London Protocol (1944)
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In the London Protocol signed on 12 September 1944, the
Allies of World War II The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. ...
(then without France) agreed on dividing
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
into three occupation zones after the war.


History


The 1st EAC Zone Protocol

The first zone protocol was drawn up at the meeting of the
European Advisory Commission The formation of the European Advisory Commission (EAC) was agreed on at the Moscow Conference on 30 October 1943 between the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Anthony Eden, the United States, Cordell Hull, and the Soviet Union, Vyache ...
(EAC) on 12 September 1944 and signed by
John Gilbert Winant John Gilbert Winant (February 23, 1889 – November 3, 1947) was an American diplomat and politician with the Republican party after a brief career as a teacher in Concord, New Hampshire. John Winant held positions in New Hampshire, national, a ...
(USA),
William Strang William Strang (13 February 1859 – 12 April 1921) was a Scottish painter and printmaker, notable for illustrating the works of Bunyan, Coleridge and Kipling. Early life Strang was born at Dumbarton, the son of Peter Strang, a builder, an ...
(UK) and Fedor Gusev (USSR) at
Lancaster House Lancaster House (originally known as York House and then Stafford House) is a mansion in the St James's district in the West End of London. It is close to St James's Palace, and much of the site was once part of the palace complex. This ...
in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, and described the first notions of the boundary between the one to be created: Eastern, Northwestern, and Southwestern. The zones in Germany and the three parts of the area of Greater Berlin to be created. The basis of the ideas are the borders of Germany from 31 December 1937 ( de) and
Greater Berlin The Greater Berlin Act (german: Groß-Berlin-Gesetz), officially Law Regarding the Creation of the New Municipality of Berlin (german: Gesetz über die Bildung einer neuen Stadtgemeinde Berlin), was a law passed by the Prussian state government i ...
from 27 April 1920. The north-western and south-western zones in Germany and Greater Berlin have not yet been assigned as British or American sub-areas. The relevant text passages provided for this are only documented with spaces, whereas the eastern zone and the north-eastern zone of Greater Berlin are already marked directly with "
USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
". In terms of borders, the western borders of
Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...
,
Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...
and the Prussian province of
Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...
are referred to. This means that the areas east of the
Werra The Werra (), a river in central Germany, is the right-bank headwater of the Weser. "Weser" is a synonym in an old dialect of German. The Werra has its source near Eisfeld in southern Thuringia. After the Werra joins the river Fulda in the t ...
and west of the
Elbe The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Repu ...
were not - as was often published - "exchanged for
West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
", but the areas in the west of the Elbe were already intended to be part of the Eastern Zone. Original text: The Soviet zone was supposed to encompass the eastern part of Germany, including the explicitly mentioned East Prussia, and no cession of areas to Poland was planned. The border between the two western zones (and here not yet assigned to any occupying power) was defined as follows: This would have meant that the present-day states of Bavaria and
Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...
as well as the Palatinate, which previously belonged to Bavaria, and the southern part of the People's State of Hesse would have come to the southwestern (i.e. later American) zone, the Rhine province belonging to Prussia and the province of Hesse-Nassau and the northern part of the People's State of
Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...
(Upper Hesse province) to the north-western, i.e. British. The people's state of Hesse would have been divided by the layout of the occupation zones. This would have cut up the Frankfurt am Main area.


The (supplementary) 2nd EAC zone protocol

The main points of this smaller protocol, also drawn up in London on 14 November 1944, are: *Allocation of the north-west zone of Germany and the areas of Berlin to the British occupation (replacement of the spaces mentioned) *Allocation of the south-west zone of Germany and the areas of Berlin to the American occupation (replacement of the spaces mentioned) *First ideas about the joint use of the ports of
Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...
and
Bremerhaven Bremerhaven (, , Low German: ''Bremerhoben'') is a city at the seaport of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms a semi-enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the Riv ...
*More detailed description of the intended boundaries between the individual zones The demarcation between the two western zones has been corrected as follows: The description reads difficult because the flow direction of the Rhine is reversed in it and the points "where the River Rhine leaves the southern frontier of Hesse-Nassau" actually are the ones where the river in this province into flows. However, the People's State of Hesse ("Hessen-Darmstadt") is mentioned for the first time in the Second Protocol, which did not appear in the first Protocol. In terms of content, the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau was now assigned to the (now called American) southwest zone, while the Bavarian Palatinate was assigned to the (now officially British) northwest zone. This resolved the above-described conflict of a zone border right through the Frankfurt metropolitan area. By defining the Rhine as a zone boundary in the Hessian people's state, the Hesse state was now divided along the river; the parts of the
Rheinhessen Rhenish Hesse or Rhine HesseDickinson, Robert E (1964). ''Germany: A regional and economic geography'' (2nd ed.). London: Methuen, p. 542. . (german: Rheinhessen) is a region and a former government district () in the German state of Rhineland- ...
province on the left bank of the Rhine were assigned to the British zone, the remaining parts of the country to the American zone. The city of Mainz, situated on both sides of the river, and its half on the right bank of the Rhine, was particularly affected by this the south-west zone, the districts on the left bank of the Rhine including the city center were assigned to the north-west zone.


