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147-497: Many Junkers lived in the eastern provinces that were annexed by either Poland or the Soviet Union after World War II . Junkers fled or were expelled alongside other German-speaking populations by the incoming Polish and Soviet administrations, and their lands were confiscated. In western and southern Germany, the land was often owned by small independent farmers or a mixture of small farmers and estate owners, and this system

294-599: A "reinvigorated" third one. Subsequently the Nazi regime was (unofficially) called the " Third Reich "; this usage was sometimes contemporaneous, but mostly retrospective and applied by non-Germans. Following the Anschluss annexation of Austria in 1938, Nazi Germany informally named itself the Greater German Reich ( German : Großdeutsches Reich ). This name was made the official state name only during

441-596: A German majority (the Posen–West Prussia Border March, Lauenburg and Bütow Land , the southern and western rim of East Prussia , Ermland , Western Upper Silesia , and the part of Lower Silesia east of the Oder ), or mixed German– Czech with a German majority ( Glatz ). Virtually the entire German population of the territories that did not flee voluntarily in the face of the Red Army advance of 1945 ,

588-577: A kingdom. Subsequently, it entered into an alliance with Austria and Russia, invading Polish territories of Royal Prussia in the First Partition of Poland (1772), with Warmia being made part of the newly formed province of East Prussia in 1773. As a result of the Treaty of Versailles, a minor part around Soldau was transferred to Poland, the Klaipėda Region formed a free city supervised by

735-615: A massive campaign of renaming of thousands of placenames , to remove traces of Polish, Lithuanian and Old Prussian origin. Germany invaded Poland without a declaration of war on 1 September 1939, heralding the start of the Second World War . The Third Reich annexed the Polish lands included the former Prussian Partition , comprising Pomerelia (the " Polish Corridor "), Chełmno Land , Greater Poland proper, Kuyavia , Łęczyca Land , Sieradz Land , Northern Masovia , as well as

882-777: A migration process known as the Ostsiedlung , and the Hanseatic League dominated the shores of the Baltic Sea . In Pomerania, Brandenburg , East Prussia , Lusatia , Kłodzko Land and Lower Silesia , the former West Slav ( Bohemians , Polabian Slavs and Poles ) or Baltic population became minorities in the course of the following centuries, but substantial numbers of them remained in areas such as Upper Silesia . In Greater Poland and in Eastern Pomerania ( Pomerelia ), German settlers always remained

1029-862: A minority. Some of the territories, such as Pomerelia and Masovia, reunited with Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries. Silesia, Lubusz Land and Lusatia (as parts of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown ) and the Duchy of Pomerania became more firmly incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire . In the course of the Partitions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Empire acquired vast territorial shares of

1176-681: A monopoly on grain by storing it to drive up the price. As more money was profited, they were able to control political offices. Junkers were able to force people to continue paying more money for their product, while keeping who they wanted in office. Through the controlling of politics behind a veil, Junkers were able to influence politicians to create a law that prohibited collecting of debts from agrarians, thus pocketing even more money and strengthening their power. Defunct Defunct Supporting monarchism and military traditions, Junkers were seen as reactionary , anti-democratic , and protectionist by liberals and Socialists , as they had sided with

1323-668: A political ultimatum caused a Lithuanian delegation to travel to Berlin, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Juozas Urbšys and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signed the Treaty of the Cession of the Memel Territory to Germany in exchange for a Lithuanian Free Zone in the port of Memel that used the facilities erected in the previous years. In the interwar period , the German administration, both Weimar and Nazi, conducted

1470-583: A replacement for the dissolved Holy Roman Empire the German Confederation (German: Deutscher Bund), an association of 39 German-speaking states in Central Europe under the nominal leadership of the Austrian Empire . Its boundaries largely followed the ones of its predecessor, the Holy Roman Empire , defining the territory of Germany for much of the 19th century and confirming Pomerania , East Brandenburg and Silesia as its parts. On

1617-439: A sense of noble ancestry, turned to the civil and military services, and dominated all higher civil offices, as well as the officer corps. Around 1900 they modernised their farming operations to increase productivity. They sold off less productive land, invested more heavily in new breeds of cattle and pigs , used new fertilisers , increased grain production, and improved productivity per worker. Their political influence achieved

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1764-673: A separate realm and becoming a part of the Habsburg monarchy in the aftermath of the Bohemian Revolt 's defeat in the Battle of White Mountain . After losing the 18th-century Silesian Wars , the Habsburg monarchy was forced to cede most of the region to the Kingdom of Prussia in the treaties of Breslau and of Berlin , retaining only Austrian Silesia . The ceded lands also included the (sometimes considered Moravian ) territories of

1911-598: A whole." After 1973, however, the claimed identity of the Federal Republic with the German Reich was not recognised by most other countries of the world. The Soviet Union, the three Western allies, and most other Western countries regarded the German Reich as still being one nation—not synonymous with either the West or East German state but rather the two states in collective. Other countries tended to regard

2058-659: Is the method which, in so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble. A clean sweep will be made. The problem with the status of these territories was that the Potsdam Agreement was not a legally binding treaty , but a memorandum between the USSR, the US and the UK (to which neither France, nor Germany or Poland were party). It regulated

2205-572: The Bundestag by the constitutionally required two-thirds majorities; effecting on the one hand, the extinction of the GDR, and on the other, the agreed amendments to the Basic Law of the Federal Republic. Hence, although the GDR had nominally declared its accession to the Federal Republic under Article 23 of the Basic Law, this did not imply its acceptance of the Basic Law as it then stood; but rather of

2352-635: The Cold War , had been indefinitely postponed; however, West Germany in 1972 recognised the Oder–Neisse line as the western boundary of Poland when the 1970 Treaty of Warsaw between West Germany and Poland took effect; and in 1973, the Federal Constitutional Court acknowledged the capability of East Germany to negotiate the Treaty of Zgorzelec as an international agreement binding as a legal definition of its boundaries. In signing

2499-612: The Duchies of Silesia to the Lands of the Bohemian Crown . Ecclesiastically, the Diocese of Wrocław covering Silesia remained a suffragan of the Polish Archdiocese of Gniezno until becoming exempt in 1821. The first German colonists arrived in the late 12th century, and large-scale German settlement started in the early 13th century during the reign of Henry I . New forms of agriculture, technology and law brought in by

