Proposals and War Aims That Didn't Happen Map Thread

[Iserlohn]

A distinct thread connecting alternate proposals for all regions of Germany would be great!
Thank you for your research!

No problem, it's fun!

Anyway, I did now create that thread and I'll share any future findings there. However, if I do have access to a good visual aid, then I'll also share it here.

Speaking of which, let me crosspost my introduction to it, which includes two proposals from the Truman administration with maps!

US Maps of Occupation Zones, Proposed Länder, and Territorial Claims After WW2

The first map is from March 1946 and made by the State Department! [Link to the Truman Library]

As you can see, it shows the four occupaton zones as they had been formalized in July 1945. It also marks three American proposals for the future eastern border of Germany. There the Americans are suggesting that Poland should only annex Upper Silesia, a relatively small part of Pommerania, and West Prussia with certainty, while offering two more options that would grant more territory to Poland as an alternative. The last of these is the Oder up to Upper Silesia. This is the same proposal the US State Department has been suggesting since at least January 1945, as is evident by this map [linked here to Wikimedia Foundation].

However the map also showcases hand-drawn claims by the Netherlands (after the failure of the Bakker-Schut-Plan), as well as minor annexations by Luxembourg and Belgium. It also shows, again hand-drawn, the recent expansion of the Saar Basin by France.

A similar map by the state department was made in 1947, and it shows the contemporary claims by the Benelux countries, as well as Czechoslovakia in a more polished format. [Link here to Wikimedia Foundation]

The second map is this beauty by the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, first made in July 1944 and then subsequently amended and edited in 1945, reaching its final state in February 1947. [Link to the Truman Library]

It shows Germany both with the now-settled Oder-Neisse border and the former Großdeutsches Reich borders, along with the current occupation zones and fifteen proposed German states (or Länder).

The thing that makes this map a particularly interesting one is that last part, actually! In the east especially you have very familiar states with borders that are quite similar to the ones that the Federal Republic of Germany would implement after reunification, but, more precisely, these look nearly identical to the short-lived Länder of the German Democratic Republic.

In the west, you have a separate Rhineland, a Greater Hesse, a separate Westphalia, and a Lower Saxony that includes both Schaumburg-Lippe and Lippe-Detmold (the latter went to North Rhine-Westphalia IOTL). In the south, Bavaria is essentially unchanged, but Baden-Württemberg exists as Württemberg-Baden and includes the former Bavarian Rhine Province/Rhenish Palatinate.

It's very noteworthy that these proposed states don't follow occupation zone borders. The Rhine Province is reunified, the Amt Neuheus (part of the Soviet zone and in the Cold War part of the GDR) is (still) part of Lower Saxony, Hesse includes the portions of Nassau and Rheinhessen that are IOTL part of Rhineland-Palatinate, and Lindau was to be reattached to Bavaria (which IOTL only happend in 1956).

The fact that this map also includes a statistical breakdown of these states. As you can see, four territorial states of this post-war Germany would have had a population of less than three million but more than one million (in decreasing order Thuringia, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Schleswig-Holstein), and five states would have had a population of more than five million but less than eight million (in decreasing order Rhineland, Bavaria, Württemberg-Baden, Saxony). This would have been a fairly equal population distribution. Also interesting is the economic breakdown. Lower Saxony, Mitteldeutschland, Bavaria, and Württemberg-Baden would have been the agricultural powerhouses, while Westphalia, the Rhine Province, Württemberg-Baden, Saxony, and Mitteldeutschland would have been the industrial motors of this new Germany.

Looking past the urban states, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg would have been the economically weakest states, since neither offer a large agricultural sector nor a significant amount of industry. Mecklenburg especially might just prove itself to not be viable, which might have resulted in proposals to maybe partition it between Brandenburg and Schleswig-Holstein in the future.

 

[UrbanNight]

However, if I do have access to a good visual aid, then I'll also share it here.

Thanks for saying you'll do that as I've been making sure to add those you've posted here to the index.

