End of World War II in EuropeThe final battles of the European theatre of World War II continued after the definitive surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, signed by Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel on 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin. After German leader Adolf Hitler's suicide and handing over of power to grand admiral Karl Dönitz in May 1945, Soviet troops conquered Berlin and accepted surrender of the Dönitz-led government.
ViennaVienna (viˈɛnə ; Wien viːn; Wean veɐ̯n) is the capital, largest city, and one of nine provinces of Austria. Vienna is Austria's most populous city and its primate city, with about two million inhabitants (2.9 million within the metropolitan area, nearly one-third of the country's population), and its cultural, economic, and political center. It is the sixth-largest city proper by population in the European Union and the largest of all cities on the Danube river.
ŚwinoujścieŚwinoujście (ɕfinɔˈujɕt͡ɕɛ; Swinemünde ˌsviːnəˈmʏndə; Swienemünn; all three meaning "Świna [river] mouth"; Swina) is a city in Western Pomerania and seaport on the Baltic Sea and Szczecin Lagoon, located in the extreme north-west of Poland. Situated mainly on the islands of Usedom and Wolin, it also occupies smaller islands. The largest is Karsibór island, once part of Usedom, now separated by the Piast Canal, formerly the Kaiserfahrt, dug in the late 19th century to facilitate ship access to Szczecin.
PotsdamPotsdam (ˈpɔtsdam) is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of Berlin, and lies embedded in a hilly morainic landscape dotted with many lakes, around 20 of which are located within Potsdam's city limits. It lies some southwest of Berlin's city centre. The name of the city and of many of its boroughs are of Slavic origin.
Klaipėda RegionThe Klaipėda Region (Klaipėdos kraštas) or Memel Territory (Memelland or Memelgebiet) was defined by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles in 1920 and refers to the northernmost part of the German province of East Prussia, when as Memelland it was put under the administration of the Entente's Council of Ambassadors. The Memel Territory, together with other areas severed from Germany (the Saar and Danzig) was to remain under the control of the League of Nations until a future day when the people of these regions would be allowed to vote on whether the land would return to Germany or not.
Polish People's RepublicThe Polish People's Republic (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL), or simply Poland (Polska), was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern-day Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million near the end of its existence, it was the second most-populous communist and Eastern Bloc country in Europe. A unitary state with a Marxist–Leninist government, it was also one of the main signatories of the Warsaw Pact alliance.
Free City of DanzigThe Free City of Danzig (Freie Stadt Danzig; Wolne Miasto Gdańsk) was a city-state under the protection of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrounding areas. The polity was created on 15 November 1920 in accordance with the terms of Article 100 (Section XI of Part III) of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles after the end of World War I. In line with the treaty provisions, the entity was established under the oversight of the League of Nations.
DenazificationDenazification (Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Party or SS members from positions of power and influence, by disbanding or rendering impotent the organizations associated with Nazism, and by trying prominent Nazis for war crimes in the Nuremberg trials of 1946.
Former eastern territories of GermanyThe "former eastern territories of Germany" (Ehemalige deutsche Ostgebiete) refer in present-day Germany 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 the Soviet Union after World War II in Europe. In many of these territories, Germans used to be the dominant or sole ethnicity.
Curzon LineThe Curzon Line was a proposed demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and the Soviet Union, two new states emerging after World War I. Based on a suggestion by Herbert James Paton, it was first proposed in 1919 by Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, to the Supreme War Council as a diplomatic basis for a future border agreement. The line became a major geopolitical factor during World War II, when the USSR invaded eastern Poland, resulting in the split of Poland's territory between the USSR and Nazi Germany along the Curzon Line.
