AHC: DDR keeps Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line

Have DDR keep the land east of the Oder-Neisse line that belonged to Germany after WW1. Land that is also contiguous with OTL DDR, thus meaning that East Prussia is not part of this ATL DDR.
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Basically, that's only possible if Stalin decides he wants to screw Poland. Given that he was a Polonophobe it's possible. It would piss off the US and the British because Stalin had promised the transfer of these territories to compensate for the loss of Poland's eastern territories to the USSR, but short of war there's jack shit they can do about it. In the longer run East Germany is stronger because it has the industrial region of Silesia. Poland, conversely, is weaker. If German Reunification still occurs, TTL's Germany will have a slightly larger economy as a result.
 
It was always likely that Poland would get some German territory as "compensation" for its losses to the USSR in the east. However, Stalin's insistence on the Oder-western Neisse line was relatively late; for most of the war he acted as if the Oder or the Oder-eastern Neisse would be enough.

Of course theoretically there could be scenarios where the Western Allies marched so far east that they could impose the border they wanted; but that would require a situation so different that the change in the German-Polish border would be one of the less important consequences.

Incidentally, the SED did not recognize the Oder-western Neisse line until 1949 with the proclamation of the DDR. I do not know whether before then they really thought that Stalin might modify the border or whether they simply were trying to appeal to public opinion in the western zones by keeping up the hope that if only Germany went Communist, it could get better borders.
 
Incidentally, the SED did not recognize the Oder-western Neisse line until 1949 with the proclamation of the DDR. I do not know whether before then they really thought that Stalin might modify the border or whether they simply were trying to appeal to public opinion in the western zones by keeping up the hope that if only Germany went Communist, it could get better borders.

Technically it's been the 1950 Treaty of Zgorzelec (the right-bank part of Görlitz, so to speak) wherein the GDR recognized the Oder-Neisse Peace Border as it's been called and this happened under Soviet pressure. I guess it's a bit like the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea where antagonistic protectees of a greater power feel pressure from said power (which has an interest to keep its frontline in the Cold War steady and ready) to somehow formally normalize their bilateral relations.

The fact that the GDR was a satellite regime definitely helped matters, a likewise treaty on giving up former eastern territories would've been political suicide in West Germany as of 1950 and the fact that the GDR was wedged between the new Poland and West Germany allowed for West Germany to remain irredentist enough to pay lip service to voters with an expellee background without facing the consequences. The 1970 Treaty of Warsaw between West Germany and Poland was only possible because enough time passed by for expellees to integrate into post-war West German society and their children to go native and have no stake in the former East. And this was also a pro-active form of normalization. Détente made it possible, but it was also handy to have it done quickly by then in order to have any obstacles removed for a future democratic peace with the eastern neighbors.
 
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