 

[OxSpace]

So, I "threatened" y'all with more info on German state reorganization, so here is some (!) of my new findings. Due to me not yet having finished one book I'm currently reading on the subject (and due to fears of hitting the character limit with this post), I decided to only share now my findings on plans for the Rhineland and Hesse between 1945 and 1949, with some mentions of future proposals and referendums.

Section #1: The Personal Accounts of Ludwig Bergsträsser & The Creation of Hesse

I stumbled across two sources created by Ludwig Bergsträsser, a Social Democratic politician who worked closely with the American military administration, even serving as the “President of the German Government in Hesse”, which was formally responsible for the former Free State of Hesse (but effectively excluding Rheinhessen, which was under French administration from June 1945 onwards), from April 14th 1945 to October 12th 1945, when the state of Groß-Hessen was created. He continued to serve as the president of the district of Darmstadt within Groß-Hessen until 1948. He continued to be active in German politics until 1953.

Here are four proposals related to Hesse I wanna highlight based on Bergsträsser’s account.

The first is one made by Bergsträsser himself, along with others, in a statement directed at Major W. Williver, head of the Civil Administration division, published on July 26th 1945.In it Bergsträsser describes that a future Hessian state, potentially called Rhein-Main, could consist of the following territories:

• the former Free State of Hesse, ideally including Rheinhessen but potentially excluding Worms
• the Prussian province of Kurhessen
• the Prussian province of Nassau/Wiesbaden (Bergsträsser does describe that the Americans left Nassau as is at that time), but excluding the Kreis Biedenkopf and the northern sections of the Kreis Dillenburg within the Westerwald (whose industries were too closely connected to the Rhine-Ruhr area)
• the Mainviereck around Aschaffenburg, because that city and the surrounding towns were generally trading westwards rather than southeastwards towards Bavaria
• Edit: I should also note that, according to Mühlhausen, Bergsträsser also made one suggestion to exclude Kurhessen from this state due to it not being economically connected to the Rhein-Main metropolitan area)

Wthis proposal wasn’t adopted, the Americans did spend a lot of time thinking about how to structure Hesse and they clearly were still willing to talk with Bergsträsser.

Bergsträsser mentions a different proposal, corroborated by General Lucius D. Clay in his book "Decision in Germany" (1950) , to divide Hesse into two states: Hesse-Nassau (consisting out of the Free State of Hesse minus Rheinhessen as well as former province of Nassau excluding the region around Montabaur) with its capital at Darmstadt and Hesse (basically consisting out of the province of Kurhessen) with its capital at Marburg. This proposal would have, according to Bergsträsser, connected most of the Rhein-Main metropolitan area and allowed for Oberhessen to be connected to Starkenburg, but it would have created a possibly non-viable state with the other Hesse. This new Hesse-Nassau would have been a smaller version of the Gau Hessen-Nassau that existed under Nazi rule in 1944.

A similar proposal to divide Hesse into two is listed by Mühlhausen, where he instead states that the Americans considered turning the former province of Hesse-Nassau into a state and the Free State of Hesse(-Darmstadt) into another, basically a continuation of the Weimar-era borders (if one were to dismember Prussia and turn its provinces into states). These two divided Hesse proposals were however very short-lived, apparently due to the American administrators listening to local Germans' concerns.

Lastly I wanna mention a proposal Bergsträsser apparently worked out for a meeting in Berlin in late 1946, where he suggested that Hesse could expand westwards and take over the former district of Koblenz of the Rhine Province (as well as Aschaffenburg, again, to the east), while “Westfalen-Rheinland” would receive the district of Trier (excluding the Saar area) and “Württemberg-Baden” would receive the former Bavarian Palatinate. This was to be part of a project to divide Germany into eight or nine states, probably including the Soviet occupation zone, Bergsträsser was unclear on whether it was just for the occupation zones of the Western Allies or not.

Sources:

• “Die Gründung des Landes Hessen 1945” by Walter Mühlhausen in “Blickpunkt Hessen” (4/2005)
• "Demokratischer Neubeginn in Hessen 1945-1949" by Walter Mühlhausen
• “Befreiung, Besatzung, Neubeginn - Tagebuch des Darmstädter Regierungspräsidenten 1945-1948” by Ludwig Bergsträsser
• “Zeugnisse zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Landes Hessen: Mitgeteilt und kommentiert von Ludwig Bergsträsser” in “Vierteljahresheft für Zeitgeschichte” (4/1957)

Section #2: The Rhineland, the Saar, and the Palatinate

For the Rhineland, I’m gonna use a chronological approach, outlining both the implementation of occupation zones and temporary administrations, as well as early state formations and French annexation attempts.