2646-597: The Federal Administrative Court decided that the prince had no right to compensation for the disseized estates of the House of Hanover around Blankenburg Castle in Saxony-Anhalt . Other families, however, have quietly purchased or leased back their ancestral homes from the current owners (often the German federal government in its role as trustee). A petition for official rehabilitation of

2793-681: The Flensburg Government he had formed. On 5 June 1945, the Allies signed the Berlin Declaration concerning the defeat of Germany and the assumption of supreme authority over Germany, by which they established the Allied Control Council and assumed supreme authority over German territory. The Federal Republic of Germany asserted, following its establishment on 23 May 1949, that within its boundaries it

2940-517: The German Confederation , especially by the Prussian aristocracy and the King of Prussia himself, which opposed German nationalism , as then was associated with the idea of popular sovereignty . A 1923 book entitled Das Dritte Reich by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck counted the medieval Holy Roman Empire as the first, and the 1871–1918 monarchy as the second, which was then to be followed by

3087-639: The German question after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, realised with the support of his national liberal allies. On the other hand, the German Reich of 1871 comprised extended Prussian territories with large non-German sections of the population, like Posen , West Prussia or Schleswig , and also territories with predominantly German populations which had never been constitutionally "German" (Holy Roman), such as East Prussia . Bismarck

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3234-569: The Helsinki Final Act in 1975, both West Germany and East Germany recognised the existing boundaries of post-war Europe, including the Oder–Neisse line, as valid in international law. In 1990, as part of the reunification of Germany , both German countries accepted clauses in the peace treaty with the four countries representing the Allies ( Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany ) to replace

3381-527: The Imperial German Navy underwent a rapid expansion concurrently to protect these new colonies. At the same time strong Pan-Germanic political forces emerged, pressing for the borders of the Reich to be extended into a multiethnic German-led Central European empire, emulating and rivalling Imperial Russia to the east. Before and during the events of World War I , the German state

3528-952: The Late Middle Ages . The northern part of East Prussia was annexed by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic as the Kaliningrad Oblast , now forming a Russian exclave . The post-war border between Germany and Poland along the Oder–Neisse line was defined in August 1945 by the Potsdam Agreement of the leaders of the three main Allies of World War II , the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and

3675-620: The League of Nations , albeit bound in some aspects by an imposed union with Poland. However, in areas such as Upper Silesia , no clear division between the mostly bilingual population was possible. After a first plebiscite, Upper Silesia was to stay part of Germany's territory. However, after the Silesian Uprisings , the area was divided in accord with the German–Polish Convention regarding Upper Silesia . The parts of

3822-557: The League of Nations , annexed following the Klaipėda Revolt by Lithuania but reclaimed by Germany in 1938, while the bulk (including entire Warmia and Masuria) remained a part of Germany, following the East Prussian plebiscite , and became enlarged by the addition of the formerly West Prussian Malbork Land . In the Potsdam Agreement the description of the territories transferred is "The former German territories east of

3969-630: The Munich agreement . However, as distinct from other lost Czechoslovakian domains, it was not attached to Sudetengau (the administrative region covering the Sudetenland ) but to Prussia ( Upper Silesia ). By late 1938, Lithuania had lost control over the situation in the Memel Territory , which had been annexed by Lithuania in the Klaipėda putsch . In the early hours of 23 March 1939, after

4116-534: The Oder–Neisse line ", and permutations on this description are the most commonly used to describe any former territories of interwar Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line. The term has sometimes been confused with the name East Germany , a political term, used to be the common colloquial English name for the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and mirrored the common colloquial English term for

4263-838: The Ossolineum and the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów were both relocated to Wrocław , the former Breslau. The territories acquired by Poland after World War II are known there as the Recovered Territories . The territories Poland annexed had been ruled as part of Poland by the Piast dynasty in the High Middle Ages , with the exception of southern East Prussia , which originally was inhabited by Old Prussians and came under Polish suzerainty in

4410-543: The Potsdam Agreement , whereby Germany renounced all claims to territory outside East and West Germany. As the result of this treaty, Germany's recognition of the Oder–Neisse line as the border was formalised by the re-united Germany in the German–Polish Border Treaty on 14 November 1990 and by the repeal of Article 23 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany under which German states outside

4557-498: The Potsdam Conference , held from 17 July until 2 August 1945, placed all of the areas east of the Oder–Neisse line, whether recognised by the international community as part of Germany until 1939 or occupied by Germany during World War II, under the jurisdiction of other countries, pending a final Peace Conference. The Allies also agreed that: XII. Orderly transfer of German populations. The Three Governments [of

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4704-684: The Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union . In 1973, in a review of the previous year's Basic Treaty between East and West Germany , the German Federal Constitutional Court ( Bundesverfassungsgericht ) ruled that according to the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany the German Reich had outlasted the collapse in 1945, and hence had continued to exist as an “overall state”, albeit one not itself capable of action. The court ruled that since 1949

4851-701: The Second Peace of Thorn (1466), Warmia and the Malbork Land (comprising northern parts of Pomesania and Pogesania ) became subject to the Polish Crown as a part of Royal Prussia , a region initially holding considerable autonomy and continuing to use the German language as official, but ultimately becoming fully integrated with the Crown of Poland upon conclusion of the Union of Lublin . Masuria and

4998-443: The Silesian duke Bolesław II Rogatka sold it to the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg in 1249. Brandenburg also acquired the castellany of Santok from Duke Przemysł I of Greater Poland and made it the nucleus of its Neumark ("New March") region. The Bishopric of Lebus remained a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Gniezno until 1424, when it passed under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg . The Lubusz Land

5145-449: The Soviet Union after World War II . In contrast to the lands awarded to the restored Polish state by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I , the German territories lost with the post-World War II Potsdam Agreement were either almost exclusively inhabited by Germans before 1945 (the bulk of East Prussia , Lower Silesia , Farther Pomerania , and parts of Western Pomerania , Lusatia , and Neumark ), mixed German– Polish with

5292-512: The Soviet Union . However, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke formed the Kreisau Circle as part of the resistance to Nazi rule, and as World War II turned against Nazi Germany, several senior Junkers in the Wehrmacht participated in Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg 's assassination attempt of 20 July 1944. Fifty-eight of them either were executed when the plot failed, among them Erwin von Witzleben and Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff-Steinort , or committed suicide like Henning von Tresckow . During

5439-429: The Teutonic Knights in the 13th and 14th centuries. Under the Teutonic Order, the region's towns were founded, woodlands were cleared and marshlands made arable to be settled by colonists, predominantly from German-speaking areas but also from neighboring Polish and Lithuanian lands. The area became predominantly German during the Ostsiedlung , either almost exclusively ( Sambia , Natangia , and Bartia together forming

5586-403: The Wartburg ; he would later mock King Henry VIII of England as "Juncker Heintz"). As part of the nobility, many Junker families only had prepositions such as von or zu before their family names without further ranks. The abbreviation of the title is Jkr., most often placed before the given name and titles, for example: Jkr. Heinrich von Hohenberg. The female equivalent Junkfrau (Jkfr.)

