Download Michael De Groot Building the New Order: 1938

Michael De Groot
Building the New Order: 1938-1945
“As they now run, the frontiers of the new Central European states are arbitrary and
uneconomic. But they have a more serious aspect still. Their injustice is a standing danger to the
peace of Europe.”
-British Journalist Lord Rothermere, 19271
Introduction
For over the seven years that spanned WWII, European borders were in flux. In a grand
and romantic moment for authoritarianism, the map of Europe changed drastically, following the
agendas of revisionist countries and threatening to exterminate entire populations. Only three
countries involved in the war survived the struggle with their borders intact (Denmark, the
Netherlands, and Norway). As territories changed hands, the people living in them had to face
questions about their national identity. How can somebody be Polish one day and German the
next?
Because borders changed so dramatically from 1938-1945, it is best to understand them
dynamically. Although static maps are great resources for representing borders at specific points
in time, they fail to capture their changing nature. This project seeks to represent WWII
boundaries through an animation that demonstrates how borders changed over time. Through the
use of GIS and Flash, WWII borders are able to be presented dynamically and in greater depth
than static mediums.
Historical Context
Dissatisfaction with interwar boundaries drove border changes during WWII. The
interwar years, the period between the end of WWI and the beginning of WWII, was
characterized by irredentism. Revisionist states, including Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy,
and the Soviet Union, all sought to erase all traces of the WWI peace settlement. Bulgaria,
Germany, Hungary, and the Soviet Union, as losers of WWI, sought to reclaim land that had
been stripped from them in their respective peace treaties. Bulgaria, a loser in the Balkan Wars,
also wanted to regain territory it lost after the 2nd Balkan War. Italy, the lone revisionist state that
had been a victor during the Great War, believed that it had not been amply compensated
territorially for its WWI sacrifices and set out to build a modern Roman Empire.2
Irredentism dominated the foreign policies of revisionist states and is must be understood
to study boundary changes during WWII. Take Hungary, for example. After the Treaty of
Trianon, Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory. This led to “the reduction of Hungary’s
population by half, confiscation of two-thirds of her railway, road and canal networks, together
with about 80% of her forests and mines, and…the transfer of over three million ethnic Magyars
to Czechoslovak, Romanian, Yugoslav, or Austrian rule.” The day the treaty was signed, June 4,
1920, became a day of national mourning; stores and schools were closed, and Budapest was
1
Mihály Károlyi and István Bethlen, The Peace Conferences of 1919-1923 and their Aftermath: Hungary (London:
Haus Publishing Ltd, 2009), 125.
2
Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), 6.
draped in black.3 The state of mourning lasted throughout the interwar years as Hungarian flags
on government buildings were lowered to half-mast until 1938. Crowds rallied in support of
reclaiming the lost territories and responded to questions about whether they would accept their
losses with a resounding “nem, nem, soha!” (no, no, never!).4 In 1933, Count István Bethlen, the
former Hungarian Prime Minister and member of Parliament, told a London crowd that
It is owing to [Trianon] that fully one-third of the Hungarians who had lived for
ten centuries in Hungary found themselves outside the new borders of this country
and under the domination of Czechs, Romanians and Serbs…our national grief
and pain on this account is, as you well imagine, immeasurable. For this very
reason, among others, the Hungarian nation never can and never will acquiesce
definitely and of its own accord in the Peace Treaty of Trianon.5
Hungarians also expressed their resentment through maps. Hungarian cartographers titled
maps of their country Csonka Magyarország, or “Mutilated Hungary.”6 Hungarian
irredentism during the interwar years was not without justification. After the Paris Peace
Conference, even with the Wilsonian notion of self-determination as the peacemakers’
guiding principle, over three million Magyars found themselves under foreign rule.
Revisionist states made varying levels of irredentist claims. Germany would annex not
only territory it had lost through the Treaty of Versailles, but also land which Nazi officials
claimed had belonged to ancient Germans, land which was no longer home to a sizable ethnic
German population.7 Bulgaria, in contrast, was content to annex only territories it had lost after
its Balkan War and WWI settlements.8 The Soviet Union, an ideological enemy of Nazi
Germany, even agreed to join forces. Although the belligerents had different motivations for
breaking from the interwar system, all Axis powers were united in their rejection of interwar
borders. Not all Axis powers could support Germany’s racial agenda. They could, however,
support the German bid to reorder Europe.