The (supplementary) 3rd EAC zone protocol

The main points of this last of the protocols, written on 26 July 1945, are: *The geographical allocation and description of a new French zone of occupation, known as the West Zone, the proposed occupation area for troops of the French Republic (from 1949 Troupes d’occupation en Allemagne, TOA) in Germany, *the regulation of the assignment of the Bavarian district of Lindau on Lake Constance to the western zone, which was previously part of the south-western zone intended for the occupation by US armed forces. This should allow a direct transition for French troops to the French zone in Austria, as well *a regulation of US-American rights of use of an enclave around Bremen, so that the transfer to the ports of Bremen should be made easier for the occupying forces of the US. The area initially included Bremen,
Wesermünde Bremerhaven (, , Low German: ''Bremerhoben'') is a city at the seaport of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms a semi-enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the Rive ...
(from 1947 Bremerhaven), the
Wesermarsch Wesermarsch is a '' Kreis'' (district) in the northwestern part of Lower Saxony, Germany. Neighboring are (from the east clockwise) the districts of Cuxhaven and Osterholz, the city of Bremen in the state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, the urban ...
,
Osterholz Osterholz is a district (''Landkreis'') in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by (from the west and clockwise) the districts of Wesermarsch, Cuxhaven, Rotenburg and Verden, and by the city of Bremen. History Originally the prince-archbishops ...
and the western part of the
Cuxhaven Cuxhaven (; ) is an independent town and seat of the Cuxhaven district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town includes the northernmost point of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the shore of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River. Cuxhaven has ...
district. The introduction of a proposed, but not yet planned in detail, French occupation zone was entirely at the expense of the areas of the two previous western zones. The zone protocol was sent to the governments of the four allied powers on 26 July. Details of the boundaries of the French sector in the northwest part of Greater Berlin were not included, only the statement that this sector should be formed from the two United Kingdom and the United States. th The territories of the new or previous zones (excluding the eastern ones) were planned in the third protocol as follows: The procedure for planning a French occupation zone deviated massively from the previous orientation towards German state and Prussian provincial borders, the only exception to which was the new Rhine border between Mannheim and Wiesbaden. Instead, completely new borders were planned along previous
administrative districts Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...
and
counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
. In addition to Hesse, which was already divided in the 2nd Protocol, other regions were affected by the division: *the Rhineland, whose northern half (administrative districts Düsseldorf, Cologne and Aachen) came to the British zone and the southern administrative districts of Trier and Koblenz to the French zone, *the historic
Duchy of Nassau The Duchy of Nassau (German: ''Herzogtum Nassau'') was an independent state between 1806 and 1866, located in what is now the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. It was a member of the Confederation of the Rhine and later of the G ...
, whose western districts (on the
Middle Rhine Between Bingen and Bonn, Germany, the river Rhine flows as the Middle Rhine (german: Mittelrhein) through the Rhine Gorge, a formation created by erosion, which happened at about the same rate as an uplift in the region, leaving the river at ...
, in the
Taunus The Taunus is a mountain range in Hesse, Germany, located north of Frankfurt. The tallest peak in the range is ''Großer Feldberg'' at 878 m; other notable peaks are ''Kleiner Feldberg'' (825 m) and ''Altkönig'' (798 m). The Taunus range spans ...
and in the
Westerwald The Westerwald (; literally 'Western forest') is a low mountain range on the right bank of the river Rhine in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a part of the Rhenish Massif ( or Rhenish ...
) have now been separated and become part of the French zone, *Baden, of whose territory only the northern half was to belong to the US zone and the southern half to the French zone, *Wuerttemberg, not mentioned by name in the text, which was also divided into a north and a south half, in parts not even along district boundaries, but along the Stuttgart-Ulm autobahn, this traffic route remaining under US control *as well as Bavaria, which with the exception of the Palatinate belongs completely to the US zone, in that its district of Lindau changed to the French zone in order to create a land connection between the French zones in Germany and Austria, as already mentioned.


Aftermath


1945

;Poland's western border and Konigsberg area At the Potsdam conference it was determined with regard to the borders of the Soviet zone that the areas east of the Oder and Lusatian Neisse are provisionally subject to Polish administration and are not to be treated (in contrast to the zone protocols) as part of the Soviet zone. The
Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named ...
area (from 1946
Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad Oblast (russian: Калинингра́дская о́бласть, translit=Kaliningradskaya oblast') is the westernmost federal subject of Russia. It is a semi-exclave situated on the Baltic Sea. The largest city and administr ...
), the northern part of East Prussia, was no longer part of this zone. ;Airfields Gatow and Staaken In order to enable the British and Soviet occupying forces to use the two airfields, immediately after the Potsdam Conference, an area swap was carried out on the western city limits of Berlin for the locations or parts of Weststaaken, Weinmeisterhöhe, the Seeburger Zipfel and the eastern part of
Groß Glienicke Groß Glienicke is a village located both in Berlin and Potsdam, the capital of the German state of Brandenburg. Until 2003, when it was merged into Potsdam, the Brandenburg—and main—side, was an autonomous municipality. The Berlin side is p ...
.


1947

;Ports of Bremen After Wesermünde had been spun off from the enclave in the British zone, which was under US administration, in 1947 the US area was reduced to the territory of the
Free Hanseatic City of Bremen Bremen (), officially the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (german: Freie Hansestadt Bremen; nds, Free Hansestadt Bremen), is the smallest and least populous of Germany's 16 states. It is informally called ("State of Bremen"), although the term ...
, which was newly founded in the same year.


References


Sources

* {{Treaty-stub 1944 treaties