Although the military
forces of the German Democratic Republic were never deployed outside of East
Germany's borders, they maintained a high state of readiness prepared to engage
in acts of warfare against the western aggressors at a moments notice. In the
event of an attack from NATO or on the orders of Moscow, the Nationale
Volksarmee would be the tip of the spear being the vanguard force to engage the
enemy. In the event of war, the NVA would essentially be absorbed into Soviet
command structures operating in support of friendly Warsaw Pact military units.
The Soviets under the banner of promoting socialism and unity amongst the
allied nations of the Warsaw Pact held vast military exercises influencing what
was known amongst the East Germans as 'waffenbruderschaft' or armed
brotherhood. After the signing of the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship,
Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance by eight communist nations in eastern Europe
on 14 May 1955 as a direct response to the formation of NATO , the Warsaw Pact
went into effect promising mutual defensive assistance among the signing
nations. The only problem was that not everything was as it seemed amongst two
'allies' the German Democratic Republic and the People's Republic of Poland.
The cause for the
friction between the two nations was a disputed border line between East
Germany and Poland drawn in the aftermath of the Second World War known as the
Oder-Neisse line. The line was comprised primarily of the Oder and Lusatian
Neisse Rivers which flow into the Baltic Sea to the north of both nations. The
Oder-Neisse line was determined during the final months of the Second World War
and it was designated that all territory east of the line which Germany has
historically held would be turned over to Poland. Under this plan, much of the
territory that had comprised the former Weimar Republic and traditionally East
Prussia were to be divided up with the majority going to Poland and northern
East Prussia was to be turned over to the Soviet Union. Before the Second World
War, the border was recognized partially along the historical borders of the
Holy Roman Empire and Greater Poland with appropriate adjustments made to
accommodate ethnic compositions beyond the traditional provincial borders.
By the latter months
of the Second World War, thought had already been taken into how not only
post-war Germany would be divided up, but also how it's borders were to be
drawn as well as those for the rest of eastern Europe. Originally Germany was
to retain the town of Stettin on the Baltic Sea, while Poland was to annex the
territories of East Prussia and Königsberg. The idea behind the East Prussia
absorbing was that East Prussia's positioning effectively undermined the
territorial and defensive integrity of Poland. The Polish government also
wanted the transfer of the Silesian region of Oppeln, along with the Pomeranian
regions which included Danzig, Bütow and Lauenburg. Finally to complete their
claims, Poland demanded a straightening of the border in the territory of Western
Pomerania. As Soviet armies swarmed across eastern Europe headed west towards
Germany, Soviet Premier Josef Stalin decided that the USSR would claim the
region of Königsberg which would be used as a warm water port for use by the
Soviet Navy. In exchange for Königsberg, the Soviets argued that Poland should
receive the town of Stettin. The Poles insisted on retaining the city of Lwów
but Stalin rejected this idea, offering that all of Lower Silesia along with
the city of Breslau be given to Poland.
With an undetermined
border being disputed amongst differing parties, the Western Allies generally
accepted that the Oder River would be Poland's western border, but it remained
undetermined if the border should be based upon the eastern or western Neisse
River and whether or not Stettin which traditionally served as a port to Berlin
would remain German or Polish. The Western Allies pushed for the border line to
be along the eastern Neisse River at Breslau however, Stalin rejected this
proposal. The final decision on the border line came at the Potsdam Conference
in 1945 when it was decided that Stettin would be renamed Szczecin and turned
over to the Poles and the boundary would be drawn between the western Neisse
River and the Kwisa River. With the finalized Potsdam Agreement of 2 August
1945, it was decided that all German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line
would be turned over to Poland and that all Germans inhabiting land in the new
and old Polish territories would be expelled from the region. The new acquisitions
to Poland's territory was known as the 'recovered territories' and the border
concession was agreed to primarily because it was the shortest border between
Germany and Poland at only 293 miles in length stretching from the estuaries of
the Baltic Sea to the northernmost point of Czechoslovakia.
When the
Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands 'Socialist Unity Party of Germany'
was founded on 21 April 1946 by the merger of two former communist parties in
the section of eastern Germany under Soviet administration, the SED initially
refused to accept the Oder-Neisse line as the border area. With Soviet troops
occupying its territory and with heavy pressure coming from Moscow, the SED
relented and the term Friedensgrenze or 'Border of Peace' was developed to
reference the area. On 6 July 1950, the German Democratic Republic now its own
state, had signed an agreement known as the Treaty of Zgorzelec with the
People's Republic of Poland which recognized the Oder-Neisse line as the
official boundary. With preliminary offers of German reunification eing
formulated, Josef Stalin propsed that the recognition of the Oder Neisse line
be but one of many conditions which would be grounds for reunifying the divided
nations. West Germany's Chancellor Konrad Adenauer rejected the offer under
West Germany's policy of not recognizing the sovereignity of the German
Democratic Republic or the communist government of the People's Republic of
Poland. The border line was seen by many in West Germany as unacceptable as
West Germany had received some 12 million displaced refugees from their
expulsions from Poland's annexation of former German territories.
With the land border
between Poland and East Germany effectively settled by the Treaty of Zgorzelec,
the maritime borders remained disputed. The port city of Szczecin became highly
contested with the SED in East Berlin declaring East Germany's territorial
waters extended twelve miles out into the Baltic Sea rather than only three
miles into the Baltic Sea. By 1985, it was rumored that naval forces of East
Germany's navy, the Volksmarine and Poland's navy, the Marynarka Wojenna
clashed several times over the rights of their respective nation's fishing
boats, yachts and freighters crossing the Pomeranian Bay to reach Szczecin's
ports. It was said that on several occasions gunfire was even exchanged between
forces of the two navies. Leaders of the People's Republic of Poland claimed
the Szczecin issue was an economic matter involving rights to use the Bay of
Pomerania which the East German's were undermining at a time when the Poles
were reinventing the harbors of Szczecin into a free trade zone. East Germany's
claims to the Bay of Pomerania and access to Szczecin's ports were largely seen
as an extension of the rift between East and West Germany.
East Berlin asserted
that the presence of the Volksmarine was to soley protect its territorial
integrity. Naval forces of the Volksmarine frequently detained fishing boats
that it felt had violated East Germany's waters and impounded them. On many
occasions the Marynarka Wojenna would hasten to the scene in an attempt to
deter the incident at hand. Official recognition of the naval clashes was never
publicly announced however on one occasion it was documented that in February
of 1984 a freighter from Turkey had been stopped by East German warships. The
ship had mistakenly strayed from its designated sea lanes and in response to
the East German seizure of the vessel, the People's Republic of Poland deployed
its own warships confirmed to be armed with live ammunition and rockets to
retrieve the freighter from East German custody. It would not be until 1988,
that the maritime border issue would be resolved when it was determined that
two thirds of the disputed maritime border area where to go to the German
Democratic Republic.
It would not be until
shortly before reunification in 1989 that a treaty would be formally
implemented to acknowledge the new maritime border between the two nations. It would be but one of several fractures in the facade of socialist unity during the latter years of the Cold War as reformist governments set to implement new policies and work in their own best interests.
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