3
Károlyi and Bethlen, The Peace Conferences of 1919-1923, 111.
Ibid, 111.
5
Ibid, 129.
6
Csonka Magyarország, Map, unknown publisher, 1939
7
Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 81.
8
Ibid, 327.
4
(French map Les Provinces
Baltiques de le Russie showing the Baltic States in Russia at the outbreak of WWI. The Baltic
States would gain independence after the Great War. Set on reclaiming territory, the Soviets
would reannex lands they had lost in WWI and the Russian Revolution. In June 1940, the Soviet
Union, a revisionist power, reincorporated Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.9) ((Holocaust
Geographies, Boundary Scans, Map Pictures June 2010, 12)
Signaling the end of the interwar system, Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, an
event known as the Anschluss. Eighteenth months later, the Wehrmacht, the German army,
overran Poland, and for the next five-and-a-half years Europe was engulfed in flames. As Axis
armies pushed across the battlefields of Europe, Hitler created a New Order, one which would
reverse the results of the Great War. Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia, countries which
had been created by the Paris Peace Conference, were wiped from the map. The treaties of the
WWI settlements were abrogated, and land was returned to the old Central Powers through both
intimidation and force. At the height of the New Order, the Axis Empire extended from France to
the outskirts of Moscow and Stalingrad.
9
James E. McSherry, Stalin, Hitler, and Europe: The Imbalance of Power 1939-1941 v. 2 (Cleveland: The World
Publishing Company, 1970), 90-92.
Europe ceased to be a continent of sovereign nation-states and morphed into a confusing
blend of sovereign states, occupied territories, and everything in between. The interwar
international system was replaced with the New Order, facilitated by Germany largely for its
own benefit. In addition to annexing territory, Germany also established protectorates,
designated for eventual incorporation into the Reich. These protectorates cannot neatly be
categorized as occupied or annexed territories. In the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the
Czech regions of Czechoslovakia, Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich pushed for immediate
deportation of undesirables and German colonization. The Nazis did enact Germanization in the
Protectorate, using their “racial science” to determine the racially acceptable Czechs and bring
them into German society.10 It was clear that Bohemia and Moravia would one day become part
of Germany. Should the Protectorate be considered part of Germany?
The database attempts to structure the disorder. What is the best way to visualize the
evolution of the New Order? What does that reveal about the nature of WWII that cannot be seen
through text alone?
Methods
The database tracks border changes by month. The first month is February 1938, one
month before the Anschluss. Because the Anschluss is widely seen as the first WWII event,
February 1938 represents the interwar system. The last month in the database is May 1945, the
end of WWII in Europe.
The goal of the project was to create accurate borders at the continental scale, roughly
1:10,000,000. For most regions, using a 1:350,000 scale during the digitization process was
sufficient to accomplish this. For certain smaller regions, including Danzig and Prekmurje, it was
necessary to use a smaller scale, 1:150,000.
The best sources for digitizing boundaries during WWII are maps. When using maps as
sources, however, it is important to analyze potential biases of the publisher. In an era with
borders as complex and contentious as WWII, publishers presented the state of Europe quite
differently, reflecting national prejudices and the confusion of the period. In order to portray the
situation on the ground and avoid national biases, maps for this project were used with caution.
Because it was the Axis that orchestrated and facilitated border changes, Axis maps, especially
German, often depicted the changing situation in Europe most accurately. The challenges and
liabilities of relying on WWII maps are discussed later in more detail.
In a project which studies the nature of boundaries, defining what constitutes a boundary
change is a critical issue. The first task was to classify conquered territories as annexed or
occupied. Boundaries would only change because of annexations, both de jure and de facto. The
definition used was one which categorized territories by administration type: German civil
administration, civil administration, and military administration.11 Territories which were
classified as “under German civil administration” were considered annexed and warranted a
change in boundaries. This category includes territories that were formally annexed (i.e.