5733-429: The conservative monarchist forces during the Revolution of 1848 . Their political interests were served by the German Conservative Party in the Reichstag and the extraparliamentary Agriculturists' League ( Bund der Landwirte ). This political class held tremendous power over industrial classes and government alike, especially through the Prussian three-class franchise . When German chancellor Leo von Caprivi in

5880-439: The constitution of the Weimar Republic , where Article 1 identifies the Reich as deriving its authority from the German national people, while Article 2 identifies the state territory under the Reich as the lands which, at the time of the constitution's adoption, were within the authority of the German state. The identity of Reich and people ran both ways—not only did the institutions of the German state derive their legitimacy from

6027-421: The fragmentation of Poland after the death of Polish ruler Bolesław III Wrymouth in 1138. The Dukes of Pomerania then became independent, and later were vassals of the Duchy of Saxony from 1164 to 1181, of the Holy Roman Empire from 1181 to 1185, of Denmark from 1185 to 1227 and finally, from 1227 on, were under the Holy Roman Empire (including periods of vassalage to the Margraves of Brandenburg ). By

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6174-482: The " camarilla " around him urging the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany , personified by men like Hindenburg's son Oskar and his West Prussian "neighbour" Elard von Oldenburg-Januschau , who played a vital role in the Osthilfe scandal of 1932/33. Many World War II field marshals were also members of the Junkers, most notably Gerd von Rundstedt , Fedor von Bock , and Erich von Manstein . Many Junkers used forced labourers from Poland and

6321-446: The "German Empire" ( Deutsches Kaiserreich in German historiography), while the term "German Reich" describes Germany from 1871 to 1945. As the literal translation "German Empire" denotes a monarchy, the term is used only in reference to Germany before the fall of the monarchy at the end of World War I in 1918. After the unification of Germany , under the reign of the Prussian king Wilhelm I and his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck ,

6468-409: The "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" from 1512. The Holy Roman Empire however was not exclusively German-speaking but constituted a supranational entity extending beyond the frontiers of the German language area ( Sprachraum ). The first attempt to re-establish a "German Empire" during the 1848 March Revolution by the Frankfurt Constitution ultimately failed: it was aborted by the monarchs of

6615-410: The 1890s reduced the protective duties on imports of grain, these landed magnates demanded and obtained his dismissal; and in 1902 , they brought about a restoration of such duties on foodstuffs as would keep the prices of their own products at a high level. "Junker" acquired its current and often pejorative sense during the 19th-century disputes over the domestic policies of the German Empire. The term

6762-427: The Basic Law to be recognized as a State (albeit not organized and therefore not capable of action), and that accordingly the mutual restriction of sovereign power to the territory of the State and respect for the independence and autonomy of each of the two States in domestic and foreign affairs has its reference to the special situation in which both States find themselves vis-à-vis each other as sub-States of Germany as

6909-413: The Basic Law was repealed, closing off the possibility for any further states to apply for membership of the Federal Republic; while Article 146 was amended to state explicitly that the territory of the newly unified republic comprised the entirety of the German people; "This Basic Law, which since the achievement of the unity and freedom of Germany applies to the entire German people, shall cease to apply on

7056-427: The Confederation (a failed attempt to include these lands in the German Empire (1848–49) was undertaken by the Frankfurt Parliament ), as did the Austrian-held partition of Poland (the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria ), Transleithania , as well as the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland and the French region of Alsace. In the following years, Prussia superseded Austria in the role of the primary driving force of

7203-423: The Duchies of Troppau and of Krnov north of the Opava river, as well as the strategically important Kłodzko Land, a part of the core territory of the Kingdom of Bohemia. As the result of the peaceful influx of German -speakers, Lusatia, Silesia and the Kłodzko Land became predominantly German-speaking. Czech continued to be spoken in parts of Austrian Silesia, in the Hlučín Region of Upper Silesia and in

7350-435: The Empire never comprised all "German" lands; as it excluded Luxembourg , and those Cisleithanian crown lands of Austria-Hungary which had been part of the former German Confederation until 1865. Moreover, it included the whole of the Kingdom of Prussia , the eastern parts of which had never been included in historic German lands. The unification under Prussian leadership manifested Bismarck's "Lesser German" solution of

7497-468: The Federal Republic (FRG) had been partially identical with the German Reich and not merely its successor . The court further elaborated that the 'partial identity' of the FRG was limited to apply only within its current de facto territory; and hence the Federal Republic could not claim an exclusive mandate for the territory of the Reich then under the de facto government of the German Democratic Republic; "identity does not require exclusivity". This

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7644-440: The Federal Republic could formerly have declared their accession. Germany went from a territory of 468,787 km before the 1938 annexation of Austria to 357,022 km after the 1990 reunification of Germany, a loss of 24%. Despite its acquisition of the formerly German territory, the war also saw Poland's territory reduced by about 20% overall because of its losses in the east to the Soviets. Farther Pomerania comprised

7791-427: The Federal Republic; and hence, like them, could never be accorded by the organs of the Federal Republic full recognition as a state in international law; even though the Federal Constitutional Court recognised that, within international law, the GDR was indeed an independent sovereign state. The constitutional status of the GDR under the Basic Law still differed from that of the Länder of the Federal Republic, in that

7938-401: The GDR had not declared its accession to the Basic Law; but the Constitutional Court maintained that the Basic Treaty was consistent with the GDR declaring its accession at some time in the future in accordance with its own constitution; and hence the Court determined that in recognising the GDR as a de jure German State, the Basic Treaty could be interpreted as facilitating the reunification of

8085-400: The German Reich (as indeed it eventually did). So long as any de jure German state remained separated from the rest, the German Reich could continue to exist only in suspension; but should the GDR be reunited with the Federal Republic, the Reich would once more be fully capable of action as a sovereign state. "In Article 6 the Contracting Parties agree that they shall base themselves on