• According to Loth, French Minister of Armaments Jean Monnet proposed in the summer of 1943 that France should push for a post-war “European State of Heavy Industry”, consisting of the Ruhr industrial area, the Rhineland, the Saar Basin, and Luxembourg. This would allow for an easier reconstruction in Western Europe and neuter future German aggression by depriving it from most of its arms industry. Monnet would later become the founding father of the European Coal and Steel Community
• Before the borders of the French occupation zone were settled, de Gaulle apparently suggested that the French occupation zone should consist of the entire historic states of Baden & Hessen, the Rhineland up to the north of Cologne (likely excluding only the district of Düsseldorf) as well as the portions of the government district of Wiesbaden north of Frankfurt (s. Klöckler), with that last probably resulting in an American corridor between Oberhessen and Starkenburg; Baumgart meanwhile describes that the French were even proposing all of former Hesse-Nassau as well as Württemberg to be part of their zone of occupation
• Under de Gaulle, the ideal future of Germany should be the recreation of a confederation of smaller states with varying influences from the Allies instead of a federal Germany (favored by the Americans)
• In December 1944 de Gaulle suggested to Stalin that the Rhineland should be attached to France, while the Ruhr area should be internationalized; apparently the intention was to include Cologne in the French Rhineland and have the border to the Ruhr area be a bit north of that city, which means that likely the district of Düsseldorf may have been made part of the internalized Ruhr area
• When French and American troops entered Germany, the French were mostly used to fight in modern Baden-Württemberg, pushing up to Vorarlberg in Austria; the Americans occupied most of the Rhineland and the Palatinate, however in April 1945 they ceded four counties in the southern Palatinate to the French troops as their first formal occupation zone
• The Americans spent the months of March to May creating two competing administrations in the Rhineland: the Military District Rhine Province based in Koblenz and run by Dr. Johannes “Hans” Fuchs (Zentrum) and the Military Government District Westmark-Südhessen (sometimes also called Saarland-Pfalz-Südhessen) based in Neustadt and run by Hermann Heimerich (SPD). Both had overlapping jurisdiction over Rheinhessen, the Palatinate, and the Saar Basin, and on May 25th 1945 the former Rhenish districts of Koblenz and Trier were put under Heimerich’s control, with his government being renamed to Mittelrhein-Saar; these parallel administrations a great confusion among more local officials; also noteworthy is that apparently (according to Galonska) there were also considerations to give the Hessian district of Starkenburg to the Westmark-Südhessen administration
• On June 20th 1945 the British took over the northern portions of the Rhine Province and appointed Fuchs as the head of their administration of the North Rhine Province, effectively ending his bid to govern a Greater Rhineland
• Between July 10th and July 15th 1945 the French began to take over their formalized occupation zone, replacing Mittelrhein-Saar with four smaller administrative units: Trier (identical to the pre-war Rhenish district of Trier), Koblenz (the Rhenish district of Koblenz, expanded by the counties of Sankt Goarshausen, Unterlahnkreis, Unterwesterwaldkreis and Oberwesterwaldkreis; jointly often referred to as the district of Montabaur), the Pfalz (the Bavarian Palatinate and Rheinhessen; sometimes referred to as Hessen-Pfalz), and the Saar (at first identical to the historic Saar Basin)
• In the French occupation zone small regionalist and separatist movements pop up, such as the “Union des Amis de la France” (advocates for the annexation of the Palatinate to France) and the Rheinisch-Demokratische Union (advocating for a pro-West “democratic liberal” independent Rhineland including the Bavarian Palatinate and Rheinhessen); there were also similar movements in the southern zone.
• On November 19th 1945 the merger of the administrations of Koblenz and Trier is announced and on January 2nd 1946 the new administration of Rheinland-Hessen-Nassau is formed; Hessen-Pfalz and the Saar Basin remain unaffected for now
• On January 10th 1946, François de Puaux, deputy of the French ambassador in Baden-Baden Jacques Tarbé de Saint-Hardouin, proposes the creation of a centralized Rhineland state in the northern French occupation zone in Germany with its capital at Mainz; this would include the Saar Basin but was supposed to be under long-term French influence; in principle this plan was supported by de Gaulle and Pierre Marie Koenig, the military commander in Rheinland-Hessen-Nassau (Source: R. Hudemann’s “Entstehung des Landes und seiner Verfassung” in “40 Jahre Rheinland-Pfalz - Eine politische Landeskunde”)
• On January 20th 1946 Charles de Gaulle steps down as Chairman of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, being succeeded by the Socialist Félix Gouin; with de Gaulle leaving, plans to annex parts of Germany into France are abandoned and the idea that small German-speaking states (besides Saarland) in France’s sphere of influence could be created becomes less feasible as American and British cooperation in their occupation zones becomes clearer
• The Saar Basin is detached from the French Occupation Zone and turned into its entity, the Saar Protectorate, in February 1946; additionally the Saar Basin was expanded by the counties of Saarburg and Wadern, and portions of Trier-Land and Birkenfeld. These changes were aimed at increasing the degree of self-sufficiency for the territory.
• Some of these changes to the Saarland, including the annexation of most of Saarburg, would be reverted in 1947 after British and American protestations but despite the wishes of some of the populace.
• Meanwhile in the British zone, Konrad Adenauer and other Rhenish politicians still fight for the creation of a separate Rhineland, ideally one that includes the districts of Koblenz and Trier; they fail and temporarily the creation of a state of Nord-Rheinland is considered
• Rhineland-Palatinate is formed on August 30th 1946 by French decree, a week after in the British announce the formation of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia; at this point Adenauer begins lobbying for the unification of Koblenz and Trier to the nascent NRW
• Rhineland-Palatinate would survive until the present day, despite numerous discussions taking place about its partition both before the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany and after, with any partition being seen as unlikely after failed plebiscites for the matter in 1955/56

