peters , ed. v. Hermann Conrad, Hermann Jahrreiß, Paul Mikat, Hermann Mosler, Hans Carl Nipperdey, Jürgen Salzwedel, Springer, Berlin-Heidelberg 1967, pp. 445-479.
  12. ↑ Detlef Brandes (²2005), p. 260 f.
  13. ↑ Detlef Brandes (²2005), p. 421.
  14. ^ Andreas Lawaty : The end of Prussia from a Polish perspective: On the continuity of negative effects of Prussian history on German-Polish relations. de Gruyter, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-11-009936-5 , p. 104.
  15. ↑ Andreas Lawaty (1986), p. 99.
  16. ^ Andreas Lawaty (1986), p. 205.
  17. ↑ See Detlef Brandes : The way to expulsion 1938–1945. Plans and decisions to “transfer” Germans from Czechoslovakia and Poland. Oldenbourg, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-486-56731-4 , p. 243.
  18. ^ Jochen Laufer: Pax Sovietica. Stalin, the Western Powers and the German Question 1941–1945. Böhlau: Köln-Weimar-Wien 2009, p. 430.
  19. ↑ According to Jochen Laufer (2009, p. 430), the US President had not attached great importance to the zone division until then.
  20. ↑ Harry Pross (ed.): The destruction of German politics. Documents 1871-1933. Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 283 f. - For the long-term effect of Lagarde on Alfred Rosenberg and Adolf Hitler see Ulrich Sieg : Deutschlands Prophet. Paul de Lagarde and the origins of modern anti-Semitism. Hanser, Munich 2007, chap. “A thought leader of National Socialism”, pp. 326–353. In Mein Kampf it then says in Volume 1, p. 154: “ If you wanted land in Europe, then this (...) could only be done at the expense of Russia, then the new empire had to march back onto the streets of the former knights of the order put (...) . "
  21. ^ Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk: The new Europe. The Slavic point of view. Volk und Welt, Berlin 1991, pp. 24, 37-44. - In 1935 eight renowned German historians wanted to put Charlemagne in the right light and wrote that they wanted to put " his policy to contain the Slavic flood and to prepare Germanising settlements in the east in the right light ". In: Charlemagne or Charlemagne? Eight answers from German historians. Berlin 1935, p. 6. - In particular, these were: Hermann Aubin , Friedrich Baethgen , Albert Brackmann , Carl Erdmann , Karl Ludwig Hampe (whose book from 1921 on "The Train to the East. The Colonization of the German People in the Middle Ages " 1939 published in the fifth edition), Hans Naumann , Martin Lintzel , Wolfgang Windelbrand .
  22. ↑ Hubertus Prince zu Löwenstein: Little German story. Frankfurt am Main ² 1957, p. 160.
  23. ↑ Walther Hofer (Ed.): The National Socialism. Documents 1933-1945. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1957, p. 367. - How clearly the 10th century was used to legitimize the expulsion of the Germans in Poland in 1945 is evident from the talk of the " regained territories ".
  24. ↑ Hans Rothfels: Bismarck, the East and the Empire. Darmstadt 1960 (first 1935), p. 11.
  25. ^ Heinrich Wuttke: Germans and Poles. Political considerations. W. v. Blomberg, Schkeuditz 1846, p. 5 f.
  26. ↑ Cf. Robert Brier: The Polish “Western Thought” after the Second World War (1944–1950). In: Westgedanke , p. 52 ff. (PDF; 828 kB).
  27. ^ Hannah Arendt : Elements and origins of total domination . Anti-Semitism, imperialism, total rule , Piper, Munich 1986, 8th edition. 2001, p. 473.
  28. ↑ Detlef Brandes (²2005), p. 469.
  29. ↑ Stalin: Address to the People - See section “ Potsdam and the Partition ” in Chapter 12 of Golo Mann's German History of the 19th and 20th Centuries. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-10-047920-4 (new edition from 1958/1966). Also the Czech Slav researcher and archaeologist Zdenek Vana, who introduced his book The World of the Old Slavs (Prague 1983, 1988, ISBN 3-7684-4390-6 , p. 209) under the heading “The tragedy of the northwestern branch” in 1983 states: "A considerable part of today's German territory, in principle the whole of the GDR and a large part of the FRG up to Holstein, Hamburg, Hanover, Thuringia and northeast Bavaria, was once inhabited by Slavs."
  30. ^ Frank Helzel: Stalin's drawing of borders in defeated Germany 1945 . Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7357-2032-0 , p. 13 ff.