8232-450: The German Reich as having been divided into two distinct states in international law, and accordingly accorded both states full diplomatic recognition. As of 1974, East Germany's official stance was that the GDR was a new state that is German in nature, a successor of the German Reich, and that there were then two German states that were different nations. When the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany between Germany and

8379-477: The German courts have upheld the land reforms and rebuffed claims to full compensation, confirming the legal validity of the terms within the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (Two Plus Four Agreement) (and incorporated into the Basic Law of the Federal Republic ), by which expropriations of land under Soviet occupation were irreversible. The last decisive case was the unsuccessful lawsuit of Prince Ernst August of Hanover in September 2006, when

8526-494: The German national people according to the principle of jus sanguinis , and drawing on the rhetoric of "the sovereignty of the nation" in the Frankfurt Constitution —albeit that many ethnic " Germans " (as with the German-speaking peoples of Austria) remained outside the national people constituting the German Empire of 1871 and also that the Empire of 1871 included extensive territories (such as Posen ) with predominantly non-German populations. This transition became formalised in

8673-447: The German people, so, too, the German people derived their inherent identity and patriotic duties from their being collectively constituted as an organ and institution of the German Reich. Subsequently the term "German Reich" continued to be applied both as identifying with the national people, and also with the state territory; but increasingly, the application of the term to the German national people came to be seen as primary. Following

8820-441: The German settlers, took root in the region, also benefiting the Slavic population. By the late 14th century, 130 towns and 1300 villages had adopted German law . Silesian cities such as Jelenia Góra (Hirschberg), Lwówek Śląski (Löwenberg) and Złotoryja (Goldberg) had typical architecture, being centered around a central square, the ring, which became known in Polish as rynek . German craftsmen and miners also started settling

8967-411: The German state, and control over the borderlands would shift back and forth between the two polities over the centuries to come. Mieszko's son and successor, king Bolesław I Chrobry , upon the 1018 Peace of Bautzen expanded the southern part of the realm but lost control over the lands of Western Pomerania on the Baltic coast. After pagan revolts and a Bohemian invasion in the 1030s, Duke Casimir I

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9114-405: The Kłodzko Land were contested between Bohemia and Poland. Several independent duchies formed, and eventually some attached themselves to the Kingdom of Bohemia , an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire , while the Kłodzko Land became a constituent part of the kingdom itself. In the 14th century, the Treaty of Namysłów had King Casimir III the Great give up all Polish claims to Silesia and ceded

9261-698: The Nazi regime by the Soviet Military Administration and the SED, with many of them being arrested, brutally beaten and interned in NKVD special camps ( Speziallager ), while their property was plundered and the manor houses demolished. Some were executed. Many women were raped . From 1952 these individual farms were pressured by a variety of means to join together as collectives and incorporated into Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften ("agricultural production comradeships", LPG) or nationalised as Volkseigene Güter ("publicly owned estates", VEG). After German reunification , some Junkers tried to regain their former estates through civil lawsuits, but

9408-403: The Nazis as a historical aberration. The name "Weimar Republic" was first used in 1929 after Hitler referred to the period as the " Republik von Weimar " (Republic of Weimar, after the city ( Weimar ) which held its constitutional assembly) at a rally in Munich with the term later becoming mainstream during the 1930s both within and outside Germany. The Nazis also contemptuously referred to it as "

9555-411: The Poles had been expelled. The remainder of Polish territory was annexed by the Soviet Union (see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact ) or made into the German-controlled General Government occupation zone. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the district of Białystok , which included the Białystok , Bielsk Podlaski , Grajewo , Łomża , Sokółka , Volkovysk and Grodno counties,

9702-481: The Potsdam protocols, without German agreement to an Oder–Neisse line boundary there could be no Peace Treaty and no German Reunification. The debate affected Cold War politics and diplomacy and played an important role in the negotiations leading up to the reunification of Germany in 1990. German Reich German Reich ( lit.   ' German Empire, German Realm ' from German : Deutsches Reich , pronounced [ˌdɔʏtʃəs ˈʁaɪç] )

9849-448: The Prussian Rhine and Westphalian provinces. Junkers formed a tightly knit elite. Their challenge was how to retain their dominance in an emerging modern state with a growing middle and working class. The Junkers held a virtual monopoly on all agriculture in the part of the German Reich lying east of the River Elbe. Since the Junker estates were necessarily inherited by the eldest son alone, younger sons, all well-educated and with

9996-415: The Restorer (reigned 1040–1058) again united most of the former Piast realm, including Silesia and Lubusz Land , on both sides of the middle Oder River but without Western Pomerania, which returned to of the Polish state only under Bolesław III Wrymouth from 1116 to 1121, when the noble House of Griffins established the Duchy of Pomerania . On Bolesław's death in 1138, Poland was for almost 200 years

10143-424: The Second World War, the term "German Reich" fell out of use in constitutional formulations, being replaced by the term "nation as a whole", as applied to denote the state as a totality of the German national people; and the term "Germany as a whole", as applied to denote the state as a totality of German national territory. The 1918–1933 republic , which was also called the German Reich, was ignored and denounced by

10290-421: The Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain], having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner. because in the words of Winston Churchill Expulsion

10437-403: The System ". On 8 May 1945, with the capitulation of the German armed forces, the supreme command of the Wehrmacht was handed over to the Allies . The Allies refused to recognise Karl Dönitz as Reichspräsident or to recognise the legitimacy of his Flensburg Government (so-called because it was based at Flensburg and controlled only a small area around the town) and, on 5 June 1945,

10584-613: The United States; and was formally recognized by East Germany in 1950, by the Treaty of Zgorzelec , under pressure from Stalin . In 1952, recognition of the Oder–Neisse line as a permanent boundary was one of Stalin's conditions for the Soviet Union to agree to a reunification of Germany (see Stalin Note ). The offer was rejected by Konrad Adenauer , Chancellor of West Germany , at least in part because one of Stalin's other conditions

10731-571: The accession of the Federal Republic to the European Union within the Basic Law; hence with the subsequent accession of Poland to the EU, the constitutional bar on pursuing any claim to territories beyond the Oder–Neisse line was reinforced. Insofar as the German Reich may be claimed to continue in existence as 'Germany as a whole', the former eastern territories of Germany in Poland or Russia, and

10878-576: The advance of the Red Army in the closing months of the war and subsequently, most Junkers had to flee from the eastern territories that were turned over to the re-established Republic of Poland with the implementation of the Oder–Neisse line according to the Potsdam Agreement . After World War II, during the communist Bodenreform (land reform) of September 1945 in the Soviet Occupation Zone , later East Germany , all private property exceeding an area of 100 hectares (250 acres)