Sources:

• “Eine Rheinprovinz, zwei Länder und die Frage der Länderneugliederung nach 1945” by Beate Dorfey [which is an online article you can find here] and which also contains some cool map proposals that go beyond the scope of this post specifically
• “Geografie und Landeskunde” by Rainer Freyer [another online article which you can find here]
• “Rheinland-Pfalz und Hessen 1945-1996 - Landesparteiensysteme im Föderalismus” by Andreas Galonska
• “Die unvollendete Annexion - Frankreich und die Saar 1943 bis 1947” by Wilfried Loth
• “Entstehung des Landes und seiner Verfassung” by Rainer Hudemann in “40 Jahre Rheinland-Pfalz - Eine politische Landeskunde” (ed. Peter Haungs)
• “Abendland - Alpenland - Alemannien” by Jürgen Klöckler
• “Der Separatismus in der Pfalz nach 1945” by Hans-Jürgen Wünschel in “Oberrheinische Studien Band V” (ed. Hansmartin Schwarzmaier)
• “Voraussetzungen und Wesen der rheinland-pfälzischen Verfassung” by Winfried Baumgart in “Die Entstehung der Verfassung für Rheinland-Pfalz” (ed. Helmut Klaas)

I do have some more thorough notes on the Southwest planned, and I've found a few more sources on the British occupation zone that I wanna look at. So this little series of mine isn't over yet! I'm also considering to put these in a distinct thread for ease of searchability.

What I find interesting about the Hesse proposals here is that it's rather counterintuitive to the research I've done. Most propositions generally favored aggrandizing the Hesses into other parts; the most common either being expanding into Pflaz or French-occupied Rhineland. I'm curious why there was hesitation for the viability of FS Hesse remaining as a state (sans some minor border corrections) considering it's been operating as a state rather fine. A lot of the general proposes seem to have been rebrands of the reorganization efforts during the early Weimar era. Kurhessen might be a bit more tricky considering the time it has spent attached to Nassau since Prussian annexation. I've usually seen it partitioned with Niedersachsen. My only thought on the matter was simply the post-war situation & economy, but that didn't stop from the resurrection of the couple of Free Cities in the north.

