*Do you think this would have been a good idea?* Also, Play Enlisted now with my link, and get a free bonus pack including soldiers, weapons, and premium account: playen.link/generalknowledge
At first I thought: "what a corrupt idea" After a second thought, however, and especially after considering what eventually happened to Germany, it seems like an agreeable idea. Prussia would've kept the eastern regions, and since this wicked 'Danube country' is a totally unrealistic idea and probably would've split up in a few years (if not weeks) it would've most likely resulted in a reunification of Germany with it's pre-war borders.
The truth is that if there was no threat from the USSR, today there would be several independent German states. The threat from Stalin convinced the Western countries to keep Germany as one country, which would be a buffer between them and the East. After all, it is still strange that independent Lusatia was not created and Denmark did not receive the rest of Schleswig-Holstein
From what I've read, Roosevelt also had a plan himself, which would've involved completely dissolving Germany into a series of separate states, basically returning the region to what it was before unification.
And how would they have made sure it staid seperate? Permanent military occupation? In our timeline, the Americans pushed for rearming West Germany as early as 1951 because the cost of having hundreds of thousand US soldiers permanently stationed in West Germany (even without them actively carrying out a military occupation) was staggering and the President feared losing congressional funding.
It is a pity that this was not done. Germany should have been divided already after the First World War. Unfortunately, this was not decided at the time, and instead an "armistice for 20 years" was chosen, as Marshal Foch put it. The result of the failure to split Germany at Versailles was World War II, after which Germany was not divided either (only into two states, one of which still remained a power). In contrast, it was utterly short-sighted to allow the reunification of Germany in 1991, which made Germany think again in terms of empires and large territories, with negative consequences for the whole of Europe. Germany is too big for Europe. It should be divided into a number of smaller states (around 10 million like Austria), because only then would it focus on its own development and not on trying to subjugate Europe. Only by breaking up Germany can Prussian imperialism and the drive for hegemony be killed in Germany.
Churchill wanted to do the most British thing ever: partitioning an intact country to prevent conflict (which doesn't actually work). Trivia question: Which British statesman suggested the partition of newly independent French Indochina into northern and southern halves. Sir Anthony Eden (Churchill's former foreign minister).
I wouldn’t say it doesn’t work. If you divide it enough and ensure it doesn’t unite then it won’t be able to fight again. The problem is either not dividing it enough or not punishing it enough and just passing it off like in ww1.
@@maxdavis7722 The treaty of versaille is nowadays largely blamed for creating the nazis. If you drive a country to shit you leave them no choice but to start another war. Chances are even if there was no hitler some other nutso would have steared germany into war. Thats why nowadays a more diplomatic approach is always considered better.
The british don't cut up countries to prevent conflict. They cut them up to "CAUSE" conflict. It has a name, divide and conquer. British Imperialism and doing Divide and conquer to over 100 hundred countries. Many countries are in conflicts today because of this. The UK itself could be Partitioned into 3 kingdoms. This would not cause peace in the UK it would cause chaos and the wars that would follow. And when we cut the UK up into 3 kingdoms, we make sure to ethnic groups isolated in each country. Now you have the middle-east and africa style conflicts.
As an Austrian, I must say that Churchill's plan would have been advantageous for Austria. A state with the economic heavyweights Austria, Bavaria and Baden Württemberg would have been created, which would probably still exist today, while Hungary would certainly have seceded decades ago and would be its own sovereign state by now.
At that time, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg were pretty poor with mostly agrarian economy, not too much of use for Austria that had access to the same resources. The economic build-up of those regions happened mostly in the 60s, financed by the revenue from coal and steel of the Ruhr valley, which makes today's arrogance of Bavaria much more ironic.
Wie der andere schon erwähnt hat, ist speziell Bayern erst Ende der 60er auf Kosten des zerstörten Restdeutschlands reich geworden und war bis tief in die 70er unter dem Bundesdurchschnitt was Reichtum und Wirtschaft angeht. Auch Baden-Württemberg hat profitiert, aber die waren schon vorher halbwegs reich und sind nicht im Ansatz so nervig, daher nehme ich das denen nicht übel. Tatsächlich würde ich vermuten, dass die international kontrollierte Zone sich sehr schnell Deutschland wieder hätte anschließen können (durch die politische Lage im kalten Krieg) und diese südliche Konföderation auch recht schnell zerfallen wäre, was dann entweder in einem Süd- und Norddeutschland oder einem großen Gesamtdeutschland geendet hätte. Du musst bedenken, dass die österreichische Nationalidentität erst in der Nachkriegszeit geboren wurde und es davor kaum jemanden bis keinen gab, der sich nicht gleichzeitig als Deutschen gesehen hat (ich will eure Souveränität hier nicht wie andere in Frage stellen). Bei BW und in Bayern gerade Franken wäre es noch viel schwieriger, denen die deutsche Identität auszutreiben, weshalb ich eher früher oder später von einem Zusammenschluss zu einem Deutschland ausgehen würde.
@@ArchsageCanas Austria was cheated after WWI & a merger with Catholic Germany would have been smart, but Hungary, too, would have been repeat imperialism. To this day, economically, it would be wise to merge Australia with Germany or Czech Republic
Churchill's plan needs to be considered in the context of his concerns (which were proven correct) about the Westward spread of communism. A hypothetical Danubian Confederation would have locked Hungary and Carpatho-Ukraine to the likes of Bavaria and Austria - potentially keeping them more in the Western "sphere". This was also the reason why Churchill kept arguing for prioritising the liberation of the Balkans over France (the "Southern Strategy") - something US General Mark W. Clark later stated that not pursuing further was one of his biggest regrets of the war. Although it's easy to laugh at the border-gore of the Danubian Confederation, it needs to be taken alongside Churchill's "iron curtain" logic. However, it probably doesn't help that Churchill was blind drunk when first proposing it - just as when offering Northern Ireland to tempt Ireland to join the war.