11025-425: The annexed areas of Poland into administrative units: The territories had an area of 94,000 km and a population of 10,000,000. Throughout the war, the annexed Polish territories were subject to German colonisation. Because of the lack of settlers from Germany itself, the colonists were primarily ethnic Germans relocated from other parts of Eastern Europe. The ethnic Germans were then resettled in homes from which

11172-517: The area. In contrast the Polish-speaking parts of Lower and Middle Silesia, commonly described until the late 19th century as the Polish side , were mostly Germanised in the 18th and 19th centuries, except for a few patches and a larger area along the northeastern frontier. Originally inhabited mainly by the pagan Old Prussians , the regions were conquered and incorporated into the state of

11319-613: The boundaries of East Germany, West Germany and Berlin; "The united Germany has no territorial claims whatsoever against other states and shall not assert any in the future." Furthermore the Basic Law of the Federal Republic was required to be amended to state explicitly that full German unification had now been achieved, such that the new German state comprised the entirety of Germany, and that all constitutional mechanisms should be removed by which any territories outside those boundaries could otherwise subsequently be admitted; these amendments being bound by treaty not to be revoked. Article 23 of

11466-467: The central part of the region), mixed German- Lithuanian (the North-Eastern part called Lithuania Minor including Sudovia , Nadrovia and Scalovia ), or mixed German – Polish ( Masurians , Warmiacy ) comprising the southern ( Sasna and Galindia , together forming Masuria ) and western ( Warmia , Pomesania , and Pogesania , the latter two together forming Powiśle ) rim of the region. By

11613-556: The connotation of "Realm" or "State", its original (1871) definition. "German Reich" was used in legal documents and English-language international treaties—for example, the Kellogg–Briand Pact and the Geneva Conventions . Apart from official documents, post-World War I Germany was referred to as the "German Reich"—never as the "German Empire"—for example, by British politicians —and in the aftermath of World War II

11760-424: The day on which a constitution freely adopted by the German people takes effect". This was confirmed in the 1990 rewording of the preamble; "Germans..have achieved the unity and freedom of Germany in free self-determination . This Basic Law thus applies to the entire German people." In place of the former Article 23 under which the former GDR had declared its accession to the Federal Republic, a new Article 23 embedded

11907-686: The demised Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . During the Napoleonic era the Greater Polish territories and the Chełmno Land formed part of the Duchy of Warsaw following the Treaties of Tilsit , and Danzig was granted a status of a Free City . However, after the Congress of Vienna , the Polish duchy was again partitioned between Russia and Prussia. The Congress of Vienna established as

12054-508: The eastern Hohenzollern-ruled territories with a predominantly Polish population (especially the formerly Polish territories of Posen and West Prussia) increasingly became a target of aggressive Germanisation efforts , German settlement, anti-Catholic campaigns ( Kulturkampf ), as well as disfranchisement and expropriations of Poles, and finally annexed following the North German Confederation Treaty (1866). At

12201-538: The eastern part of the Prussian Province of Pomerania . It stretched roughly from the Oder River in the west to Pomerelia in the east, and roughly corresponds to today's Polish West Pomeranian Voivodeship . Along with Farther Pomerania, a small area of Western Pomerania including Stettin (now Szczecin ) and Swinemünde (now Świnoujście ) was transferred to Poland in 1945. The Pomeranian parts of

12348-476: The eastern territories with a predominantly or almost exclusively German population (East Brandenburg, East Prussia, Hither and Farther Pomerania, and the bulk of Silesia ) remained with Germany. The historically Polish and strategically vital for Poland but predominantly German-speaking city of Danzig formed henceforth with its surrounding areas the Free City of Danzig , a self-governing territory supervised by

12495-677: The end of the Middle Ages , because of an influx of Germanic settlers, the assimilation of the Slavic population, the introduction of German town law , the influence of Germanic customs, and the trade of the Hanse , the area had been largely Germanized . Following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Farther Pomerania became part of Brandenburg–Prussia . In 1772 the Lauenburg and Bütow Land and

12642-672: The end of the war. The precise location of the border was left open, and the western Allies also accepted in general the principles of the Oder River being the future western border of Poland and of population transfer being the way to prevent future border disputes. The open questions were whether the border should follow the Eastern or Lusatian Neisse rivers and whether Stettin , the traditional seaport of Berlin , should remain in Germany or be included in Poland. Originally, Germany

12789-483: The expanded Federal Republic describes itself as "United Germany ", emphasizing that it does not now recognize any territories once included in the former German Reich outside its boundaries as having a valid claim to be a part of Germany as a whole. In referring to the entire period between 1871 and 1945, the partially translated English phrase " German Reich " ( /- ˈ r aɪ k / ) is applied by historians in formal contexts; although in common English usage this state

12936-783: The former Starostwo of Draheim were annexed by the King in Prussia and integrated into the Province of Pomerania of the Kingdom of Prussia , though not into the Holy Roman Empire, and did not become part of Germany until being included in the German Confederation in 1815. After the Napoleonic Wars , Swedish Pomerania was merged into the Prussian province in 1815, both now constituting the Province of Pomerania . In 1938,

13083-491: The former eastern territories of Germany had been under Polish rule several times from the late 10th century on, when Mieszko I acquired at least significant parts of them. Mieszko's son Bolesław I established a bishopric in the Kołobrzeg area in 1000–1005–07, before the area was lost by Poland again to pagan Slavic tribes. The Duchy of Pomerania was established as a vassal state of Poland in 1121, which it remained until

13230-559: The former province of Posen and of West Prussia that were not restored as part of the Second Polish Republic were administered as Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen (the German Province of Posen–West Prussia) until 1939. The defeat of Germany and the imposed terms of peace left a sense of injustice among the population. The subsequent interwar economic crisis acted as a fertile ground for irredentist claims that

13377-488: The four powers signed the Berlin Declaration and assumed de jure supreme authority with respect to Germany. The declaration confirmed the complete legal extinction of the Third Reich with the death of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945, but asserted the continued subsequent existence of a German people and a German national territory; although subject to the four signatory powers also asserting their authority to determine

13524-465: The fundamental amendments to the Basic Law required by the Treaty of Final Settlement) was achieved constitutionally by the subsequent Unification Treaty of 31 August 1990; that is through a binding agreement between the former GDR and the Federal Republic now recognising each another as separate sovereign states in international law. This treaty was then voted into effect by both the Volkskammer and