 

[Iserlohn]

What I find interesting about the Hesse proposals here is that it's rather counterintuitive to the research I've done. Most propositions generally favored aggrandizing the Hesses into other parts; the most common either being expanding into Pflaz or French-occupied Rhineland. I'm curious why there was hesitation for the viability of FS Hesse remaining as a state (sans some minor border corrections) considering it's been operating as a state rather fine. A lot of the general proposes seem to have been rebrands of the reorganization efforts during the early Weimar era. Kurhessen might be a bit more tricky considering the time it has spent attached to Nassau since Prussian annexation. I've usually seen it partitioned with Niedersachsen. My only thought on the matter was simply the post-war situation & economy, but that didn't stop from the resurrection of the couple of Free Cities in the north.

Yes, I've also seen proposals regarding Hessen that are like the ones you've described (both in the early years and more recent ones), and one from the Kaiserreich (apparently suggested by the Grand Duke of Hesse himself) on which I'd like to do more research myself.

However most of these proposals I only found in the form of maps suggesting nationwide territorial reform, with very little info on the reasoning. My plan is to cover some of these when I get access to some new books.

Bergsträsser meanwhile provideded me with a specific set of proposals tied "only" to Hesse, though he then also sent me down the rabbit hole regarding how the American military administration functioned in the Rhineland, which snowballed, and yeah...

 

[James the AH Fan]

From The New York Sun, February 14, 1919:

 

[The_Persian_Cat]

The Italian Unionist Movement was a short-lived political party which wanted Italy to become part of the United States. Founded in 1944 (after Italy had surrendered in World War II), it lasted until January 1948. Its goal was not just for Italy to join the United States, but for other democratic/liberal nations to join the US as well, and thereby turn the US into a one-world government which would oppose the USSR and its Communist allies. As one of its founders, Santi Paladino, said, "With a federation of the United States, Italy and some other nations, and a lot of atomic bombs, there would be no wars. This would solve all of Italy's problems." It's important to note that this party was established in the context of the Sicilian Independence Movement -- after World War II, Sicilian separatism grew as a popular movement, and the Italian Unionist Movement sought to keep Italy internally united by joining a federation with the US.

One of its co-founders was Corrado Gini -- the statistician most famous for inventing the Gini coefficient, which is a measure of income inequality. Gini was a eugenicist and an advocate for Italian fascism, who (imho) seemed to hold too much faith in his own calculations. He was the kind of guy who thinks Italy would make a good US state just because he ran the numbers and, according to his own research, it all made sense. Paladino -- a journalist -- is most famous for his conspiracy theories regarding the works of Shakespeare, believing that the real author must have been an Italian.

 

[Snowstalker]

From The New York Sun, February 14, 1919:
View attachment 901293

 

[Crying]

in 1986 book "south africa: the solution", libertarian economist leon louw suggests that south africa should become a swiss-style confederation with different ideologies in each canton. one of these is a marxist-leninist reverse-apartheid state and the description is great fun​

 

[BrobDingnag]

View attachment 901295

What about the claimed counties of New Jersey? That’s a very strange looking “y-shape” as claimed by the newspaper otherwise…

 

[Gokbay]

What about the claimed counties of New Jersey? That’s a very strange looking “y-shape” as claimed by the newspaper otherwise…

Looking at the article all of Connecticut and New Jersey is included (so a NYC metro area based thing in addition to eastern New York state).

Which does create an inverted Y as said by the article even if the inclusion of whole New Jersey rather than just the northern half does make it somewhat lopsided.

 

[James the AH Fan]

Looking at the article all of Connecticut and New Jersey is included (so a NYC metro area based thing in addition to eastern New York state).

Which does create an inverted Y as said by the article even if the inclusion of whole New Jersey rather than just the northern half does make it somewhat lopsided.

