Territorial evolution of Germany

Following the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia annexed several territories per the Congress of Vienna, that is Rhineland and Saarlouis from France, the western part of the just dissolved Duchy of Warsaw with the Chełmno Land and most of Greater Poland and Kuyavia, Lower Lusatia from Saxony, and the remainder of Swedish Pomerania with Stralsund from Sweden.

As part of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia's new Bolshevik (communist) government renounced all claims to Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine.

However, this had been forbidden by the victorious allied powers of the First World War (the Treaty of Saint-Germain) and by the Czechoslovak government, partly with force of arms in 1919.

Many Sudeten Germans rejected an affiliation to Czechoslovakia, since they had been refused the right to self-determination promised by US president Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points of January 1918.

Many of the propaganda themes of the Nazi regime against Czechoslovakia and Poland claimed that the ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) in those territories were persecuted.

The Nazis negotiated a number of population transfers with Joseph Stalin and others with Benito Mussolini so that both Germany and the other country would increase their ethnic homogeneity.

As a result, anti-Nazi groups campaigned heavily for the Saarland to remain under control of League of Nations as long as Adolf Hitler ruled Germany.

The Allies were, on paper, committed to upholding the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which specifically prohibited the union of Germany and post-war Austria (a German-speaking country).

This notwithstanding, the Anschluss was among the first major steps in the Austrian-born Adolf Hitler's long-desired creation of an empire including German-speaking lands and territories Germany had lost after World War I.

The events of 12 March 1938, marked the culmination of historical cross-national pressures to unify the German populations of Austria and Germany under one nation.

Fully devoted to remaining independent but amidst growing pressures, the chancellor of Austria, Kurt Schuschnigg, tried to hold a plebiscite.

The settlement gave Germany the Sudetenland starting 10 October, and de facto control over the rest of Czechoslovakia as long as Hitler promised to go no further.

Hitler and Chamberlain signed an additional resolution determining to resolve all future disputes between Germany and the United Kingdom through peaceful means.

On 13 March 1939, Nazi armies entered Prague and proceeded to occupy the remainder of Bohemia and Moravia, which was transformed into a protectorate of the Reich.

Prime Minister Chamberlain felt betrayed by the Nazi seizure of Czechoslovakia, realising his policy of appeasement towards Hitler had failed, and immediately began to mobilize the British Empire's armed forces on a war footing.

South Tyrol was de facto annexed by Nazi Germany; it was part of the Italian Social Republic, a German puppet state at the time.

As it became evident that the Allies were going to defeat Nazi Germany decisively, the question arose as to how to redraw the borders of Central and Eastern European countries after the war.

The territorial changes at the end of World War II were part of negotiated agreements between the victorious Allies to redraw national borders and arrange for deportation of all Germans that were east of the Oder–Neisse line.

The final decision to move Poland's boundary westward was made by the US, Britain and the Soviets at the Yalta Conference, shortly before the end of the war.

The open question was whether the border should follow the eastern or western Neisse rivers, and whether Stettin, the traditional seaport of Berlin, should remain German or be included in Poland.

[10] Eventually, however, Stalin decided that he wanted Königsberg as a year-round warm water port for the Soviet Navy and argued that the Poles should receive Stettin instead.

Based upon this interpretation of the Potsdam Agreement, the CDU controlled German government maintained that the Oder–Neisse line was completely unacceptable and subject to negotiation.

Between 1970 and 1990, the West German political establishment gradually recognised the "facts on the ground" and accepted clauses in the Treaty on the Final Settlement, whereby Germany renounced all claims to territory east of the Oder–Neisse line.

This ended the legal limbo which meant that for 45 years, people on both sides of the border could not be sure whether the status quo reached in 1945 might be changed at some future date.

On 23 April 1949, Dutch troops occupied an area of 69 km2 (27 sq mi), 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[14]) made in The Hague on 8 April 1960, in which Germany agreed to pay DEM 280 million for the return of Elten, Selfkant, and Suderwick, as Wiedergutmachung.

The territory was returned to Germany on 1 August 1963, except for one small hill (about 3 km2, 1.2 sq mi) near Wyler village, called Duivelsberg/Wylerberg which was annexed by the Netherlands.

With the effect of 1 January 1957, the Saar Protectorate declared its accession to the Federal Republic of Germany, as provided by its Grundgesetz (constitution) art.

[15] In 1951, a small area of land on Usedom Island (Polish: Uznam) was ceded from the German Democratic Republic (Eastern Germany) to Poland.

In return, a similarly-sized area north of Mescherin, including the village of Staffelde (Polish: Staw), was transferred from Poland to the German Democratic Republic.