Dutch annexation of German territory after the Second World War
In its most ambitious form, this plan included the cities of Cologne, Aachen, Münster and Osnabrück, and would have enlarged the country's European area by 30 to 50 percent.
[1] Many Germans living in the Netherlands were declared "enemy subjects" after World War II ended and put into an internment camp in an operation called Black Tulip.
Several highly placed persons, including then Foreign Minister Eelco Nicolaas van Kleffens, put forth their own ideas regarding annexation in these publications.
Idenburg, and the Action Committee (Comité van Actie), which had as its primary function the education of the Dutch population about the expansion plans.
A big point of discussion in Bakker Schut's expansion plan was the proposed forced migration of the original German population.
Dutch churches objected to the proposed mass expulsion, because in their eyes the German population could not be found guilty of the crimes of the Nazis during World War II.
In 1946, in the name of the Dutch government, he officially claimed 4,980 km2 (1,920 sq mi) of German territory, which was not even half of the area envisioned by Van Kleffens.
Furthermore, the allies (in particular the Americans) considered it vital to have a stable West Germany in view of the coming Cold War.
At a conference of foreign ministers of the western allied occupation forces in London (14 January until 25 February 1947), the Dutch government (Cabinet Beel I) claimed an area of 1,840 km2 (710 sq mi).
[citation needed] (Because of language change processes since the unification of Germany, this was the case even in areas that had previously spoken "East Dutch" Low Franconian dialects.)
The KVP considered this proposal much too small, while the CPN rejected any kind of reparations in the form of territorial expansion.
At 12 noon that day, Dutch troops moved to occupy an area of 69 km2 (17,000 acres), the largest parts of which were Elten (near Emmerich am Rhein) and Selfkant.
April 1960 zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und dem Königreich der Niederlande zur Regelung von Grenzfragen und anderen zwischen beiden Ländern bestehenden Problemen; short: Ausgleichsvertrag, i.e. treaty of settlement)[3] made in the Hague on 8 April 1960, in which West Germany agreed to pay 280 million German marks for the return of Elten, Selfkant, and Suderwick, as Wiedergutmachung.