I hate how this looks

 

[LittleFluffyClouds]

Does anyone have a fixed QBAM of the San Stefano Treaty? Crazy Boris made this one, which is magnificent, except for the Russian-Ottoman border, which follows the implemented Treaty of Berlin. I also found this picture on the Wikipedia page for the treaty which outlines the change. It would be really cool if someone could help me out.

I’ve been trying to find a qbam of this for months with no success. Can anyone help me out here?

 

[DaniCBP]

Found this map on Wikipedia. Apparently a map of a quintuple monarchy proposed by Emperor Karl on October 16, 1918 ("Imperial Manifesto of 16 October 1918"). Does anyone know anything more about this proposal? I've never heard of it before and the Wikipedia article cites a paper that I can't access.

I would say that Austria would relinquish Bukovina to Romania, rather than having this strange arrangement. It wasn't really important for the Empire, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Aichi72]

I would say that Austria would relinquish Bukovina to Romania, rather than having this strange arrangement. It wasn't really important for the Empire, as far as I'm concerned.

I think its more likely that Bukovina is attached to Galicia-Lodomeria than given to the Romanians. On that note, unless Austria takes all of the Sudetenland, Silesia is probably attched to the the Crown of St. Wenceslas.

 

[Pax_Nihil]

I hate how this looks
View attachment 901381

I'm not going to be able to lie I love it and I don't know why :c

 

[Pax_Nihil]

I hate how this looks
View attachment 901381

It looks like an upside down praying mantis @Rattenfänger von Memphis

 

[UrbanNight]

I’ve been trying to find a qbam of this for months with no success. Can anyone help me out here?

Everything we have is in the Index. If it's not there, try looking and asking in the Request Maps/etc. thread.

 

[MasterSanders]

William Yandell Elliott's Proposed "Commonwealths" (1935)

William Yandell Elliott was a prominent historian and intellectual during the mid-20th century. He was originally part of the "Fugitives," the forerunner to the Southern Agrarians, before going on to teach at what would become the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He advised several presidents, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and would later teach other leaders like Pierre Trudeau, McGeorge Bundy, and most notably Henry Kissinger. He wrote extensively on geopolitical topics, with perhaps his most notorious being The Need for Constitutional Reform: A Plan for National Security (1935). In it, he outlined his plan for an extensive overhaul of the Constitution that would, among other things:

• Extend the term of the House of Representatives from 2 to 4 years.
• Reduce the power of the Senate to largely being an advisory body with little in the way of actual legislative initiative.
• Allow for the President to dissolve Congress at least once for an election should there be a gridlock.
• Have the President be succeeded immediately by an "Executive Vice President" except if the former resigns in order to maintain a continuity of policy.
• Have permanent heads of civil service departments along the British model in order to abolish patronage.
• Reduce the Supreme Court of its ability to strike down legislation without 2/3rds of the judges doing so.

But the part that everyone took note of was Elliott's proposal to create "commonwealths" out of existing states that would supposedly reflect cultural and economic realities. (No, Fallout did not invent the term "commonwealth" in reference to "super states"). While he said that the Federal Reserve districts might serve as a model for the borders of these commonwealths, he does offer a few ideas as to what they might look like:

• A New England commonwealth
• New York as its own Commonwealth
• New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and possibly West Virginia
• Two unspecified Midwest commonwealths
• South Atlantic Seaboard commonwealth
• Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and Georgia (I added Florida here to maintain continuity)
• Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas
• Western Prairie commonwealth
• Rocky Mountains commonwealth
• Pacific Coast commonwealth

A lot of these seem arbitrary (WV and New Jersey in the same commonwealth?), but it is interesting nonetheless. The states themselves would be reduced to something akin to English counties that are more traditional rather than actual government entities.

Below is a map that follows his outline. If someone could do a WorldA patch, I would appreciate it:

 

[Rattenfänger von Memphis]

It looks like an upside down praying mantis @Rattenfänger von Memphis

The first thing that comes to my mind, looking at both Snowstalker's and James the AH Fan's maps, minus northern New Jersey, is the Alien Queen Xenomorph on her side with Long Island being her elongated head.

 

[James the AH Fan]

9 proposed Armenia borders, created February 1920 and colored in c. 2012 (Very large, 5315x3649):