13671-546: The future boundaries of Germany. At the Potsdam Conference , Allied-occupied Germany was defined as comprising "Germany as a whole"; and was divided into British , French , American and Soviet occupation zones; while the Allied Powers exercised the state authority assumed by the Berlin Declaration in transferring the former eastern territories of the German Reich east of the Oder–Neisse line to

13818-615: The he official name "German Reich ". According to the decree of the Chief of the Reich Chancellery Hans Lammers of 26 June 1943, the name "Greater German Reich " became mandatory in official documents. The German Reich collapsed de facto with the death of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945, when the Allies decided not to recognise Karl Dönitz as the Reich President and to grant no legitimacy to

13965-580: The historic German states ( e.g. Bavaria and Saxony ) were united with Prussia under imperial rule, by the Hohenzollern dynasty . On 18 January 1871, Wilhelm I was proclaimed "German Emperor" at the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles , the German Reich was officially declared Deutsches Reich , or "German Empire", explicitly harking back to the extinct Holy Roman Empire . The title "German Emperor"

14112-486: The historic post-war German Democratic Republic, and its counterpart five successor states in the current reunited Germany . However, because people and institutions in the states traditionally considered as Middle Germany , like the three southern new states Saxony-Anhalt , the Free State of Saxony and the Free State of Thuringia , still use the term Middle Germany when referring to their area and its institutions,

14259-776: The imposition of high tariffs that reduced competition from U.S. grain and meat. During World War I , Irish nationalist MP Tom Kettle compared the Anglo-Irish landlord class to the Prussian Junkers, saying, "England goes to fight for liberty in Europe and for junkerdom in Ireland." Their political influence extended from the German Empire of 1871–1918 through the Weimar Republic of 1919–1933. It

14406-468: The international recognition of the Polish government-in-exile, which had been evacuated in 1939. The conference agreed that the Polish eastern border would follow the Curzon Line and that Poland would receive substantial territorial compensation in the west from Germany, but the exact border was to be determined later. A "Committee on Dismemberment of Germany" was to be set up to decide whether Germany

14553-519: The issue of the eastern German border, which was confirmed as being along the Oder–Neisse line, but the final article of the memorandum said that the final decisions concerning Germany, and hence the detailed alignment of Germany's eastern boundaries, would be subject to a separate peace treaty; at which the three Allied signatories committed themselves to respect the terms of the Potsdam memorandum. Hence, so long as these Allied Powers remained committed to

14700-567: The last two years (1943–1945) of Nazi rule under Adolf Hitler , although the change was never proclaimed. After World War II , the denotation "German Reich " quickly fell into disuse in Allied-occupied Germany , however, and the state's continued existence remained a matter of debate; the post-war Bonn Republic maintained the continued existence of the German Reich as an 'overall state", but dormant while East and West Germany continued to be divided. Nevertheless, when Germany

14847-546: The liberal movement in Germany. Junker is derived from Middle High German Juncherre , meaning "young nobleman" or otherwise "young lord" (derivation of jung and Herr ), and originally was the title of members of the higher edelfrei ( immediate ) nobility without or before the accolade . It evolved to a general denotation of a young or lesser noble, often poor and politically insignificant, understood as "country squire " (cf. Martin Luther 's disguise as "Junker Jörg" at

14994-681: The main ethnic groups of three of the western republics of the Soviet Union – and many towns that were primarily inhabited by Poles and Jews. The Jewish communities in this region were mostly exterminated in the Holocaust and the Polish communities were mostly expelled to the restored Polish state after World War II, the communist ruled Polish People's Republic . Poles from the northern part of Kresy were primarily resettled in Pomerania and Poles from Galicia were primarily resettled in Silesia , e.g.

15141-466: The north-eastern half of Germany (i.e. the Prussian provinces of Brandenburg , Pomerania , Silesia , West Prussia , East Prussia , and Posen ). This was in contrast to the predominantly Catholic southern states such as the Kingdom of Bavaria or the Grand Duchy of Baden , where land was owned by small farms, or the mixed agriculture of the western states like the Grand Duchy of Hesse or even

15288-704: The northeastern European territories during the Ostsiedlung . Over the centuries, they had become influential commanders and landowners, especially in the lands east of the Elbe River in the Kingdom of Prussia. As landed aristocrats, the Junkers owned most of the arable land in Prussia. Being the bulwark of the ruling House of Hohenzollern , the Junkers controlled the Prussian Army , leading in political influence and social status , and owning immense estates worked by tenants. These were located especially in

15435-489: The northern part of the dissolved Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia became part of the province. At the turn of the 20th century, the total population of the province of almost 1.7 million inhabitants had a Polish-speaking minority of less than 1%. The medieval Lubusz Land , on both sides of the Oder River up to the Spree in the west, including Lubusz ( Lebus ) itself, also formed part of Mieszko's realm. Poland lost Lubusz when

15582-524: The other German state of West Germany . When focusing on the period before World War II, "eastern Germany" is used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe ( East Elbia ), as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt , but because of the border changes in the 20th century, after World War II the term "East Germany" and eastern Germany in English has meant

15729-493: The other hand, the remaining parts of the lands ruled by the House of Hohenzollern which were not included in the Holy Roman Empire, namely the German-speaking Prussian nucleus ( East Prussia ), and the newly acquired predominantly Polish- or Kashubian-speaking territorial share of the collapsed and dismembered Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth ( Grand Duchy of Posen and West Prussia ), continued as external to

15876-520: The ousted landowners was rejected by the German Bundestag in 2008. Notes Bibliography Former eastern territories of Germany In present-day Germany, the former eastern territories of Germany ( German : ehemalige deutsche Ostgebiete ) refer to those territories east of the current eastern border of Germany , i.e. the Oder–Neisse line , which historically had been considered German and which were annexed by Poland and

16023-639: The parts of Upper Silesia located in Poland, including the former Czechoslovak part of Cieszyn Silesia annexed by Poland in 1938. The Senate of the Free City of Danzig , elected by the Volkstag already also dominated by the Nazi Party at that time, voted to become a part of Germany again, but Poles and Jews were deprived of their voting rights and all non- Nazi political parties were banned. Two decrees by Adolf Hitler (8 and 12 October 1939) divided

16170-429: The principle that the sovereign power of each of the two States be confined to its State territory and that they will respect the independence and autonomy of each of the two States in domestic and foreign affairs. This agreement too is compatible with the Basic Law only if interpreted to the effect that for the Federal Republic of Germany the basis of this Treaty is the continued existence of Germany, which has according to

