Partitioning Germany after World War II
- Thread starter Strategos' Risk
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altamiro
Banned
To fucking where??? These are the most densely populated parts of Germany. With this map the only realistic solution for Belgium, Netherlands and Denmark is to set up extermination camps for 30-40 Mio. Germans.
Don't forget that Poland had several millions Poles expelled from the eastern regions whou could settle in Silesia and Pomerania - and except for the Upper Silesia, these have been thinly settled, agricultural areas.
And what would then Belgium, Denmark and Netherlands do with territories containing a lot of housing and industry but no-one who would take care of it? They don't have an excess population who could take possession of the newly acquired areas and infrastructure. Nobody
This scenario would require these coutries abandoning their own core territories if they want to do anything useful with the German parts. Or accepting that they have enormous lawless wastelands - as big as the "core" territory for B ad NL - within their borders. It might work for the Czechoslovakia because what they annex on this map is mostly forested mountains with a few small towns.
No-one in his right mind in B and NL - unless he has entered into insanity contest with the most hardcore of the Nazis - would entertain these ideas as anything beyond revenge fantasies (the sort you have at 4 am on a sleepless night). Bakker-Schut Plan has never been anything but playing to the gallery - and it was much less ambitious than that.
Even letting the people in place but "localizing" them would only work in certain cases - probably with France bit (they have lots and lots of experience in assimilating foreign-speaking populations, just ask Alsace, Lille or Nice) and possibly, under favourable conditions, with Denmark (because S-H is also quite thinly settled and has a significant Danish minority anyway). The rest - ASB.
Ouch! Now THAT'S destroying Germany.
Why did Austria get southern Bavaria? Did the "Hitler's first victim" theory prevail?
Double ouch! Where would they send them to? Is there enough room for everybody in those 4 tiny German states plus Austria? Even the most staunchly anti-nazi postwar German will certainly resent these arrangements.
It would certainly not happen right immediately after the war is concluded, since the Saar would first of be a militarly occupied territory for a few years. During these few years, proven nazi collaborators and former party members would be expelled from the area, but the bulk of the population would remain.
France has a track record of pragmatism dating back from when Alsace-Moselle was integrated. Don't forget that a significant body of German law has been conserved there and that Laïcité among other things does not apply there. There was even a certain degree of tolerance for German has an everyday language there. Fair to say that it greatly varied with time however.
Exempting it from French secularization law and "tolerating" use of the language of the majority in a conquered territory is on no scale as pragmatic after 1945 as was true before it. In fact, if such is pragmatic, then I suspect that the Israelis would like to have a word with you.
Tannhäuser
Banned
I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure the number of Germans in the annexed areas would be nowhere near 30-40m -- probably around 10, or less. France and Denmark wouldn't have to expel all or any of their Germans, just Belgium and the Netherlands. So we're really talking about not many more people than Poland and Czechoslovakia expelled.
Czechoslovakia didn't, and the Sudetenland was thickly settled.
That's definitely true. It would pose significant problems for Belgium and the Netherlands; they probably would have to be forced to go along with the plan by France, the UK, and the US. The first two, especially France, would be the ones most pushing for it. I'm not sure what would bring this about, perhaps:
A nuclear-armed Germany that takes out a couple Allied cities before losing.
No Cold War (for some reason) means that the West and East feel no need to prop up their respective Germanies.
Ouch! Now THAT'S destroying Germany.
Why did Austria get southern Bavaria? Did the "Hitler's first victim" theory prevail?
Yep. The goal is to make the successor states of Germany as small as possible. Rather than give the land to Italy, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, or Czechoslovakia, the easiest thing is to give it to Austria and make sure that it's firmly in the pocket of the victorious allies. It will, perhaps, feel indebted by its being given southern Bavaria, and the Allies will make sure to encourage the first victim myth and discourage Austrian association with Germany and identification as Germans.
I think there is enough room, but just barely. It would obviously piss the Germans off, but this would only occur in a scenario (see above) in which no one cares. If there is no Cold War, the West might see the biggest threat to be, not Communism, but an again-resurgent Germany.