Wartheland), and those which were “increasingly treated as parts of the Reich, but had not yet
been formally incorporated” (i.e. Białystok).12 Countries which were occupied but had no
territory stripped from them (i.e. Denmark) changed government type, not boundaries.
Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 187.
I.C.B Dear, ed., The Oxford Companion to World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 465.
12
Ibid, 465.
10
11
Changes in government were reflected in the Arc Map attribute scheme. The attribute
scheme for countries includes categories for head of state, foreign policy, and government-inexile. This system allows users to differentiate between sovereign states and occupied states. The
Netherlands, for example, appears as “Netherlands” in the “NAME” field until April 1940. In the
file for May 1940, however, it appears as “Netherlands (German occupied).”
(animated visualization)
Challenges
As mentioned earlier, the best sources for digitizing boundaries are maps. Relying on
historical maps for the project, however, poses several challenges. The fact that Hungarians
labeled their maps Csonka Magyarország demonstrates that map titles could be partial. The
greater difficulty, however, is when cartographers use borders to show prejudice. Cartographers
from occupied countries could use maps as propaganda, showing that forcible territorial
annexations were both unpopular and unaccepted.
A good example of national prejudice in maps is German and French depictions of
Alsace-Lorraine. The region, located in France at the time of the German invasion in May 1940,
had traded hands twice in the previous seventy years, to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War,
and back to France in WWI. The legitimacy of French rule over Alsace-Lorraine during the
interwar years was hotly contested, and annexing the region was a German war aim during the
invasion of France. After the fall of France, Alsace-Lorraine was reattached to Germany, the
French business names and street signs were translated into German, and men of fighting age
were conscripted into the Wehrmacht.13 German maps portrayed Alsace-Lorraine in the Reich
thereafter. In the Grossdeutsches Reich, for example, drawn by the Viennese publishing house
13
Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 200.
Freytag and Berndt in 1944, Alsace-Lorraine is shown to be within Greater Germany. In
contrast, French cartographers continued to depict Alsace-Lorraine in France. The Parisian
publishing house Girard and Barrère, for example, printed its 1942 map of France with the
region still in France. This is a case of the use of maps as nationalist propaganda. The Girard
and Barrère map is a good source for presenting the French perspective about the annexation of
Alsace-Lorraine, but is not a good source for reflecting the situation on the ground.
Grossdeutsches Reich, 1944 (Holocaust
Geographies, Boundary Scans, Map Pictures June 2010, 41A)
France, 1942 ((Holocaust
Geographies, Boundary Scans, Map Pictures June 2010, 35B)
Classifying territories was a challenge because the difference between annexed and
occupied land was not always obvious. It was clear that revisionist states would annex territory
where it had an ethnic majority. In Yugoslav Macedonia, for example, the Bulgarian government
treated the population, mainly Bulgarian, “as a liberated extension of Bulgaria-legislatively,
administratively, militarily, educationally, linguistically, and ecclesiastically.”14 The Bulgarians
in Yugoslav Macedonia welcomed the annexation, bringing ethnic Bulgarians under control of
Sofia and ending two decades of Serbianization.15
In territories in which the revisionists did not have an ethnic majority, however, the
distinction between occupied and annexed territory was not nearly as clear. Białystok is one such
territory. Located in prewar Poland, it fell into German hands after the invasion of the Soviet
Union in June 1941. Two months later, Białystok was attached to East Prussia in an effort to link
the Reich to Ukraine.16 Although under the German civil administration, it was not formally
incorporated into the Reich.17 Territories like Białystok do not fall neatly into either of the
“annexed” or occupied” categories, but obviously have to be classified.
Finally, mapping the areas liberated by the Allied offensives in 1944 and 1945 presents
cartographical and historical challenges. Because boundaries in Western Europe did not change
significantly during the war, this is not a huge issue for territories liberated by American, British,
and Canadian armies. In Eastern Europe, however, it is a major historical problem. What
boundaries replace the New Order after territories are liberated by the Red Army? There are
three possible interpretations of those boundaries: Axis interpretations, nationalist
interpretations, and Soviet interpretations. Czechoslovakia is a good example of the challenges.