16317-533: The region's mountainous areas. The Bohemian Lands were under the rule of the House of Jagiellon in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary until the Battle of Mohács in 1526. Afterwards, they were ruled in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary and the Archduchy of Austria by the Holy Roman Emperors of the House of Habsburg , finally ceasing de facto (but not de jure ) to exist as

16464-473: The restoration of German unity and secured this position by abolishing the German Confederation in the Peace of Prague . Austria was in turn transformed into poly-ethnic Austria-Hungary , abstained from further German unification efforts and abandoned forced Germanization. Thus, the planned German unification was to be accomplished in the Lesser German solution version. With rise of nationalism ,

16611-723: The southern part of Pomesania and Pogesania stayed part of the rump Teutonic state (called thereafter Monastic Prussia or Teutonic Prussia ) which became a German fief of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , finally secularised in 1525 to become the Ducal Prussia . The latter later emancipated, taking advantage of the Russo-Swedish Deluge , and merged with the Electorate of Brandenburg to form Brandenburg–Prussia, shortly thereafter becoming

16758-560: The term Ostdeutschland is still ambiguous. As various Germanic tribes had left present-day Poland and East Germany, West Slavic tribes moved to these places from the 6th century onward. Duke Mieszko I of the Polans , from his stronghold in the Gniezno area, united various neighboring tribes in the second half of the 10th century, formed the first Polish state and became the first historically recorded Piast duke. His realm bordered

16905-593: The territory ceded to Poland, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania in 1919–1922 should be returned to Germany, which paved the way for the Nazi takeover of the government . In October 1938 Hlučín Area ( Hlučínsko in Czech, Hultschiner Ländchen in German) of Moravian-Silesian Region , which had been ceded to Czechoslovakia under the Treaty of Versailles, was annexed by the Third Reich as a part of areas lost by Czechoslovakia under

17052-509: The territory of the German Democratic Republic. In German, only one corresponding term Ostdeutschland exists, meaning both East Germany and Eastern Germany. The rather ambiguous German term never gained as widespread use for the GDR during its existence, as did the English designation, or the derived demonym Ossi (Eastie), and only following the German reunification has it started to be commonly used to denote both

17199-562: The three Partitions of Poland and had been part of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the German Empire for the 100 years of the non-existence of Polish state. The territories retroceded to Poland in 1919 were those with a Polish majority, such as Greater Poland , as well as Pomerelia , historically the part of Poland providing its access to the sea. Restoration of Pomerelia to Poland meant the loss of Germany's territorial contiguousness to East Prussia making it an exclave . Most of

17346-568: The time of German Unification in 1871, the Kingdom of Prussia was the largest and dominant part of the North German Confederation , the predecessor of the newly formed German Empire . The Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which ended the war, restored the independence of Poland, known as the Second Polish Republic , and Germany was compelled to cede territories to it, most of which were taken by Prussia in

17493-550: The unilateral implementation of a Polish government in these areas. After World War II, several memoranda of the US State Department warned against awarding Poland such extensive lands, apprehensive of creation of new long-standing tension in the area. In particular, the State Department acknowledged that Polish claims to Lower Silesia had no ethnic or historic justification. Under Stalin's pressure,

17640-468: The unitary nationalism of the 'German Reich' was initially specified (at Article 1 of the 1871 constitution) in territorial terms, as the lands within the former boundaries of this particular subset of German monarchies. This geographical understanding of the Reich became steadily superseded in the period up to the first World War by an understanding of the German Reich as a unitary nation state identified with

17787-697: The war. The status of Poland was discussed but this was complicated by the fact that Poland was then controlled by the Red Army . The conference agreed to reorganise the Provisionary Polish Government , which had been set up by the Red Army, by the inclusion of some politicians of the Polish government-in-exile , and to transform it into the Provisional Government of National Unity , with an unfulfilled promise to hold democratic and fair elections . That effectively ended

17934-459: The wartime Allies was signed on 12 September 1990, there was no mention of the term Deutsches Reich , however the Allies paraphrased the international legal personality of Germany as "Germany as a whole" in the English version of the text. Instead the states of the Federal Republic of Germany ( West Germany , FRG) and the German Democratic Republic ( East Germany , GDR) agreed to be bound by certain conditions which they had to ratify, one of which

18081-750: The western part of the Kłodzko Land ( Czech Corner ). Sorbian was spoken in parts of Lusatia, while Polish prevailed in Middle Silesia north of the Oder river, in parts of Austrian Silesia and in Upper Silesia . In the latter case, the Germans who arrived during the Middle Ages became mostly Polonised , especially with the advent of the industrial revolution which created employment and business opportunities, attracting numerous Poles to

18228-418: The western territories, such as the East Cantons or Alsace-Lorraine , are now definitively and permanently excluded from ever again being united within this Reich under the Basic Law. Hence, although the GDR had by the Volkskammer 's declaration of accession to the Federal Republic, initiated the process of reunification; the act of reunification itself (with its many specific terms and conditions; including

18375-467: The word Reich here better translates as "realm" or territorial "reach", in that the term does not in itself have monarchical connotations. The name "German Reich " was officially proclaimed on 18 January 1871 at the Palace of Versailles by Otto von Bismarck and Wilhelm I of Prussia . After the annexation of Austria to Germany on 12–13 March 1938, the name "Greater German Reich " ( German : Großdeutsches Reich ) began to be used alongside with

18522-402: The word "Reich" was used untranslated by Allied prosecutors throughout the Nuremberg Trials , with "German Empire" only used to describe Germany before it became a federal republic in 1918. At the 1871 Unification of Germany (aside from Austria), the Reich was established constitutionally as a federation of monarchies, each having entered the federation with a defined territory; and consequently

18669-448: Was subjected to fragmentation and ruled by Bolesław's sons and by their successors, who were often in conflict with one another. Władysław I the Elbow-high , who was crowned king of Poland in 1320, achieved a partial reunification, but the Silesian and Masovian duchies remained independent Piast holdings. In the 12th to the 14th centuries, German settlers, most of whom spoke Low German , moved into Central and Eastern Europe in

18816-406: Was "attached to" but not incorporated into East Prussia, and Eastern Galicia ( District of Galicia ), which included the cities of Lwów , Stanislawów and Tarnopol , was made part of the General Government. The final decision to move Poland 's boundary westward was made by the United States , the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, shortly before

