Annexations 1949: When the Netherlands incorporated a few thousand Germans

WIf, as a creditor, he demands a pledge, he distrusts the debtor. This became apparent in 1948 at the London Six-Power Conference between the three Western victors, the USA, Great Britain and France, and the Benelux states that had been subjugated by the Wehrmacht in the Second World War. It was about the conditions under which Germany’s three western occupation zones could become a new state.

What was remarkable was that no German had asked for this – on the contrary, the victors’ request that the losers set up something of their own from (around) three-quarters of the country was seen as an imposition. Namely as a further step towards the abandonment of unity after the Soviet Union had already subjected the remaining quarter of Germany to the regime of its socialist governors.

France, in the dual role of war loser in 1940 and victor in 1945, demanded in London that it be “finally safe” from a future Germany. To this end, the Ruhr area, which is important for armaments, should be placed under the control of an international authority; In a reduced form it became the Montanunion in 1951.

Luxembourg insisted on the cession of the village of Roth an der Our and the Kammerforst, a total of 547 hectares. The residents should retain German citizenship and from now on be viewed as foreigners. The government explained that the Grand Duchy is not interested in increasing territory or population, but rather in honoring its reparation claims, which are valued at 26 billion Belgian francs. Territorial cessions will be waived if Germany pays off its debts differently.

Belgium also wanted to implement border corrections and cede Bildchen, a western suburb of Aachen, Losheim and a few other communities. But these were more symbolic demands. The much larger area of ​​Eupen-Malmedy, which had belonged to the Habsburg Netherlands until 1795, then to revolutionary France, from 1815 to 1919 to Prussia and the German Empire, then to Belgium and from 1940 to 1944 to Hitler’s Germany, had been returned anyway .

By far the biggest demands in London were made by the Netherlands. Originally, in the Bakker Protection Plan from the end of 1945, a government commission in The Hague had even demanded that all areas west of a line from Wilhelmshaven via Oldenburg, Osnabrück and Münster to Cologne and Aachen be annexed. According to the broadest version of the plan, several major German cities were to become Dutch; Even new names had already been decided: Cologne was to become “Keulen”, Osnabrück “Osnabrugge” and Aurich “Auwerk”.

The Western victorious powers clearly rejected such considerations. The government in The Hague reduced its request at the beginning of 1947 and now demanded “only” 1,840 square kilometers along the previous German-Dutch border. But 160,000 people lived in the required areas, four fifths of whom were purely German-speaking.

The USA in particular put a stop to this. Since the Netherlands urgently needed American loans for reconstruction, the government in The Hague and the annexation supporter Queen Wilhelmina had to give in. But since the (politically completely insane) Bakker-Schut plan from the end of 1945 had raised expectations among the Dutch public, at least small territorial gains were necessary.

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On December 23, 1948, the six powers agreed on “border corrections” to the detriment of the future West Germany, which were to be implemented exactly five months later. Queen Wilhelmina had now abdicated in favor of her daughter Juliana – not because of the annexations, but because of her failed plan to gain significantly more influence over the government. In Belgium and Luxembourg, too, the realization that we were on the wrong path was increasingly gaining ground.

At twelve noon on April 23, 1949, the decisions of the London Conference became valid. Luxembourg limited itself to adding the uninhabited Kammerwald to its own territory. Belgium renounced most of the territories awarded; Essentially only Bildchen and the village of Losheim were annexed.

The Netherlands, on the other hand, took over the previously German districts of Dinxperlo (around 500 inhabitants), the village of Elten and small parts of the municipality of Hüthum (3,500 inhabitants and 18 square kilometers of area) as well as parts of the municipality of Wyler (around 100 inhabitants, two square kilometers of area) this Saturday. . But the most important was the Selfkant office with seven communities (together almost 5,000 inhabitants and an area of ​​38 square kilometers). The main reason: Under the surface of this agricultural area, unused coal deposits of several hundred million tons were suspected.

WELT reported on the implementation of the territorial cessions on the last weekend in April: “It is ten minutes to twelve o’clock. There is a motorcade on the road from Zevenaar to Elten. At the front there were motorcyclists, Dutch military police with their white helmets, jeeps with Dutch gendarmerie, a car with the commanding colonel and the district administrator who will take over the Elten area.” The reporter noticed that two tanks had arrived as security, but theirs Crews did not take the spectacle seriously, but instead sat on the grass and had a leisurely breakfast.

At twelve o’clock the vehicles (without tanks) started moving. A bus with representatives of the international press also traveled, including the Amsterdam WELT correspondent; Germans were officially unwelcome in the area other than registered residents. The journalists noticed many fearful, but also some curious faces in the windows of the houses; There was only a welcome greeting “here and there”.

At the previous border, the previously black, white and red markings were painted red, white and blue. However, the planners of the campaign overlooked an eleven-hectare area with around 110 inhabitants between the Dutch Vaals and the German Vaalserquartier, which was also supposed to be annexed for the sake of border consolidation.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Karl Arnold persistently criticized the cessions of territory. Nevertheless, the issue soon disappeared from the political spotlight. As early as April 23, 1949, the “border corrections” were an “anachronism of nation-state thinking,” judged the regional historian Klaus Pabst.

In the Netherlands, too, many people viewed the annexations critically as early as 1949, and even more so with the significant upswing in peaceful and mutually profitable relations in the 1950s: they only had any value as a bargaining chip for compensation negotiations with the Federal Republic.

That’s exactly how it happened: On April 8, 1960, the Netherlands and West Germany concluded a compensation agreement that, on the one hand, compensated the victims of the German occupation from 1940 to 1945 with a total of 125 million marks, and on the other hand provided for further payments of 155 million marks. In return, the areas annexed in 1949 were returned, with the exception of a 1.25 square kilometer uninhabited forest area. Belgium had already done something similar with Bildchen and Losheim in 1958.

The last border shift in Central Europe in 1949 had proven to be useless nonsense. Since the Schengen Agreement came into force in 1985 and at the latest with the introduction of the euro on January 1, 2002, the areas that were previously pushed back and forth have grown together.