Poland on the Elbe

In OTL, the border of 1945 between Poland and Germany was drawn on the rivers Oder and Neisse. Now let's say that for whatever reason, maybe so that Stalin could grab even larger chunks of the Polish Kresy, or perhaps lack of support for a communistic Germany whatsoever... The border is drawn on the Elbe river instead. This would obviously put the German capital of Berlin in Poland.

Where would the new German capital be located? In OTL Bonn was chosen only as a temporary measure until Berlin could once again be made the capital. But here, Berlin is permanently under Polish control.

Frankfurt? It has historical ties as the "capital" of Germany, although it is fairly small.

Hamburg? It would be the biggest city in post-war Germany, but would be located very far off-center.

Munich? It's large and uh.. well, that's it.

Or maybe even Hannover?

What would happen to Berlin? Would it be depopulated and resurrected as a fairly small Polish town of say 100.000 inhabitants? Surely they could not let it stay a city of 4.000.000, which would put their own capital of Warsaw in shame.

Another problem that would arise in Poland would be that with even less of their eastern parts intact, Warsaw would be even more off-center and isolated than what it was in OTL. Would it be enough for the Poles to chose a new capital? Probably not, but it would still create some tension with the USSR.

This would probably strain relations between Poland and Germany even more, maybe even so far that Germany never officially accepts its new eastern border.


Well, what do you think? How big of a screw up would this be?
 

MSZ

Banned
First of all, that would be another breach of Yalta and Potsdam, so if it was to happen in 1945 (when the borders were moved and delimited), then the cold war would start a few years earlier because of this. OTOH the Allies might not be too pissed about it, I assume there would be Frenchmen and Brits who would prefere a larger Poland than larger Germany.


Berlin under full Polish control rather than sectors is yet another breach of Yalta and Potsdam, and one serious enough to have almost caused war OTL. The German capital would be still Bonn, as there is no reason to change that. Berlin is in Polish rather than DDR hands, but the FRG doesn't recognize Poland, so it doesn't recognize Poland's hold over it. That is assuming it does become part of Poland and not divided into sectors like OTL. If so, it would be depopulated, renamed to some other name either after Stalin or old-slavic term.

Washington isn't in the centre of the USA. Neither is Stockholm in the centre of Sweden. Bratislava is an extreme example with the city being literally a dozen kilometers from the border. "Lack of central location" is hardly a reason to move the capital.

It would be a big screw-up, as it would mean tens of millions more germans relocated to the west. Might strain relations with Poland, but saying that it would never recognize the border is a stretch - the same thing was said OTL, and in ATL they would not have a comparision. Good news for west Germany in the long term though, more manpower for its wirdshaftwunder industry.
 
It will straine the food supplies. The western allies could barely feed the otl Germans refugees from the east, now with additional millions it could be a disaster.
 
Like actually the Elbe, so most of Hamburg is in Poland.

I presume that means that what's left of Saxony and Thüringia would be not forming a DDR.

I think that would lead to a much, much more troubled BRD.
 
First of all, that would be another breach of Yalta and Potsdam, so if it was to happen in 1945 (when the borders were moved and delimited), then the cold war would start a few years earlier because of this. OTOH the Allies might not be too pissed about it, I assume there would be Frenchmen and Brits who would prefere a larger Poland than larger Germany.


Berlin under full Polish control rather than sectors is yet another breach of Yalta and Potsdam, and one serious enough to have almost caused war OTL. The German capital would be still Bonn, as there is no reason to change that. Berlin is in Polish rather than DDR hands, but the FRG doesn't recognize Poland, so it doesn't recognize Poland's hold over it. That is assuming it does become part of Poland and not divided into sectors like OTL. If so, it would be depopulated, renamed to some other name either after Stalin or old-slavic term.

Washington isn't in the centre of the USA. Neither is Stockholm in the centre of Sweden. Bratislava is an extreme example with the city being literally a dozen kilometers from the border. "Lack of central location" is hardly a reason to move the capital.

It would be a big screw-up, as it would mean tens of millions more germans relocated to the west. Might strain relations with Poland, but saying that it would never recognize the border is a stretch - the same thing was said OTL, and in ATL they would not have a comparision. Good news for west Germany in the long term though, more manpower for its wirdshaftwunder industry.

About capitals, it would not be truly moving capital as much as choosing a new one since Berlin would be in foreign hands. And Washington D.C. was pretty much the center of the 13 colonies. Aalso, Brazil moved their capital in the 60s to Brasilia for the sole reason of it being more central. It does matter, however maybe not very much.

But yeah I see your point in more people to contribute to the Wirthschaftswunder, but it would also mean a LOT of more mouths to feed. The first 5 or so years would probably be disastrous.

What would the Poles rename their new areas to (especially Berlin)?

Believe it or not, but the name Berlin is actually more Slavic than Germanic.
 
There would be more Germans in this Poland than there would be Poles. Its a recipe for disaster.
 
There would be more Germans in this Poland than there would be Poles. Its a recipe for disaster.
Stalin had one recipe for similar problems-ethnic cleansing, If Uncle Joe decided that Elbe should be new Polish western border there would be as many Germans in Berlin as in Wrocław or Gdańsk today.
 
There would be more Germans in this Poland than there would be Poles. Its a recipe for disaster.

He could always deport those Germans to the east, if Stalin doesn't decide to send all those German refugees out west for the Allies to deal with. Like Kazakhstan which had a large German community living there (almost a million by the 1970s I think) and it sort of still does now, though to a much lesser extent than in the past.
 
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