Eupen-Malmedy
It consists of three administrative cantons around the towns of Eupen, Malmedy, and Sankt Vith which encompass some 730 square kilometres (280 sq mi).
Agitation by German nationalists during the interwar period led to its re-annexation by Nazi Germany during World War II.
In 651, Frankish monks established Princely Abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy; Malmedy then became part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Liège, while Stavelot was attached to the Archdiocese of Cologne.
Malmedy and Waimes, except the village of Faymonville, were part of the abbatial principality of Stavelot-Malmedy which was an Imperial Estate of the Holy Roman Empire.
The plebiscite itself was held without a secret ballot, and organized as a consultation in which all citizens who opposed the annexation had to formally register their protest; just 271 of nearly 34,000 eligible voters did so.
[9][10] The League of Nations accepted the result and the Transitional Government prepared for the unification of Eupen-Malmedy with Belgium in June 1925.
At the time, most of the population considered the republican government of Friedrich Ebert and Philipp Scheidemann to be on a brink of collapse or a socialist revolution, which led some activists to advocate for the creation of the Rhenish Republic (which would eventually be created in 1923, but last only a month).
Others did argue that the area should be annexed by Belgium - this idea was based on the premise that the "first Belgian king, Leopold I, himself of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, seemed a more endearing prospect than being party to a revolutionary republic as was being fought over in Germany".
[11] While most of the population was passive and indifferent to both the referendum and Belgian annexation, the Germans of Eupen-Malmedy were roughly evenly split into a pro-Belgian and pro-German camp, which ran across already existing ideological divides.
[12] Previously part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne, a separate Apostolic Administration of Eupen–Malmedy–Sankt Vith was founded in 1919.
[13] The early Belgian administration of Eupen-Malmedy was paralleled by secret negotiations between Belgium and the Weimar German government of Gustav Stresemann over a possible return of the region in exchange for money.
[14][15] The negotiations collapsed in 1926 following the German signature of the Locarno Treaties (1925) guaranteeing Germany's western borders amid international pressure.
[19] The Belgian government in exile, however, refused to recognise the German annexation and maintained that Eupen-Malmedy was part of Belgium.
Administered as part of Nazi Germany, 8,000 men in the region were conscripted into the German armed forces of whom 2,200 were killed on the Eastern Front.
After the war, the Belgian authorities opened 16,400 investigations into citizens from Eupen-Malmedy, representing around 25 percent of the region's entire population.
Historically, in Aubel, Baelen, Plombières, Welkenraedt (neighbouring Belgian municipalities), Eupen, Kelmis and Lontzen, the local languages have been classed as Limburgish, thus dialects of Low Franconian or Dutch.
The individual groups sing a song at the doors and demand a “lôtire” for their efforts, in other words a small sweetmeat.
"[24] The East Cantons as a whole should therefore not be confused with the German language region created in 1963 or with the German-speaking Community of Belgium, which does not include the (smaller) Malmedy and Waimes areas.
After becoming part of Belgium in the 1920s, the municipalities composing these territories were grouped into the three cantons of Eupen, Malmedy, and Sankt Vith.