This would probably end badly for everyone involved (certainly for the even more Germans being expelled), and it's certainly quite unlikely, but I think both an attempt to carry it out, and its (at least immediately) successful implementation, are remotely possible.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned religion yet. Back when Germany was actually Christian, the Catholic/Protestant divide went something like this (very rough description):
Bavaria = staunchly, majority Catholic
Swabia = 50/50 Catholic/Protestant
Rhineland-Westphalia = Koln, Mainz: Catholic, significant Protestant populations inland
Hesse, Prussia, Saxony = very Protestant
In the FRG (1945 -- 1990), a slight majority of the population was culturally Catholic. In the post-1990 reunified FRG 2/3rds are culturally Protestant. This is due in large part to the reincorporation of the former Prussian territory.
In my opinion, Miguelrj's map best reflects the (former) religious demographic of Germany. An ATL division of Germany, even without the DDR, would have to fall somewhat along religio-cultural lines.
Bavaria = staunchly, majority Catholic
Swabia = 50/50 Catholic/Protestant
Rhineland-Westphalia = Koln, Mainz: Catholic, significant Protestant populations inland
Hesse, Prussia, Saxony = very Protestant
In the FRG (1945 -- 1990), a slight majority of the population was culturally Catholic. In the post-1990 reunified FRG 2/3rds are culturally Protestant. This is due in large part to the reincorporation of the former Prussian territory.
In my opinion, Miguelrj's map best reflects the (former) religious demographic of Germany. An ATL division of Germany, even without the DDR, would have to fall somewhat along religio-cultural lines.
Would you look at that: you're right.
![Konfessionen_in_Deutschland[1].gif](https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/data/attachments/122/122097-855208bfaa62da9521d641452bddd49b.jpg "Konfessionen_in_Deutschland[1].gif")
A happy coincidence. I knew Bavaria was Catholic and Prussia was Protestant but that's pretty much what I grasped.
My map consisted only in splitting Wendell's southern German state in two btw.
More to the point, none of the Allied powers had much interest in calling any postwar German state "Prussia."
You might be able to get away with "Brandenburg." But the Soviets were calling the shots, and they were more open to a nomenclature which gave the emerging state greater legitimacy in the German world.
I do think there is a certain unreality in some of these proposals. Unreal, that is, unless we are positing a *very* different final endgame for the war as the starting point for this ATL.
Where Soviet armies ended up was going to be a strong limiting factor - that and how Allied leaders reacted to that reality. Stalin was intransigent on the demand that areas under Soviet control remain under Soviet influence. Therefore, new states that combined territory from the Soviet Zone and Allied Zones were going to be infeasible, unless Allied leaders were willing to place the new states under Soviet guidance. And *that* was not going to happen given who was in charge at the time - not even Attlee was likely to approve such a scheme.
Likewise, East Prussia was history. No one had any interest in any allowing the old Polish Corridor problem to rear its ugly head, and both Poland and the USSR were too keen on having the territory. In the end, Stalin was insistent on having Konigsberg as a new warm water port, meaning that the most Poland could hope for was the southern half of East Prussia.
A lesser limiting factor is the lack of appetite by neighboring states for large new chunks of German territory. What would they do with all the Germans? In the East, the bulk of the Germans had fled in terror of the Red Army, and Stalin had no qualms about shooting or imprisoning or driving off those who remained. Dutch, Belgian, and even French leaders were not quite so cold-blooded, however little they liked the Germans. France might have been pleased to take on the Rhineland anyway, but Truman and Churchill/Attlee were less interested in such aggrandizement of France. The Saarland is probably at the outer limits of French expansion, realistically speaking - and only if they manage to rule out a plebscite vote.
New possibilities could emerge, however, if Truman joins Churchill on 1) not pulling back from the Elbe, and 2) insisting on the Eastern Neisse as Germany's new border. And the two changes go together: the loss of the trans-Elbe area shaves down the resulting Soviet zone to a rather small slice of Germany. But keeping the Silesian rump west of the Eastern Neisse - and perhaps Stettin, which was also a point of contention - largely compensates for that loss. The result would be a still sizable Soviet-controlled German communist state. It would also likely stand a chance of Poland regaining Lvov as well by way of compensation, since Konigsberg was out of the question.