@@General.Knowledge nah the rest of the plan makes sense too. Just like the American dude he wanted their industrial heartland and resources to be outwith their control to prevent a future war. He wanted a large state in the south capable of holding communism back in the east and he wanted north Germans to still remain in tact as a player in Europe, likely to also stand as a block for communist advances. All of it is sensical if you completely ignore the religious and ethnic tensions that could be stoked by dividing western Germany purely for industrial reasons and merging Austria Hungary in with south Germans decades after their state collapsed.
It wasn’t just Churchills plan, it was Otto von Hapsburgs. He wanted to bring the smaller nations into a big one to protect them from Germany, Russia, communism, and nationalism. Really interesting figure
Wouldn’t such a long NATO-aligned corridor stretching across central Europe to Ukraine have caused serious problems with the Soviets though? Stalin was already paranoid enough without a new NATO country bordering him. May have even started WW3
2:03 “I don’t wanna fly, so I’ll just tell them my doctor advises me to not take long trips” Picks up phone and tells operator to call his doctor, so he can force a sick note
Funfact, most German states were created during the occupation of the Allies wich means that states like North Rhine-Westphalia or Lower Saxony are older than West Germany itself.
Lower Saxony existed as an entity already in the 900s, but the name is new. Otto the Great came from there, but it was only called 'Saxony' then. It's called Lower Saxony today, because another state used the name Saxony, while Lower Saxony was in principle the state of Hannover.
@@francisdec1615 Ancient Saxony was an independent entity in the past, but Lower Saxony is a rather newly founded subject of the former British Occupation Zone and a federal subject of Germany now. The name is definitely based on the Ancient Saxon peoples though, who generally evolved in becoming a part of the German nation.
@@eljanrimsa5843 That is true, however there has also been a Thuringian Lawcode wich existed around the same time when the Bavarian law code was established. Hesse however is the oldest mikrotop within Germany, if you exclude minitops (municipalities and cities).
Sure has, ended well for armament and manufacturing industries and untouchable nobility.. ack cough excuse me, notable uber wealthy families and politicians.
Have the British done worse than other countries trying to do the same? A bad idea is a bad idea. Seeing a bad idea and saying “I blame Britain and will ignore the many other nations which did the same” is not an adult approach.
sad to say, dividing areas by religion does have some cynical sense to it. the problem is there are always "enclaves" left of minority groups who will be discriminated against and resented by the surrounding majority. if they are forced to migrate to new lands they will be seen as interlopers and will always retain a hunger to reclaim the homelands from which they were ousted.
I have an aunt that ran out of Budapest with her family when she was 8 in 1956. Through landmines even! I think they might have been lugging gold because of how they all live in California, my uncle hasn't had an outstanding career.
so I’m a german, to be more precise a bavarian, from my point of view Churchills plan was actually a way more rational/logical one than all the others. It would have worked to split germany by cultural/religious borders way better than by the arbitrary ones eventually chosen and It would have prevented the soviets from taking a german state and rebuilding it to a puppet state. I would have preferred it.
I mean, there was no real competition. Morgenthau was just genocide with extra steps (he himself projected up to 40 Million people would starve from it), the French and Roosevelt's proposal was basically a restoration of the Germany from a century prior (which was well on its way to unification). Preventing reunification would have meant permanent occupation. And the division plan we got was initially supposed to be temporary but with the Allies quickly starting to infight, any further reforms or move to a more permanent solution was thwarted, which eventually got us the two Germanies we had.
I'm Hungarian and I agree with you. This Federation on the Danube would've prevented hell a lot of sufffering. Plus it would've been economically successful, too.
@@sakakaka4064 No, it was a tragedy and a travesty. Over a million people forced to leave their houses for ruined and dangerous lands, others stuck in USSR or deported to Siberia. Great material and cultural losses. There was nothing good about that.
@@aleksanderkorecki7887 Those people would be forced out of their houses either way. Stalin just wanted Eastern Poland. Stalin's plan at least gave Poland the western territories.
Why should have De Gaulle been allowed to go the conference? France shouldn't have been at the winning table anyway, the French "Resistance" wasn't the legimitate power, Vichy France was. Americans even tried to negotiate with Vichy officials.
What "Vichy France"? That France died in 1943 when Case Anton was activated. For all intents and purposes, there is no French government after 1943 but De Gaulle's. And frankly speaking, De Gaulle has some legitimacy with being in that conference: he won that war against the Germans and France, whether you like it or not, is an important part of Washington's battle plan should the Soviets think of invading the West...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 De Gaulle and France didn't win anything other than forcing the liberation of Paris which delayed the Allied forces and inadvertently helped the Soviets occupy Berlin, keep living in dream world lol.
Excellent video! Stalin actually played Churchill and Roosevelt for mugs and got away with it, while his 'forces' ravaged and looted their way through eastern Europe. Churchill was also PM of the British Empire, about 1/4 of the Earth's surface, and not just the UK. The French were not invited mainly because of Stalin, who did not trust them as they signed a treaty with Hitler: Vichy also supported supported Hitler.
You, sir, are a True Historian. Diligent, utterly unbiased research into the finer points of history. Videos like this will endure for a long time among historians, both professionals and armchair (like me), who just want to find as closer path as possible to What Really Happened. Congratulations on a great video and a great channel, and thank you for all your hard work.
Precisely. In 1918 France forgot already how was treated in 1815, conserving mostly intact the territory pre-1789 and seating with the victorious Allies - UK, Austria, Russia, Prussia, Portugal and Spain - in Vienna, in similar level.
