Rotary St@dttour Springe
Memorial to lost Eastern territories
This monument, made of Deister sandstone, is a monumental monument from the early 1950s. As a result of World War II, started by Hitler's German Reich, many people fled westward from the eastern territories of the German Reich and other eastern countries annexed during the war. Some of them were expelled to Springe and other places in Germany. The refugees and expellees who had thus been assigned a new home in Springe wanted to use this memorial to express their grief and pain over their lost homeland in the east. The large memorial stone in the center is dedicated to "The Dead of Our East German Homeland." The relief above it shows the area of Germany within the borders of 1937. The six stones on the left and right bear coats of arms and inscriptions commemorating the lost homeland, with the regions listed extending beyond the borders of 1937.
The Oder-Neisse line in the right half of the relief on the large memorial stone marks the border between todays Germany and the eastern territories put under Polish and Soviet administration, respectively, in the Potsdam Agreement of August 2, 1945. This border was recognized and established as the final German eastern border (with Poland) in the so-called Two Plus Four Treaty (Federal Republic of Germany, East Germany, USA, Soviet Union, UK, France) of September 12, 1990, which was a prerequisite for German reunification (Federal Republic of Germany [former US, British and French sectors] and DDR [former Soviet sector]) in the same year. Even if time cannot heal all wounds, the Two Plus Four Treaty put an end to the occupation law that had formally applied until then, and both German states renounced any territorial claims in the eastern territories.
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The territorial cession of Germany as a result of World War II, unleashed by Hitler's Germany, was considered unacceptable, especially during the founding phase and early years of the Federal Republic of Germany. The refugee and displaced persons associations, in particular, protested against the territorial cession of Germany and permanent loss of their homeland with slogans such as "Divided into three? – Never!" or "No, No, Never!"
The Potsdam Agreement established the facts, and the subsequent creation of the "Iron Curtain" with the western integration of the Federal Republic into NATO and the eastern integration of the DDR and Poland into the Warsaw Pact reduced contact between refugees and displaced persons from Germany's eastern territories and their former homeland to a minimum. Critical voices on this issue were suppressed in the Soviet zone and later in the DDR. Poland itself had lost territory to the Soviet Union, resulting in resettlements from these lost territories to the newly acquired territories in the west (former German eastern territories). The "policy of détente" initiated by the social-liberal government in the early 1970s (basic agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and the DDR, reconciliation with Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union) recognized the realities of the division and, in turn, attempted to counteract its consequences (e.g., through visitor regulations).
The long-term impact of this policy resulted in German reunification and good neighborly relations between Germany and Poland, as well as the integration of both countries into the EU and NATO.
