Oder-Neisse line
From Freepedia
The Oder-Neisse line (German: Oder-Neiße-Grenze; Polish: Granica na Odrze i Nysie Łużyckiej) is the border between Germany and Poland. The line consists mostly of the rivers Oder/Odra and Neisse/Nysa Łużycka, but digresses to include the city of Szczecin/Stettin, on the west bank of the Oder/Odra in Poland.
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History of the line
Before World War II, Poland's western border with Germany had been fixed under terms of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, and it generally ran along the provincial borders of Great Poland, but with certain adjustments that were intended to reasonably reflect the ethnic compositions of small areas beyond the provincial borders. However, Pomerania, Silesia and Masuria had been divided, leaving large areas populated by rural Slavic populations on the German side and large German urban populations on the Polish side. Moreover, the border was one of the longest possible borders and it left two exclaves in northern Poland (the Free City of Danzig and East Prussia).
In 1945, under the territorial changes demanded by the Soviet Union, the border was moved westward into pre-war Germany, to the Oder-Neisse line, encompassing most of Silesia and Pomerania, including Szczecin/Stettin, on the west side of the Oder, plus eastern Brandenburg within Poland. On the Eastern side of the Polish-German border it included Gdansk/Danzig and the southern part of East Prussia, Masuria and Warmia. These changes were followed by general population transfers between Poland and Germany, including the Germans remaining on the territory of Poland and the Polish displaced persons in the German occupation zones. In addition to this the Polish population from the eastern half of Poland, now annexed by the Soviet Union was expelled and transferred to the acquired territories of western Poland. Poles were not the only ethnic group to be expelled from their homelands, however.
Potentially relevant factors to post-war Polish-German borders were German annexations in 1939 that exceeded German borders from 1914 and the decision of the Soviet Union to annex areas east of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Line or Curzon Line, already approved by the Western Allies. Owing to recent events in occupied Poland, including brutal evacuation of 800,000 remaining people living amongst the ruins of Warsaw after the Warsaw Uprising, there were not many people who opposed Poland's gains from Germany on humanitarian bases, they where also perceived as a partial "compensation" for Poland's territorial losses to the Soviet Union. Several groups did consider the territorial changes and the associated German expulsion to be a humanitarian disaster, however.
Allies decide Polish border
The final decision to move Poland's western boundary westward was made by the US, Britain and Soviets at the Yalta Conference, shortly before the end of World War II. The precise location of the border was left open; the western Allies also accepted in general the principle of the Oder-Neisse line as the future western border of Poland and of population transfer as the way to prevent future border disputes. The open question was whether the border should follow the eastern or western Neisse, and whether it should include Szczecin/Stettin in Poland.
Originally Germany was to keep Szczecin/Stettin and the Poles were to get East Prussia with Kaliningrad/Königsberg, but after Stalin decided he needed Königsberg as a year-round warm-water port, the Poles were given Szczecin/Stettin as compensation. The Poles also insisted on keeping Lwów/L'viv in Galicia, but Stalin refused and offered Lower Silesia with Wrocław/Breslau instead. (Incidentally many people from Lwów were later moved to Wrocław and to Gdańsk).
At the Potsdam Conference the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union decided to put the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line (in Poland referred to as "Western Territories" or "Regained Territories") under Polish administrative control. It was then expected that a final peace treaty would follow quickly and would either confirm the border or determine the exact border; it was also agreed that Germans remaining in Poland should be transferred to Germany (German expulsions).
The final agreements compensated Poland for 187,000 km² located east of the Curzon line with 112,000 km² of former German territories. The northern part of East Prussia was directly annexed by the Soviet Union.
One of the reasons for the final version of the border line was the fact that it was possibly the shortest possible border between Poland and Germany. It is only 472 km in length, because it stretched from the northernmost point of the Czech Republic to one of the southernmost points of the Baltic Sea in the Oder river estuary.
Stalin insisted that Poland's western frontier be extended to the Oder at the Tehran Conference in late 1943. The Americans, however, were not interested in discussing border questions at that time. (US State Department, Foreign Relations of the US: The Conference at Cairo and Tehran 1943, "Tripartite Dinner Meeting, 28 Nov 1943" pp. 509-14). British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden wrote in his diary that "A difficulty is that the Americans are terrified of the subject which [Roosevelt advisor] Harry [Hopkins] called 'political dynamite' for their elections. But, as I told him, if we cannot get a solution, Polish-Russian relations six months from now, with Russian armies in Poland, will be infinitely worse and elections nearer." (Anthony Eden, The Reckoning (London, 1965) p. 427).