Look at old maps and you will see that a third of France was part of Germany before. That is why the Germans hated the France in the past. Good that this times are gone.
You play this as a joke but yes, pretty much. They wanted to establish the Rhine as their eastern border and some proposals even planned for taking the Ruhr valley. The Dutch had similar plans btw. The Rest of the country was supposed to be shattered into some kind of neo Confederation of the Rhine - all politically and economically dependent on France.
“So how about we take southern Germany, and merge it with countries bordering the Danube! It’s genius!” Borders it with Czechoslovakia and makes it look like worse border gore
@@marcdigiambattista751 I mean tbf those borders were only meant to be colonial borders for ease of administration and dividing the people, not national borders.
Marc DiGiambattista why do you only blame the British for that when the french are just as much at fault. For example the British wanted a kurdistan but the french refused.
Actually that's a pretty sane border. The entire border is the Carpathian Mountains, the weird one is Carpathian Ukraine as its on the opposite side of the range.
France’s position was that of both an equal, and not. After the war, everyone claimed to be part of The Resistance. The reality was that most people weee not - and understandably so. The Free French are remembered as part of the Allies, but it was only relatively late in the war that FDR became convinced that they were a more useful ally than Vichy France. In the post-war era France was made an equal in imposing decisions that had been made without her (eg Responsibility for one of the four occupation zones), because Britain wanted to dilute American and Soviet power. De Gaulle obviously always wanted to be treated as an equal to the Big Three, but this was never the case. And whilst all of that is a sizeable aside, it makes the one-sentence inclusion in this video more than worth including.
The French were lucky to be included at all. In any way. It would have been more appropriate to give part of Germany to the Poles. Rather than the French.
de Gaulle supported the war effort and was the de-facto leader of the French government in exile. One thing is arguing if France "had done enough" in the war, but more French died than British or US Americans. But one thing is for sure: by not inviting him, he was forever skeptical of the US and the UK. He vetoed the UK out of the EU as long as he could and denying them influence. He took France outside of the normal NATO structure to avoid being bossed by the US. He defined France's future policies, where France will almost automatically abstain from supporting the US in any military operations (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc). Looking retrospectively, it may have been a good idea to invite him, at least for the UK and the US.
It might be worth to note, that Austria's independence after WWII was far from being popular at that time. In the end, many Austrians felt probably even more German, than some Bavarians. Also, the "Germans" from Sudetenland (ethnically mixed part of Bohemia) were technically more Austrian than German if you wanted to separate the two ethnical backgrounds. It's actually kind of interesting, how western allies thought about dividing Germany, but at the same time treated Austria as just another German state in most of their plans. What I am basically trying to say: There was a separation into 2 German states (+ Saar Protectorate as mentioned in the video), which makes the other proposals not too far-fetched. This all shows, how modern borders have come around more due to geo strategies, rather than cultural or historical reasons. It's such a bad joke towards Poland, that after all the suffering, a treaty between the Nazis and the Soviets (both of which were clearly not invited to come to Poland) remained valid.
You might be interested to know that even Czechoslovakia, a state that existed in the grip between Germany and Austria, had its rather large territorial claims. Already after the occupation in 1939, the resistance organisation "Obrana národa"(Defence of the Nation) demanded a land corridor between Austria and Hungary to the Adriatic Sea. The northern part of the corridor would belong to Czechoslovakia and the southern part to the friendly Yugoslavia. Exiled President Benes, during a meeting in Moscow in December 1943, was challenged by Stalin himself to mark on a map the parts of Germany he claimed for post-war Czechoslovakia. Benes resisted. He claimed that he would be content with the Czechoslovakia within its pre-war borders, only wishing to "somewhat strengthen" the Kladsko region, which had historically belonged to the Kingdom of Bohemia. Stalin immediately assigned Kladsko to him. This area was later allocated to Poland and the Czech population was evicted. In February 1945, President Benes submitted a map of Czechoslovakia to the British Foreign Office with a proposal for post-war border adjustments. It envisaged ceding Cheb, Frýdlant, Rumburk, Broumov and the area between Javorník and Osoblaha to Germany, where a strong German minority lived, while the remaining border line of the Czechoslovak state was to be moved behind the mountain peaks into German territory. Southern Kladsko and large areas of Upper Silesia were to be annexed to Czechoslovakia. Beneš stressed that, measured by population, the proposed exchange of territory was disadvantageous for the Czechoslovakia. After the end of the Second World War, Czechoslovakia claimed the Reich-German territories outside the pre-Munich borders with at least 2,200,000 inhabitants, and the cession of some border districts was out of the question. It was believed that the moment had come for the expansion of the state's territory, that Czechoslovakia was an object of special favour with the Great Powers, thus repeating the same Czech delusion of the post-World War I era. The catalogue of territorial demands included Kladsko, the whole of Lusatia, the whole of Silesia, a "fair" border in the Šumava region, the areas along the river Saale, and it also included moving the Czechoslovak border to the left bank of the Danube from Regensburg to Bratislava. There was also a demand for the division of the whole of Austria between Czechoslovakia and Germany. In June 1945, when Beneš learned of these truly grandiose plans, mostly submitted through individual ministries, he warned the government, which was very much in favour of it, not to approve such plans "in the fever of victory", because he feared that greater territorial gains would complicate the internal situation of the state and burden relations with Germany or Austria in the future. Personally, he still did not rule out the possibility of giving up some districts to Germany. The situation eventually resulted in the expulsion of about 3 million people of German nationality, the loss of Subcarpathian Ukraine to the Soviet Union and the gain of three villages south of Bratislava at the expense of Hungary. From today's point of view, it was an absolutely insane time and insane solutions. If you would like to provide any further information, I can be at your disposal.
