page_title: Oder–Neisse line
section_title: Concessions
hierarchical_section_title: Oder–Neisse line / Potsdam Conference / Concessions
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Polskie obwieszczenie nakazujące Niemcom natychmiastowe opuszczenie Polski po zakończeniu drugiej wojny światowej rozpoczętej atakiem nazistowskich Niemiec na Polskę. Podobne plakaty umieszczano w różnych regionach Polski. Wysiedlenia Niemców po wojnie przeprowadzano na mocy decyzji polskich władz oraz umów międzynarodowych zwycięskich aliantów (m.in. umowa w Poczdamie). Komentarz do pkt. 5 i 11 przetłumaczonej poniżej treści obwieszczenia: Pozostawione przez wysiedlonych mienie prywatne i domy tylko w niewielkim procencie zaspokoiły polskie żądania na mocy prawa do reparacji wojennych potwierdzonego przez władze USA, Wlk. Brytanii i ZSRR w Poczdamie. Tłumaczenie treści: Rozkaz specjalny dla ludności niemieckiej miasta Szczawno-Zdrój (Bad Salzbrunn) razem z dzielnicą Piaskowa Góra (Sandberg). Na podstawie rozkazu Rządu Polskiego rozkazuję: 1. 14 lipca 1945 od godz. 6 do 9 dokona się przesiedlenia ludności niemieckiej. 2. Ludność niemiecka zostanie przesiedlona na tereny na zachód od rzeki Nysy. 3. Każdemu Niemcowi wolno zabrać ze sobą najwyżej 20 kg bagażu na drogę. 4. Środki transportowe (wóz, wół, koń, krowa itd.) nie są dozwolone. 5. Cały żywy i martwy inwentarz w nieuszkodzonym stanie zostaje własnością Rządu Polskiego. 6. Ostateczny termin przesiedlenia dobiega końca 14 lipca o godz. 10. 7. Niedostosowanie się do tego rozkazu będzie karane najostrzejszymi karami, włącznie z zastosowaniem broni. 8. Także poprzez użycie broni będzie zapobiegać się sabotażom czy plądrowaniu. 9. Placem zbiórki jest dworzec Bad Salzbrunn ul. Adelsbacher Weg, marsz w kolumnie po 4 osoby w szeregu. Początek tej kolumny marszowej 20 metrów przed miejscowością Struga (Adelsbach). 10. Niemcom, którzy posiadają zaświadczenia o nieewakuacji i ich rodzinom nie wolno opuszczać ich miejsca zamieszkania w czasie od godz. 5 do 14. 11. Wszystkie mieszkania w mieście musza być otwarte, klucze do mieszkań i do domów muszą zostać włożone do zamków na zewnątrz. Bad Salzbrunn, 14 Lipca 1945, godz. 6 Komendant Odcinka (-) ppłk Włodzimierz ZinkowskiEnglish: Polish authorities poster, announcement for Germans in order to force them to leave Poland after the second world war which started when Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
context_page_description: The Oder–Neisse line is the basis of the international border between Germany and Poland. It runs mainly along the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers and meets the Baltic Sea in the north, just west of the ports of Szczecin and Świnoujście.
  All prewar German territories east of the line and within the 1937 German boundaries – comprising nearly one quarter of the Weimar Republic – were annexed under border changes promulgated at the postwar Potsdam Conference, with most becoming part of Poland. The small remainder, consisting of northern East Prussia with the German city of Königsberg, was allocated to the Soviet Union as the Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian SFSR. A part of the German population in these territories – estimated at approximately 12 million as of autumn 1944 – had fled the advance of the Red Army, while the larger part was later expelled by the new Polish Authorities in a grand-scale Ethnic cleansing.
  The Oder–Neisse line marked the border between East Germany and Poland from 1950 to 1990. Communist East Germany agreed to the border with Communist Poland in 1950, while West Germany, after a period of refusal, adhered to the border in 1970.
context_section_description: James Byrnes – who had been appointed as U.S. Secretary of State earlier that month – later advised the Soviets that the U.S. was prepared to concede the area east of the Oder and the Eastern Neisse to Polish administration, and for it not to consider it part of the Soviet occupation zone, in return for a moderation of Soviet demands for reparations from the Western occupation zones. An Eastern Neisse boundary would have left Germany with roughly half of Silesia – including the majority of Wrocław (Breslau), the former provincial capital and the largest city in the region. The Soviets insisted that the Poles would not accept this. The Polish representatives (and Stalin) were in fact willing to concede a line following the Oder-Bober-Queiss (Odra-Bóbr-Kwisa) rivers through Żagań (Sagan) and Lubań (Lauban), but even this small concession ultimately proved unnecessary, since on the next day Byrnes told the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov that the Americans would reluctantly concede to the Western Neisse.
  Byrnes' concession undermined the British position, and although the British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin raised objections, the British eventually agreed to the American concession. In response to American and British statements that the Poles were claiming far too much German territory, Stanisław Mikołajczyk argued that "the western lands were needed as a reservoir to absorb the Polish population east of the Curzon Line, Poles who returned from the West, and Polish people who lived in the overcrowded central districts of Poland." The U.S. and the U.K. were also negative towards the idea of giving Poland an occupation zone in Germany. However, on 29 July, President Truman handed Molotov a proposal for a temporary solution whereby the U.S. accepted Polish administration of land as far as the Oder and eastern Neisse until a final peace conference determined the boundary. In return for this large concession, the U.S. demanded that "each of the occupation powers take its share of reparations from its own [Occupation] Zone and provide for admission of Italy into the United Nations." The Soviets stated that they were not pleased "because it denied Polish administration of the area between the two Neisse rivers."
  On 29 July Stalin asked Bolesław Bierut, the head of the Soviet-controlled Polish government, to accept in consideration of the large American concessions. The Polish delegation decided to accept a boundary of the administration zone at "somewhere between the western Neisse and the Kwisa". Later that day the Poles changed their mind: "Bierut, accompanied by Rola-Zymierski, returned to Stalin and argued against any compromise with the Americans. Stalin told his Polish protégés that he would defend their position at the conference."
  Finally on 2 August 1945, the Potsdam Agreement of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, in anticipation of the final peace treaty, placed the German territories east of the Oder–Neisse line formally under Polish administrative control. It was also decided that all Germans remaining in the new and old Polish territory should be expelled.
caption: Polish authorities issued an order to the population of Bad Salzbrunn (Szczawno-Zdrój) to force them to immediately leave Poland on 14 July 1945, issued at 6 a.m. to be executed until 10 am
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