The territorial changes of Poland after World War II were very extensive. In 1945, following the Second World War, Poland's borders were redrawn following the decisions made at the Potsdam Conference of 1945 at the insistence of the Soviet Union. The eastern Polish territories, which the Soviet Union had occupied in 1939 (excluding the Białystok region) were permanently annexed, and most of their Polish inhabitants expelled. Today, these territories are part of Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania.
In turn, Poland received the Free City of Danzig and former German territory east of the Oder-Neisse line, consisting of the southern two-thirds of East Prussia and most of Pomerania, Neumark (East Brandenburg), and Silesia. The German population was forcibly expelled before these "recovered territories" were repopulated with Poles from central Poland and those expelled from the eastern regions. The area of Zaolzie, which had been annexed by Poland in late 1938, was returned to Czechoslovakia, by order of Joseph Stalin.
Famous quotes containing the words territorial, poland, immediately, world and/or war:
“All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth—including America, of course—consist of pilferings from other people’s wash.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“It is often said that Poland is a country where there is anti-semitism and no Jews, which is pathology in its purest state.”
—Bronislaw Geremek (b. 1932)
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—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“What is most original in a man’s nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn’t have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.”
—Leonard Cohen (b. 1934)
“Behold now this vast city; a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and hands there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)