This plan was crazy. But as a German and, by family's background, Prussian, I like the idea of 'keeping' Pomerania and Silesia rather than Bavaria in Germany.
Technically, German Prussia came about from the combination of two territories: That of the Teutonic Order and that of the Margrave of Brandenburg. Brandenburg is still around and together with Berlin it keeps working on restoring aspects of Prussian culture that were destroyed by the East Germans and the Soviets. Berlin rebuilt the old City Palace, Potsdam the old Garrison Church which harbored the Hohenzollern family tombs
As someone from the Rhine, I support the idea of handing Bavaria to Austria even nowadays. Czechia or Poland can have Saxony if they want it. We'd even pay a lot for them to get that.
@@gaborjuracsik4847 figyelj, így megmenekültünk volna a szovjet megszállás elől, és megtarthattunk volna pár korábban visszacsatolt területet is. Ez az új ország mára már valószínűleg felbomlott volna, és most akkor lenne egy független országunk, a magyarlakta területek egy része nálunk lenne, fejlettebb lenne az ország mivel a nyugathoz tartozott, és nem szenvedtük el a szocializmust se.
@@bazsamester Mémet többség lett volna...Ennek ellenérvnek elégnek kell lennie, de ragozom egy kicsit. A németek hajlamosabbak az ideológiákra, míg a magyar nép igazából túlságosan cinikus ehhez, így ekkora területtel úgy, hogy bármikor leszavaznak szinte teljesen biztos belevittek volna minket valami hülyeségbe. Nem mintha eleve teljesen lehetetlenség az, hogy Szovjetunió határába legyünk úgy, hogy ténylegesen a kárpátoknál jól lehet védekezni. Se az USA, se a szovjet nem engedte volna meg ezt, és egyébként az Ukrán Banderistákat gyakorlatilag megszakítás nélkül finanszírozta az USA, ami világosan mutatja azt, hogy az egészet szétszedi a világpolitika. Ezt nem a jó értelemben értem. Aztán a gazdagság... Megvannak az okai annak, hogy miért fejlődhetett Nyugatnémet, mert a geopolitika ezt kívánta. Ausztria is semleges országként kirakatország volt, és ez megváltozik. Mivel a lényege ennek, hogy nem szovjet (miért is nem szovjet?), így nincsen olaj se. A szovjet fejlődést a hibás gazdaságpolitikán kívül alapvetően két dolog akadályozta. A 45 utáni időkben a fegyverkezés, utána meg az impexekkel csináltak szocialista vagyont. Ha ezek nincsenek mert nem vagyunk a szocialista blokkba, attól még kérdés, hogy éppen mit terveznek nyugaton. Mostanra már el kellene múlnia az illúzióknak. Egyébként meg egy tengerpart nélküli országról beszélünk, tehát nincsen esély arra, hogy az ország önmagától a világkereskedelem része legyen, hanem ez a szomszédoktól függ.
@@gaborjuracsik4847 Miért? Magyarországnak mindenképpen jobb lett volna. Megmenekült volna a kommunizmustól, megmaradt volna Kárpátalja Magyarországon, s egy ekkora országgal már nem mertek volna barátságtalankodni a kis entente szomszédok. Amennyiben pedig az alkotmányos keretek megfelelőek lettek volna, akkor az osztrákokkal és a németekkel is könnyű lett volna jól kijönni. akkoriban még sokkal több magyar beszélt németül, mint manapság, mindenki azt tanulta az iskolákban.
@@Akitlosz Az osztrákok berángattak minket az 1. világháborúba, berángattak a 2. világháborúba, és lehet berángatnak a 3. világháborúba. Te meg üdvözlöd és optimista vagy azzal az állammal kapcsolatban, amelyben a német többség könnyedén leszavazhat minket. Nem értem az optimizmusodat. Kicsit más, a kommunizmussal kapcsolatban. Éppen a minap találkoztam egy osztállyal amelyikben a gyerekek támogatókat kerestek transz és kisebbségi témában. Mikor számon kértem őket, hogy ez identitáspolitika, és mint ilyen kommunista politikai aktivizmus, amelyet iskolai keretek között nem szabad végezni, akkor egyszerűen letagadták, hogy ez politika lenne. Ha egyszer szemmel láthatóan most is itt a kommunista aktivizmus, ha egyszer most is itt van a kommunizmus, akkor hogyan menekültünk volna meg ettől a felvázolt esetben?
Good job on the video, was very interesting, just one thing. THOSE WEREN'T NATIONS. Germany wasn't divided into nations, but rather states or countries. You see, those aren't different nations because all of them were based on a single nationality - germans. A nation and a country aren't the same thing. A nation is a group of people with a shared ancestry nationality wise and usually they also share a language that's exclusive to just their nation. Now the proposed german states wouldn't fit that criteria because all of them were based on the same nation - the germans, and so they're rather states and countries, not nations.
Except you can argue South Germany and North Germany are different nations as they have different cultures, language, history, religion, etc. Yes different langauges, Austro-bavarian is quite different or northern 'standard' German. It's entirely possible to have South German nationalism and pan-german nationalism. The existance of 1 does not discount the existance of the other.
@@matthiuskoenig3378You didn't understand what I was saying. You can argue that they are and aren't the same nation, because there is no single objective way to mark the distinction, and so it's futile to speak of in the first place. Secondly, as I said, language is irrelevant to all this, so is religion. Thirdly, I didn't say anything about cultures, that's your own adding. I also didn't say that south/north German nationalism can't co-exist together. You got the whole message mixed up. The most important part of the said is the context. My whole point is that he's using the term "nation" in the wrong context. He was talking about political borders, the means of which disregarded the nationality aspect. The states that were proposed would be satellites and not countries with the mere purpose of serving the nation. So the context (The whole meaning of what General Knowledge was saying) was implying the definition of state. And by the sheer amount of it's misusage, I figured that he didn't mix them up by accident, but rather he thinks that they are interchangeable. And it's definitely the case for the majority of people, so I wanted to educate you all on that.
