Soviet Zone of Occupation
The Soviet Zone of Occupation refers to all the central and eastern German provinces invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union in 1945 during the closing stages of World War II in Europe.
The plutocratic Allies, United States, Great Britain, and France also had invaded Zones of Occupation in Germany's western and central regions.
Without any attempt at consulting their Allies, the Soviet Union illegally handed over to their puppet Communist Government of Poland the administration of the entire area up to to the Oder and Western Neisse rivers. At the Potsdam Conference this was presented by the Soviets as their fait accompli[1]. Poland still claims today that this was agreed at the Potsdam Conference. This is untrue. Byrnes wrote:
- It is difficult to credit with good faith any person who asserts that Poland's western boundary was fixed by the conference, or that there was a promise that it would be established at some particular place."[2]
The indigenous German population were then raped, murdered and/or expelled and replaced by imported Polish settlers from central and eastern Poland.[3][4]
A line was drawn across eastern East Prussia separating the northern part which became the Soviet Union's Kaliningrad enclave. The population were treated as above and replaced with (not as many) settlers from Russia.
The Soviet-occupied states in central Germany west of the Oder became another Soviet puppet State, the German Democratic Republic (DDR).
Sources
- ↑ Balfour, Michael, Four-Power Control in Germany and Austria 1945-1946, Oxford University Press, U.K., 1956, p.78.
- ↑ Byrnes, James F.,Speaking Frankly, New York & London, 1947, p.79-81. Byrnes, a Judge and former State Governor, served as a close adviser to President Truman and became US Secretary of State in July 1945. In that capacity, Byrnes attended the Potsdam Conference and the Paris Conference.
- ↑ The Expulsion of the German Population from the Territories East of the Oder-Neisse-Line, editor, Professor Theodor Schieder, University of Koln, et al, with translations by Professor Dr. Vivian Stranders, M.A., University of London, FDR Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims, Bonn, 1954.
- ↑ Huber, Florian, Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself - The Downfall of Ordinary Germans in 1945, Allen Lane publishers, U.K., 2019, ISBN: 978-0-241-39924-8
