alternatehistory.com

Memel (a.k.a. Klaipeda) is a formerly German city on the Baltic that, after WW1, became a French protectorate, with the ultimate goal of granting it the same status of free city as Danzig. In OTL it was annexed by Lithuania in 1923, reclaimed by Germany in 1939, and returned to the Lithuanian SSR in 1945. But what if the Entente had resisted the Lithuanian takeover instead of more or less acquiescing to it, and made good on their plans? Would Memel have made it to the post-WW2 years as a free city, and might it have become a Hong Kong analog for the USSR?



A related question I've been asking myself is whether Germany might have used it as a bargaining chip to get Poland on its side in 1939, promising the Poles to let them claim Lithuania and Memel in exchange for getting Danzig back.
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