@@brutusthebear9050 read the other reply for the main explanation, but no, I'm not saying that south germans are or aren't a separate nation, that's a whole other discussion, I'm saying that even if south germany fits the criteria, it's not thanks to the right reasons, the whole context infers to the term of state. all of the states would have to be separate nations for the term "nation" to be eligible.
@@IdkIdk-mz3ij you are right. A confederation would not have _created_ a nation. Native English speakers are often a bit sloppy with such distinctions. And we, who use the language as a lingua franca, may well know the difference in our native language. But even if we do, it's too easy to mix them up in English.
There's nothing particularly 'crazy' about putting the southern parts of Germany with Austria. I suppose throwing Hungary in there seems a bit strange to us now, but it probably came about from concerns about the viability of small states in central-Europe (which is why Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia existed).
It is really crazy... What would you think if an victorious Germany of ww1 in some alternative history decided to give Scotland to Ireland, make Wales independent and split up England along the borders of the heptarchy existing in the 5th to 8th century?
Churchill wanted as little Soviet influence in Europe as possible. Hungary, including Transcarpathia, would have been saved from communism with this plan. Confederation of the Danube country would have been sufficient for self-defense. Hungary would have supported this plan (if the country's constitution had been acceptable).
@@Akitlosz On the back of the german society.. South Germany is the economic centre of the country. North Germany has basically as much induntry like an 3rd world country. Splitting up germany would break the spine of the germans... (On the other side who would miss the germans anyway...)
As a Hungarian, I believe we would have been better off, been part of that confederation... Synergies could have played well: German states were mostly industrial, Hungary was agrarian... I do not think they have tried to suppress or assimilate us, they knew they couldn't assimilate such a rebellious nation, so they wouldn't try... And remember: Austria-Hungary worked quite well...
Back then these southern german states were more agrarian too, Bavaria became so productive because the Industry from Thuringia and Saxonia moved (mostly to Bavaria) after it found it that there was Russian control there, while there was American control in Bavaria. But I agree as a Swabian with a Hungarian wife, we would have made a great country! All these corruption issues, that the Soviets imported to Hungary would barely exist, and the hard working Hungarian people had less too complain about ;)
As a Slovak, Austria-Hungary did not work well. LOL. I will agree that probably any solution that would have kept us from enduring communism might have been better.
Hello, I didn´t watched the whole video, but I can confirm that originally Germany was supposed to hand over only Upper Silesia to Poland, Your map is right. It was said that the river Neisse would be a border river and was not explained which Neisse was in mind. Churchill ment Glatzer Neiße, but Stalin ment Lusatian Neisse. It gave more territory to Poland than planed before.
Hmmm great that no-one seemed to consider returning Carpathian Ukraine to Czechoslovakia to which it originally belonged before the Soviets annexed it after CZ was dismantled by her “allies”.
Winston was probably really drunk when he came up with this one. The man had a 1000 ideas a day, 5 were utter brilliance the likes of which the world had never seen before, the rest were dumpster fires. No in betweens.
Morgenthau hated Germans and wanted to destroy their industry and their future. Stalin hated the Nazis (and virtually everybody, including own citizens) and wanted to take a chunk of their territory. Churchill wanted to destroy any empire that may rival his - but as a war reparations, he wanted to loot Germany for every bottle of high quality cognac or brandy he could get his hands on.
Churchill wrote in his memoir that dividing up the Habsburg empire was a big mistake. Hitler was able to make the dominos fall one by one - and he expected Stalin would do the same after WW2 thus rushing down the Balkans and perhaps capture the Bosporus. Churchill "convinced" exile governments to enter into agreements that after the war Poland and Czechoslovakia would form a confederacy and the same in the Balkans with Yugoslavia and Greece. Following his meeting with Roosevelt in Casablanca he flew to Adana to meet the Turkish leadership. He envisioned a plan (1) Türkiye should form an anti-communist pact (2) Hungary and Romania should come to an agreement about Transylvania (3) as soon as the Red Army got in the vicinity of the Carpathian Mountains, Germany was expected to begin the withdrawal from the Balkans (4) At this point the Turkish army would enter Bulgaria unopposed and rush northwards trailing the Germans (5) The Hungarian army would hold the Carpathians, while the Romanian army would hold the line of the Danube and prevent the Red Army from entering the Balkans until the Turks reached these countries (6) British paratroopers would land in Hungary and probably Romania to ensure "allied liberation" of these lands thus robbing Stalin the reason to enter them. So... Churchill might have been a great orator, but he was completely out of touch with reality. He thought he can handle these countries as Lego pieces - combining them at his whim. So yeah, Churchill and his crazy plans.
I think it was a big mistake denying the unification after the first WW. I 100% understand the reason of not making Germany even stronger than before the war but it really showed the hypocrisy of the "self-determination of people". Nowadays that's of the table. Austria is just a completely different country. They speak for most high German speakers almost unrecognizable accent and their culture is like every stereotype about Germans ×2. Like Bavaria².
@@derdude6214 In my Opinion the Austrians are our Brothers. Austrian Culture is almost the same than south Bavaria and Württemberg. Most of them are perfectly capable to speak High German. We should be one state!
@@nmz6258 Just like the Swiss are our brothers too! And tbh when you move from Germany to Austria you are not a foreigner, to be fair, hardly one from Europe is considered that anymore but nonetheless. Lets see it as a friendly competition of different systems that are very similar culturally.