18963-429: Was a compromise; Wilhelm I had wanted the title of "Emperor of Germany", but Bismarck refused this, so as to avoid implying a claim to extended monarchical authority over non-Prussian German kingdoms. On 14 April 1871, the Reichstag parliament passed the Constitution of the German Empire ( Verfassung des Deutschen Reiches ), which was published two days later. However, originating from the North German Confederation ,

19110-411: Was and is known simply as Germany , the English term "German Empire" is reserved to denote the German state between 1871 and 1918. The history of the nation state known as the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods: However the term Deutsches Reich dates back earlier than all of this. It was occasionally applied in contemporary maps to the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806), also called

19257-405: Was called an "empire" in English and Wilhelm II was titled "His Imperial and Royal Majesty the German Emperor." After the War and the abolition of the monarchy during the German Revolution of 1918–1919 , however, when Wilhelm was forced to abdicate, the official English name for Germany was the "German Reich": Reich was left untranslated and no longer referred to an "empire" but, instead, took on

19404-437: Was explained as being because the German Democratic Republic was beyond FRG authority and because the Allied powers still had jurisdiction where "Germany as a whole" was concerned. Nevertheless, the Court insisted that within the territory of the Federal Republic, the GDR could only be considered as one de jure German state amongst others, on the analogy of the pre-existing de jure German states that in 1949 had come together as

19551-468: Was expropriated, and then predominantly allocated to 'New Farmers' on condition that they continued farming them. As most of these large estates, especially in Brandenburg and Western Pomerania , had belonged to Junkers, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany promoted their plans with East German President Wilhelm Pieck 's slogan Junkerland in Bauernhand! ("Junker land into farmer's hand!"). The former owners were accused of war crimes and involvement in

19698-434: Was for Germany to never join NATO ( similarly to Austria ). The then official West German government position on the status of the former territories of Germany east of the Oder and Neisse rivers was that the areas were "temporarily under Polish [or Soviet] administration", because the border regulation at the Potsdam Conference had been taken as preliminary provisions to be revisited at a final peace conference which, due to

19845-416: Was often contrasted with the dominance of the large estate owners of the east. Before World War II, the dividing line was often drawn at the river Elbe which was also roughly the western boundary of Slavic settlement by the Wends in the so-called Germania Slavica prior to Ostsiedlung . The term for the junker dominated East was thus Ostelbien or East Elbia. They played a prominent role in repressing

19992-435: Was otherwise unable, however, to avoid the term German Reich acquiring connotations from the English term "empire" or the Dutch term "rijk" in the context of German colonial expansion during the New Imperialism period. Following in the example of other European colonial empires , Imperial Germany (against Bismarck's intentions) started to rapidly acquire overseas colonies, including possessions in Africa, Oceania and China;

20139-431: Was part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown from 1373 to 1415. After Germanic tribes left the area in the Migration Period , Lechitic tribes began to settle Silesia, while Lusatia was settled by the Milceni and the Polabian Slavs and the Kłodzko Land was settled by Bohemians . In the 10th century Mieszko I of Poland made Silesia part of his realm. From the 10th century to the 12th century, Silesia, Lusatia and

20286-441: Was reunited in 1990 the term "German Reich " was not revived as a title for the Berlin Republic . The German word Reich translates to the English word "empire"; it also translates to such words as "realm" or "domain." However, this translation was not used throughout the full existence of the German Reich. Historically, only Germany from 1871 to 1918—when Germany was under the rule of an emperor ( Kaiser )—is known in English as

20433-421: Was said that "if Prussia ruled Germany, the Junkers ruled Prussia, and through it the Empire itself". A policy known as Osthilfe ("Help for the East") granted Junkers 500,000,000 marks in subsidies to help pay for certain debts and to improve equipment. Junkers continued to demand and receive more and more subsidies, which gave them more money in their pockets, thus resulting in political power. Junkers exploited

20580-429: Was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The Reich became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty entirely from a continuing unitary German Volk ("national people"), with that authority and sovereignty being exercised at any one time over a unitary German "state territory" with variable boundaries and extent. Although commonly translated as "German Empire",

20727-424: Was the recognising the reunification of East Germany, West Germany and Berlin as constituting the full achievement of a united Germany. On meeting these conditions under Article 7.2 "The United Germany [has] accordingly full sovereignty over its internal and external affairs." Under Article 1 of the Treaty on Final Settlement, the new united Germany committed itself to renouncing any further territorial claims beyond

20874-436: Was the sole legal continuation of the German Reich, and consequently not a successor state. Nevertheless, the Federal Republic did not maintain the specific title German Reich , and so consistently replaced the prefix Reichs- in all official titles and designations with Bundes- ("Federal"). Hence, for instance, the office of the Reichskanzler became the Bundeskanzler . Following German reunification on 3 October 1990,

21021-421: Was to be divided into six nations and, if so, what borders and interrelations the new German states would have. To pressure the Western Allies regarding the verbal commitments of Tehran and Yalta, the Soviets began transferring regions east of the Oder–Neisse line to Polish control, although these areas were still officially part of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. The US government strongly protested to

21168-454: Was to retain Stettin, and the Poles were to annex all of East Prussia with Königsberg . Eventually, however, Stalin decided to keep Königsberg for strategic grounds (it would also be a year-round warm-water port for the Soviet Navy) and argued that the Poles should receive Stettin instead. The wartime Polish government-in-exile had little say in the decisions. The Yalta Conference agreed to split Germany into four occupation zones after

21315-468: Was used by sociologists such as Max Weber and was even adopted by members of the landed class themselves. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was a noted Junker, though his family hailed from the Altmark region west of the Elbe. After World War I many Prussian agriculturists gathered in the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP). The term was also applied to Reich President Paul von Hindenburg , lord of Neudeck in West Prussia, and to

21462-434: Was used only sporadically. In some cases, the honorific Jkr. was also used for Freiherren (Barons) and Grafen (Counts). A good number of poorer Junkers took up careers as soldiers ( Fahnenjunker ), mercenaries, and officials ( Hofjunker , Kammerjunker ) at the court of territorial princes . These families were mostly part of the German medieval Uradel and had carried on the colonisation and Christianisation of

21609-410: Was violently expelled to Germany , with their possessions being looted and stolen. The ceding of the east German lands to Poland was done in large part to compensate Poland for losing the Kresy lands east of the Curzon line , a region that was annexed by the Soviet Union after the German invasion of Poland in 1939. This territory had large populations of Ukrainians , Belarusians and Lithuanians –

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