The larger area now controlled by the Allies might make them more open to multi-state solution. The Red Army was now sitting back at Dessau and Torgau, not the Fulda Gap. A unified West German state is still much more likely; but altering the borders and zones in this way does open up some possibilities.
Where Soviet armies ended up was going to be a strong limiting factor - that and how Allied leaders reacted to that reality. Stalin was intransigent on the demand that areas under Soviet control remain under Soviet influence. Therefore, new states that combined territory from the Soviet Zone and Allied Zones were going to be infeasible, unless Allied leaders were willing to place the new states under Soviet guidance. And *that* was not going to happen given who was in charge at the time - not even Attlee was likely to approve such a scheme.
Likewise, East Prussia was history. No one had any interest in any allowing the old Polish Corridor problem to rear its ugly head, and both Poland and the USSR were too keen on having the territory. In the end, Stalin was insistent on having Konigsberg as a new warm water port, meaning that the most Poland could hope for was the southern half of East Prussia.
A lesser limiting factor is the lack of appetite by neighboring states for large new chunks of German territory. What would they do with all the Germans? In the East, the bulk of the Germans had fled in terror of the Red Army, and Stalin had no qualms about shooting or imprisoning or driving off those who remained. Dutch, Belgian, and even French leaders were not quite so cold-blooded, however little they liked the Germans. France might have been pleased to take on the Rhineland anyway, but Truman and Churchill/Attlee were less interested in such aggrandizement of France. The Saarland is probably at the outer limits of French expansion, realistically speaking - and only if they manage to rule out a plebscite vote.
New possibilities could emerge, however, if Truman joins Churchill on 1) not pulling back from the Elbe, and 2) insisting on the Eastern Neisse as Germany's new border. And the two changes go together: the loss of the trans-Elbe area shaves down the resulting Soviet zone to a rather small slice of Germany. But keeping the Silesian rump west of the Eastern Neisse - and perhaps Stettin, which was also a point of contention - largely compensates for that loss. The result would be a still sizable Soviet-controlled German communist state. It would also likely stand a chance of Poland regaining Lvov as well by way of compensation, since Konigsberg was out of the question.
The larger area now controlled by the Allies might make them more open to multi-state solution. The Red Army was now sitting back at Dessau and Torgau, not the Fulda Gap. A unified West German state is still much more likely; but altering the borders and zones in this way does open up some possibilities.
I'm really astonished that nobody has proposed the (in my eyes at least) most obvious solution: after 1945 Germany was divided into four different parts. Only when the British and Americans joined their occupation zones to create the 'Bizone', to which the French later added their own to create the 'Trizone', had western Germany a common administration. I think the easiest way would be to have all four zones become independent as separate states.
However I don't think that a partition of Germany would have been wise. Reunification with Eastern Germany was a hot topic during the whole existence of the GDR so I think that reunification of those separate German states will prevail in all of them.
However I don't think that a partition of Germany would have been wise. Reunification with Eastern Germany was a hot topic during the whole existence of the GDR so I think that reunification of those separate German states will prevail in all of them.
Franconia is very mixed and balkanised (strongly catholic and protestant areas) for historic reasons. I would say 50 - 50.
I would prefer a division along linguistic lines, so we would get a Low Saxon nation in the north.
Since when? They had been part of Germany for 7 years from 1938 to 1945.
Lost the game
Banned
Altered Roosevelt Plan:
By the late 80s I'd expect that German Reunification including ALL of these states would be very low on your average person's priority list. Saarland gets annexed to France, and a Polish border along the original Curzon line is established Breslau just barely stays German, same with Shtettin. All of East Prussia goes to Poland
By the late 80s I'd expect that German Reunification including ALL of these states would be very low on your average person's priority list. Saarland gets annexed to France, and a Polish border along the original Curzon line is established Breslau just barely stays German, same with Shtettin. All of East Prussia goes to Poland
I imagine he's referring to Austrians being part of the German national identity rather than an Austrian identity forged after WWII.
birdboy2000
Banned
I think "Prussia" will more likely be called Brandenburg, because it doesn't include East Prussia. Also, republics seem much more likely than monarchies, except maybe for Hanover if the Brits want to restore the Personal Union. The US and France don't like kings very much.