Will not stand a chance. Austria/Bavaria/Bayern, is to do. But including Hungary it will fail. This because of differences (like language, cultural, etc). As save example, Belgium. No one in Belgium and around it (Netherlands, Luxembourg) will be suprised if they split up one day as Flanders and Wallonia are different (language/culture). Flanders wants to be their own country and France even already once said to not mind adopting Wallonia if they ask to join it after a Belgium breakup.
I want to remember that (beside the the millions of victims who suffered from German actions) there were 12 to 16 million Germans who were forcefully expelled from their home. Even if they could flee from Soviet or Polish rape, torture and murder in time, they were not welcome in the heavily destroyed remaining parts of Germany. I don't want any pity, just that they are not forgotten.
I think it could have worked. I am surprised that the map of his Confederation of the Danube includes Bozen (South Tyrol). That indicates it was made before Italy switched sides in 1943.
I really think this plan could have turned out well in the long run. Perhaps Rupprecht of Bavaria could have become King of the Danubian Confederation, as he was an ally of the British before and during WW2. And after a few decades of separation, the Northern and Southern parts of Germany, along with the Rhineland, could have reunited. Essentially a German reunification as we saw it, but with more land and less expulsion of innocent German civilians. Hungary could have become independent and gotten Carpatho-Ukraine.
This plan wasn't bad. Was Bolzano maybe dominated by Germans? I can no longer remember where I read about this planned Danubian Confederation. Probably in one of the many books about Winston Churchill. Anyway, the passage in the book I read put languages and ethnicities at the forefront. There I got the impression that *_Trieste_* was included in this Danubian Confederation (“because” Trieste was multi-ethnic with Italians, Slovenes and Germans). But not so on the map here. Perhaps my memory is wrong. Or maybe there was more than one version of this British plan.
@@julianton3340 ... but geografically mixed. Think of Transsylvania. A Confederation with two official languages would have caused less problem because there lived both Hungarians and Germans all over the place. Compare Finland for a somewhat similar situation with a dispersed minority, and coincidenctally the same combination of an indo-european and a fenno-ugric language. If Swedes in Finland can learn Finnish, then Germans in Hungary would be able to learn Hungarian.
@@CosmicCreeper99 I agree with you I know about them all too, but for specification when many of the west country people do honour Churchill I and all of India are always against that bastard because of his treating of humans like animals by not giving them their rights and food to live (not even water).
Too harsh peace terms lead to a radicalisation. If Germany was partitioned more, nazism may have continued to exist in the peoples mind. Do you want to prove again that third time's the charm?
As German citizen (Bavaria) I think this plan was quite good. The Danube states have more in common than nowadays Northern and Southern Germany, which are totally different in culture, religion etc.
Brazil is similar to Germany north and south there race is different while Germany is religion the southern states of both countries have similar in cultures both whites and Catholics
I think Churchill's plan was to build states strong enough to resist Soviet influence, with that last little Ukrainian chunk intended to provide the Danube Confederation with a more easily defended mountain border.
No wonder why the borders of old Hungary were the Carpathian mountains. Those are pretty easy to defend. Even the Red Army couldn't break through those lines fortified by the Hungarian Army and military engineers in the Eastern Carpathians during WW2.
Why they gave Sud-Tyrol to Italy at end of WW1 as the mountain ridge with high passes and in winter only Brenner usable, were easier to defend. Why the Elsas were given to France in WW1 as the Rhine river was easier to defend.
The Austrians and hungarians did try to reunify before ww2 but were blocked by nabouring powers so it's likely Churchill wanted to join them together to create a semi-supported stronger southern state.
What I take away from the West's handling of Germany after WWII is that we actually learned something from the failure of the Treaty of Versailles. We also applied this logic to our relationship with Japan after WWII. It erked a lot of people who suffered but was the right decision for the long run.
Thing about revenge is, it gives the perpetrator an excuse to feel like the victim and lash out again - causing a cycle of mutual violence. With the way Germans were treated after the war, most of them had absolutely no excuse to victimize themselves.
But, the treatment of Germans was much harsher post ww2 than post ww1. Millions of them were ethnically cleansed from Eastern Europe and Prussia, and they lost 1/3rd of their lands and were directly occupied by foreign powers for years.
@@ruas4721 As I said: "most" - and the abhorrent treatment the expulsed people faced by the people who were moved to their lands proved a major hinderance in normalizing post-war relations - because in West Germany these refugees were a major voter demographic and any move towards accepting the Oder-Neiße Line would have meant losing the next election.
Versailles was a failure because of the war guilt and reparations, which made WWII inevitable later on, because a lot of Germans were angry at the humiliation they received
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 disagree - then Poland was also a victory power;-) excuse me, France was f*cked in WWII. And it was a joke that they were called and treated as victory power together with the other three. Has DeGaulle brown-nosed Truman or what🤣
@@NDScalio And don't have half of our pre war territory in East. And was handed in soviet influence for nearly 50 years. When Germany, lost the war, and without soviets, were able to rebuild in those years. Who is now victorious?
“We may allow ourselves a brief moment of rejoicing.” - the most British sentence ever. In contrast with the German equivalent, “You have 5 minutes of rejoicing. Ve’re vatching. All right, rejoicing done.”
Honestly, Churchill's plan isn't even that crazy if you think about it, at least this country would have had some connective tissue by mixing the somewhat coherent parts of Austria-Hungary with the culturally close-ish Bavaria. The Morgenthau Plan on the other hand would just have meant the creation of a state somewhere between Mao's Great Leap China and modern day Somalia in central Europe...
