Dispute
In the Dutch cabinet, a dispute about the annexation question arose. Van Kleffens promoted territorial expansion, while Minister of Social Affairs Willem Drees (later Prime Minister) was dead set against it. Generally, socialists were against annexation and Protestants and liberals were reluctant. The Catholics saw advantages in the territorial expansion, mainly as a method to give the farmers near the border more room. Nevertheless, Dutch churches objected to the proposed mass extradition, because in their eyes the German population could not be found guilty of the crimes of the Nazis during World War II. Prime Minister Wim Schermerhorn was also not in favor of annexing German territory, but Queen Wilhelmina, an energetic supporter of the annexation plan, strongly urged him to start negotiating on this with the Allies. In 1946, in the name of the Dutch government, he officially claimed 4,980 km2 of German territory, which was not even half of the area envisioned by Van Kleffens. The Dutch-German border would be drawn from Vaals via Winterswijk to the Ems River, so that 550,000 Germans would live inside the Dutch national borders.
Read more about this topic: Dutch Annexation Of German Territory After World War II
Famous quotes containing the word dispute:
“Your next-door neighbour ... is not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he is the noise of a pianola; he is a dispute about a party wall; he is drains that are worse than yours, or roses that are better than yours.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The king said, -Divide the living boy in two; then give half to the one, and half to the other. But the woman whose son was alive said to the king -because compassion for her son burned within her - -Please, my lord, give her the living boy; certainly do not kill him! The other said, -It shall be neither mine nor yours; divide it. Then the king responded: -Give the first woman the living boy; do not kill him. She is his mother.”
—Bible: Hebrew, 1 Kings. 3:25-37.
Solomon resolves a dispute between two women over a child. Solomon’s wisdom was proven by this story.
“As for the dispute about solitude and society, any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plane at the base of a mountain, instead of climbing steadily to its top.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)