The New Order split Czechoslovakia among Germany, Hungary, and Slovakia. The
Stevan K. Pavlowitch, Hitler’s New Disorder: The Second World War in Yugoslavia (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2008), 82.
15
Ibid, 83.
16
Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia 1941-1945: A Study of Occupation Politics (London: MacMillan Press
Ltd, 1981), 90.
17
Dear, ed., The Oxford Companion to World War II, 465.
14
Czechoslovak government-in-exile did not recognize the portioning of Czechoslovakia.18
Finally, the Soviets, a dominant influence in the country because of their large military presence,
coveted Carpathian Ruthenia, the eastern province of Czechoslovakia and home to a large
Ukrainian population.
The decision was to keep the boundaries of the New Order. For countries that had
territorial disputes and the Soviets signed a peace agreement with on their drive to Berlin
(Finland, Romania), the territorial changes are included in the database. For example, Bessarabia
and North Bukovina, regions which belonged to Romania from 1941-1944, were given to the
Soviet Union as part of the peace agreement in August 1944. The troublesome- issue was how
map territories which the Soviets formally did not annex. This leaves much of Eastern Europe.
Most of these border arrangements would be negotiated after the war, not during it. Therefore, it
would be incorrect to use the borders from 1947 to replace the liberated territories. Nationalist
interpretations of their boundaries are problematic because governments-in-exile had little to no
authority, only claims. Therefore, the best of three interpretations is to keep the boundaries of the
New Order. It should be said, however, that this interpretation does not necessarily represent the
situation on the ground. In published works, this territory is sometimes drawn without borders
and labeled “Allied Occupied Territory,” and avoids having to choose an interpretation.19 After
all, liberated Eastern Europe in 1944-1945 was chaotic.
Conclusion
The database unifies the motivations of the Axis powers. Although each differed on racial
policies, all agreed on border revisionism. As confirmed by the literature published on the
subject, this visualization demonstrates that border changes were primarily an Eastern European
experience, where all of the revisionist powers were located. In addition, it also shows that they
occurred at the beginning of the war, and by 1942 the New Order had been firmly established:
Greater Germany extended from occupied France all the way into the Soviet Union. It
demonstrates that the height of the Third Reich, territorially, was in September 1943. After the
Italian armistice with the Allies, the Wehrmacht was pushed into Italy to defend against the
Allied onslaught. Hitler annexed land in Northern Italy and Southern Slovenia, called the
Alpenvorland, arguing that they had previously been held by Austria.20 This would be the final
addition to the Reich before its demise. While this information is in support of existing scholarly
work, this visualization presents it in a different way. Discussion of borders is inherently spatial
and must be presented spatially to best understand their evolution.
This database can be useful for those interested in mapping data during WWII. This
project, for example, was started to support research on the spatial distribution of concentration
camps during the Holocaust. Borders help put those camps in context. WWII borders also pose
interesting questions about identity. In an era which defined status by ethnicity, how did people
react to becoming part of a new country or territory? How did the Romanians in Northern
Transylvania accept becoming integrated in Hungary? How did the French experience differ in
occupied France versus Vichy France? How did the Poles in the General Government experience
Mazower, Hitler’s Empire, 561.
Colin McEvedy, The Penguin Atlas of Recent History (Europe since 1815) (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), 87.
20
Greater Germany Administrative Divisions, Map, R. and A, OSS, 1944.
18
19
life without government? The database can also be extended, including more categories which
would more accurately describe the character of territory.
Borders are still a contentious issue today. While some borders, like the AmericanCanadian border, are well established and agreed upon, others are disputed. The IsraeliPalestinian border, presents a perfect example. An Israeli politician would certainly give a
different interpretation of the border than a Palestinian, just as Miklós Horthy and Ion Antonescu
of Hungary and Romania did regarding the future of Transylvania. Yugoslavia has had been
engulfed in civil war, still unable to solve the conflicts that started during WWII.