“We promised the Europeans freedom. It would be worse than dishonorable not to see they have it. This might mean war with the Russians, but what of it? They have no Air Force anymore ,their gasoline and ammunition supplies are low .I've seen their miserable supply trains; mostly wagons drawn by beaten up old hoses or oxen. I'll say this; the Third Army alone with very little help and with damned few casualties, could lick what is left of the Russians in six weeks. You mark my words. Don't ever forget them. Someday we will have to fight them and it will take six years and cost us six million lives.” -General Patton
Clever guy that Patton. Russia should have had been destroyed in 1945 in the same way Naci Germany was. Me - as a Czechoslovak - and other hundreds of millions of people (central Europe and 14 non-russian soviet states) could have had much better life in 50,60,70 and 80-ies. And no war today.
Except he was just plain and simply stupidly wrong. The Soviet war machine was by 1945 a well oiled fully motorised force to be reckon with. Yes they didn't seek out for bonus points for style. But they where efficient and well equipped.
@@rosomak8244 he was a successful general and he was right on the ground, are you suggesting he was wrong and that his own eyes deceived him or that he was lying?
It is interesting to note that Russia actually played a significant role in starting World War II by collaborating with Germany to annex territories belonging to other countries. This included parts of Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. While Germany was punished for its role in starting the war, Russia was able to retain its territorial gains and even made further advances as an ally of the US and UK.
@@ruas4721 Professional historians write history. Germany pushed Austria-Hungary into the war in 1914. It destroyed France’s Northern regions and mistreated the population where it advanced. And I suppose I don’t need to explain what Germany did during WW2.
yeah some people make sure to remember the invasion of east poland by soviet union in 1939, but most people forget the invasion of estonia, latvia and lithuania in 1940 by the soviet union.
@@andressorin1205 Everyone wanted the war and contracts are contracts for a reason. And do you realy want to talk about war crimes? Please learn something about real history before talk shit, in WW1 war crimes were the standard and in the second WW the allies were definitly not the good guys. The bombing of Dresden for example ... or the two liile explosions in Japan ... Germany definitly started WW2, but that dont deny the shit other countries did. And WW1 is the fault of everyone, besides that the treaty of Versailles already initiated the next war. It was not fair and everyone knew it. The only reason to punish germany like they did was fear and to increase their own influence.
@@ImperialDiecast You are interestingly (and correctly) noticing the soviet union in those actions. A few years ago, I visited a military museum in Belgium, and I noticed that alongside the US, UK, and French flags, there was also the Russian flag. I was surprised and asked about it, and I was informed that Russia is the successor of the USSR. It is ironic that, despite this, Russia's position in the UN and other aspects has been somewhat complicated. It is worth noting that during World War II, the white, blue, and red flag was used by the Russian Liberation Army (ROA), which was a part of the SS troops fighting alongside the Nazis. How is this possible to turn so short-minded?
The Potsdam conference had Truman take over for FDR (who had died) and halfway through Clement Attlee take over for Churchill (defeated in the UK election).
Don't know if a divided Germany could have escalated tensions to that point but ongoing insurgency could have made further occupation a pain in the ass. With Churchill's plan I still kinda see a way for peace though. Morgenthau's proposal on the other hand was just flat-out vile. Not so much the division itself but rather the economic measures accompanying it.
I can think of the country we need to apply this experience... In its case, it is even easier - they have internal administrative borders already, like Tatarstan, Sakha and Baskorkostan.
Great video. One small addition: the word root "Slav" is translated as (roughly) "fame" or "glory", and has a number of derived words, such as: "slava" = fame, "slavnyi" = nice, great. The Slav people are called "Slavyane". (Examples are from Russian)
The root meaning is "Word" and "Fame" is only a derivative as talking about someone had been equated to fame. It basically denotes people of a common language, which is largely linguistically correct. Slavic languages are technically just different dialects of a common language and still after even centuries highly intelligible between each other. This is even more obvious when you take note of the fact that Germans are called universally Niemcy in slavic countries - literally "people without a language".
@@rosomak8244нет, как носитель русского языка, напишу вам, мы не понимает примерно четверть написанного и сказанного носителями других славянских языков
DeGaulle wasn't invited as he was the non-leader of a recently liberated country... the same way as the Polish, Dutch or Italian were not invited. No matter what he thought of himself (and he surely thought a great lot of himself) he was an unelected military leader of a country that had to be rescued and liberated. He had no legitimate authority to bring to the table, could not commit France or French troops or French budget on any level.
One possible factor in what ultimately happened that was not mentioned was that the UK held an election in the middle of the Potsdam Conference. The Conference took a two day break, during which time the people of the UK ousted Churchill. When the conference resumed, Churchill had been replaced by Clement Atlee, who was in completely over his head meeting with Stalin, and was in no position to advance any proposals.
Patton was stupid dumb ads when it came to politics and so is everyone who agrees with him. If Germany had its way dozens of millions of Slavic people in Eastern Europe would be killed
The irony is that it was Churchill who was the main supporter of De Gaulle. For example, when Berlin was planned to be divided, Churchill gave a piece of the British Sector to the French. Didn’t stop De Gaulle vetoing the British entry to the EEC.
Actually Churchills plan has a similarity to the historical territory of the Habsburg Monarchy especially for parts of south-western Germany which was once Vorder-Österreich. So the division between north and south Germany would have been in my eyes as a southern German actually much more favorable than the splitting of North-Gerrmany, as the North Germans actually are sort of relatively more obnoxious to me than the rest - mostly because of how they speak the german language and force us southerns to speak it their way to. I actually hate to be in the same Germany with them since my whole life
Hochdeutsch ist doch viel eher Oberdeutsch als Niederdeutsch. Das Hochdeutsche ist durch die zweite Lautverschiebung entstanden, genau wie alle oberdeutschen Dialekte. Die niederdeutschen haben die i.A. nicht mitgemacht. Bekannteste Beispiele sind nd. maken versus obd. machen und nd. Appel versus obd. Apfel.
