Eastern Germany
Eastern Germany or the German East (German: Ostdeutschland or Der deutsche Osten; also German Eastern Territories; German: Deutsche Ostgebiete) is the name for the German Reich territory east of the Oder-Neisse line some of which stretched back to the Holy Roman Empire and beyond.
History
The area of the former GDR (Middle Germany or Mitteldeutschland), the current East FRG, is often incorrectly referred to as East Germany. However, these are parts of central and northern Germany. A key final decision of the Potsdam Conference included that Germany would be divided into the four occupation zones (among the three powers and France) that had been agreed to earlier; Germany's eastern border was to be shifted west to the Oder-Neisse line (dismemberment of Germany); a Soviet-backed group was recognized as the legitimate government of Poland.
Geographical center
Spremberg, about 20 km from Cottbus, is considered the geographical center of the German Empire. The calculations for this were based on the geographer Heinrich Matzat, a senior teacher (Oberlehrer) at the Spremberger Realgymnasium. The basis of his calculation in 1872 was that he determined the average values of the places furthest north, south, east and west in what was then the German Empire.
In July 1914, the head of the Prussian State Survey, von Betrab, issued an order that the center of the German Empire fell on the measuring table sheet 2547, i.e. the Spremberg district. In 1946, the inscription on the stone was destroyed on the orders of the then district administrator, who implemented Order No. 30 of the Allied Control Council to the letter.
The original stone was recovered in March 1988 as part of the preparation for road construction work and is exhibited in the local history museum in Spremberg. According to the district monument conservator at the time, the stone was so badly damaged by the removal of the writing and its placement in a concrete wall after 1946 that it was not possible to restore it. On 19 January 1991, one year after the partial reunification of Germany, a copy of the stone was erected just a few meters from the original location.[1]
German East
The eastern regions of the German Reich as of 31 December 1937 accounted for around a quarter of the area, a seventh of the population and a significantly below-average share of Germany's industrial production. Eastern Germany in the broader sense also include areas that Germany had to cede after the First World War (excluding the German colonies) in 1920 due to the Treaty of Versailles of 1919:
- Large parts of the Prussian provinces of Posen and West Prussia
- Former East Prussian Soldau area
- Upper Silesian area Industrial area (to Poland)
- Hultschiner Ländchen (to Czechoslovakia)
- Memelland (to the Allied Powers, annexed by Lithuania in 1923)
- Danzig as the Free City of Danzig (1920 to 1939)
Important East German cities in the eastern German regions included (population as of 1925)
- Breslau (614,000 inhabitants),
- Königsberg i. Pr. (372,000),
- Stettin (270,000),
- Hindenburg O.S.(132,000) and
- Gleiwitz (109,000).
According to international law, the regions that were part of the German Empire or Austria-Hungary until around 1918 or 1919 are also attributed to the German Eastern Territories (not just the Reich), analogous to the uniform expulsion area according to the Federal Expellees Act, and in the interwar period to that German Reich or the Republic of Austria and from 1938/39 to 1945 belonged to German territory again. Many Germans lived here according to their own identification, language and culture, for whom the term ethnic German was often used and who mostly did not have German or Austrian citizenship.
Quotes
- "In 1939, after Poland cooperated with Hitler — it did collaborate with Hitler, you know — Hitler offered Poland peace and a treaty of friendship and alliance (we have all the relevant documents in the archives), demanding in return that Poland give back to Germany the so-called Danzig Corridor, which connected the bulk of Germany with East Prussia and Konigsberg. After World War I, this territory was transferred to Poland, and instead of Danzig, a city of Gdansk emerged. Hitler asked them to give it amicably, but they refused. [...] As the Poles had not given the Danzig Corridor to Germany, and went too far, pushing Hitler to start World War II by attacking them. Why was it Poland against whom the war started on 1 September 1939? Poland turned out to be uncompromising, and Hitler had nothing to do but start implementing his plans with Poland. [...] After the victory in the Great Patriotic War, as we call World War II, all those territories were ultimately enshrined as belonging to Russia, to the USSR. As for Poland, it received, apparently in compensation, the lands which had originally being German: the eastern parts of Germany (these are now western lands of Poland). Of course, Poland regained access to the Baltic Sea, and Danzig, which was once again given its Polish name. So this was how this situation developed." – Vladimir Putin in an interview with Tucker Carlson recorded on 6 February 2024 in the Kremlin in Moskow[2]