At the Yalta Conference, Poland was again discussed. Roosevelt said that it would "make it easier for me at home" if Stalin was generous to Poland with respect to Poland's eastern frontiers. (US Dept of State, Foreign Relations of the US, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945, Third Plenary Meeting 6 Feb 1945, Matthews Minutes, p. 77). Churchill said a Soviet concession on that point would be admired as "a gesture of magnanimity" and declared that, with respect to Poland's post-war government, the British would "never be content with a solution which did not leave Poland a free and independent state." (Ibid., Bohlen Minutes, p. 669). With respect to Poland's western frontiers, Stalin noted that the Polish Prime Minister in exile, Stanisław Mikołajczyk, had been pleased when Stalin had told him Poland would be granted Stettin and territories east of the Western Neisse. (Llewellyn Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War, (London, 1962) p. 299). Churchill objected to the Western Neisse frontier saying that "it would be a pity to stuff the Polish goose so full of German food that it got indigestion." He added that many British would be shocked if large numbers of Germans were driven out of these areas, to which Stalin responded that many Germans had already fled from the Red Army. Poland's western frontier was ultimately left to be decided at the Potsdam Conference.
At Potsdam, Stalin argued for the Oder-Neisse line on the grounds that the Polish Government demanded this frontier and that there were no longer any Germans east of this line, a claim which prompted Admiral Leahy, US President Truman's Chief of Staff, to whisper "The Bolshies have killed them all," into US President Truman's ear. (Harry Truman, Year of Decisions, (New York, 1955) p. 296). Later the Russians admitted to about a million Germans still remaining in the area. On July 24, 1945, several Polish leaders appeared at the conference to advance arguments for an Oder-Western Neisse frontier. The port of Stettin was demanded for Eastern European exports. If Stettin were Polish, then "in view of the fact that the supply of water is found between the Oder and the Lausitzer Neisse, if the Oder's tributaries were controlled by someone else the river would be blocked." (US Dept of State, Foreign Relations of the US, The Conference of Berlin (Potsdam) 1945, vol. II pp. 1522-1524.) On July 25 both the US President and British Prime Minister stated that they could not tolerate Polish administration of part of one of the occupation zones (effectively making Poland a fifth occupying power after the UK, USA, France, and the USSR) and the expulsion of millions of people from it into other areas. (Ibid., pp. 381ff). Stalin responded that the Poles "were taking revenge for the injuries which the Germans had caused them in the course of centuries" (Ibid., p. 384).
On July 29, however, James Byrnes – who had become US Secretary of State earlier that month – advised the Soviets that the US was prepared to concede the area east of the Oder and the Eastern Neisse to Polish administration and not consider it part of the Soviet occupation zone, in return for a moderation of Soviet demands for reparations from the Western occupation zones. (Ibid., p. 1150). An Eastern Neisse boundary would have left Germany with roughly half of Silesia. The Soviets denied that the Poles would accept this. The next day Byrnes told Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov that the Americans would concede the Western Neisse (Ibid., p. 480). Mr Byrnes's concession undermined the British position such that although British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin raised objections (Ibid., p. 519), the British eventually agreed with American concession. Winston Churchill was not present at the end of the Conference as the results of the British election had made it clear he had been defeated. Churchill later claimed that he would not have agreed to the Oder-Western Neisse line, and in his famous Iron Curtain speech declared that "The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place" [1].
Recognition of the border by Germany
The government of East Germany signed a treaty with Poland in 1950 recognizing the Oder-Neisse line, officially called the "Border of Peace and Friendship." In a new treaty signed in 1989 between Poland and East Germany, the sea border was set.
In 1952, recognition of the Oder-Neisse line as a permanent boundary was one of the conditions for the Soviet Union to agree to a reunified Germany. The reunification was rejected by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer for several reasons.
In West Germany, the recognition of the line as permanent was initially regarded as unacceptable. In fact, West Germany as part of the Hallstein Doctrine did not recognize either Poland or East Germany. The West German attitude changed with the policy of Ostpolitik led by Willy Brandt; in 1970 West Germany signed treaties with Poland and the Soviet Union recognizing the Oder-Neisse line as a factual border of Poland, thus making family visits by the displaced eastern Germans to their former homelands possible. On November 14, 1990 as a prerequisite for the unification with East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany amended its constitution, the Basic Law, to remove the article concerning unification of pre-war German areas, as requested by Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany. The 1991 Polish-German border agreement finalized the Oder-Neisse line as the Polish-German border. As part of the agreement, the two countries recognized basic political and cultural rights for both German and Polish minorities living on either side of the border.
See also
External links
- An East German pamphlet for propagandists entitled "Why is the Oder-Neiße Line a Peace Border?"
- CNN Cold War - The Oder-Neisse Line: Ethnic cleansing, 1940s style
Categories: Geography of Germany | Post-World War II | Borders | History of Germany | History of Poland