From a South German perspective the Churchill plan would not be been so bad. Especially the Bavarians would have liked it, but also many Swabians and Badians. The Austrians however would maybe not been so happy with it in the long term, because Bavaria and Munich would have become the heart of it, not so much Vienna. Even if Bavaria was at that time still a rather rural region and no economic powerhouse at all, but it would have sit in the middle between industrial Württemberg and old Austria, having the bulk of the population. (Hungary would have left the confederation as fast as possible.) The Rhinelanders and especially Adenauer would have hated it and demanded a Confederation of the Rhine and Danube, excluding Northern and Eastern Germany. An "international zone" however would never have worked but led to similar opposition like the French Ruhr politics after WW I (which was one of the factors helping the Nazis win power).
@@derdude6214 German Empire was just one great power in the powder keg that was Europe before WWI. WWII on the other hand was the direct consequence of the punitive peace treaty imposed on Germany with the hunger blockade. The Brits especially had a very unfounded hatred for Germans, because they felt threatened about the German unification and huge industrial output, and wanted to contain them in order to keep their hegemony safe. That, combined with their influence in international press, they really managed to smear the reputation of Germany in the eyes of others as well. It's pretty ironic that the Brits accused Germany of being expansionist after taking over the Czechs in 1939, while themselves they took German and Ottoman possessions in Africa, the Pacific and the Middle-East, that accounted SEVERAL times the size of the whole Germany.
@@goldbullet50 History isn't black and white. I think the Germans are mainly to blame for WW1. Not the outbrake but the escalation and the dragging on of the war since the high command knew that winning the war was nearly impossible after the Frontline froze. So it was just out of pride and stubbornness that they refused to seek peace on more moderate terms. And I hardly disagree on your stands on the second world war. The ones responsible for this horrible act were the disgusting fascists. No treaty in the whole world would give anyone the right to commit those inhumane atrocities. Also by the time the Regime rose to power the Treaty of versail was almost completely revised. German chanclor and minister for foreign affairs managed to establish Germany on the world stage again. I do agree that the Treaty of versail was hypocritical when you have the two biggest colonial empires enforcing "self-determination of people" and then preventing a then german nation from joining a german state. I understand why they did it but it was nonetheless unjustified. The British and French empire weren't moraly good states. Obviusly not. But they were so much better then the regime that industrialized mass murder. So Germany is responsible for both of the world wars in my opinion. The frist is debatable but there is no doubt about the second. Germany declared the war out of imperialist ambition and a dumb sense of racial superiority.
@@simonrobillard Because their economical engine outcompeted them and their empires are at risk. The real reason for WW1, and especially the way it developed, is the economical imbalances this created and the risk to the US economy if the British empire lost WW1 and the investment in it went south. After that, the French and the British had an instrument to keep German industry in check. Similarly, after WW2, one of the first things the US did is to confiscate all German patents and transfer a lot of key technology. It took (West) Germany 20 more years (until the 1960's) to recover, rebuild the damage from the war and generate a decent patent portfolio.
The idea of incorporating Hungary in a German state is hilarious. However, we will never know if it would have maybe worked. Normally you'd expect a country's partitioning to be about removing land from them, not giving them extra land.
There is a mistake in this video. When the red map of Germany appears it is supposed to represent pre war borders, but it appears by mistake you have attached Alsace-Lorraine to it. How can you miss such a big and obvious mistake?
Thought the same thing but maybe this was a template and not a self generated imagine and they didn't find any better reference material. That's my best guess or it was simple a moment
Alsace-Lorraine was incorporated into the German Reich the same way as Austria was. It is rather weird that the map left out Austria and the Sudeten provinces.
@@henningbartels6245 They tried showing the pre-nazi borders but accidentally included it it seems. In the video they show a map of Germany with it's post-ww1 losses highlighted at 4:32 and I believe that's what they used as the basemap, but maybe didn't see Alsace-Lorraine highlighted as well but didn't know better.
@@cactuscartocratus7228 there is some map confusion, I guess. The map shown at 4:32 outlines Germany prior to 1920, because it not only inludes Alsace-Lorraine lost to France afterwards, but also independent Danzig, as well as Posen, Western Prussia and Upper Silesia lost to Poland, the Memel strip which went to Lithuania and Northern Schleswig to Danmark and Eupen to Belgium. When the nazis came into power Germany had diffferent outlines - they annexted and incorperated some of the areas again mentioned above, but not all - plus others like Austria ... Apparently, Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg were somehow special, not fully incorporated but with German adminstration - but I know to little about it.
@@henningbartels6245 the region of Alsace & Lorraine, or rather Alsace & the Moselle “département” (Northern Lorraine) was annexed by the Reich in 1940, in violation of the Treaty of Armistice between France and Germany. Its citizens were considered Germans. Wikipedia: ”In spite of the 22 June 1940 armistice, Moselle was again annexed by Germany in July of that year by becoming part of the Gau Westmark. Adolf Hitler considered Moselle and Alsace parts of Germany, and as a result the inhabitants were drafted into the German Wehrmacht.” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moselle_(department)?searchToken=1g6prfogdwkcx6r0rxke30qi1
North Germany and the Prussian region suffered disproportionate punishment after World War II, while the more pro-Nazi South Germany and Austria were partially ignored, and it was assumed that the Nazis originated from Prussian militarism, but it was actually South German populism. So the North-South German solution actually made more sense, incorporating Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg into Austria to form a permanent neutral state and isolating Bavaria from mainstream German politics.
