THE territories detached from Germany as a result of the provisional
ruling of the Potsdam Conference of 1945 form the present Polish
voivodships of Opole, Wroclaw, Zielona Góra, Szczecin, Koszalin, and
Ołsztyn and parts of the voivodship of Gdańsk. In 1939, they com-
prised the German administrative districts (Regierungsbezirke) of
Allenstein, Marienwerder, Köslin, and Stettin; the German provinces
of Niederschlesien (Lower Silesia) and Oberschlesien (Upper
Silesia); and parts of the administrative district of Frankfurt Oder.
The Free City of Danzig, under the supervision of the League of
Nations, also formed part of the territory now administered by Po-
land. The districts of Allenstein and Marienwerder were part of the
German province of Ostpreussen (East Prussia), and Köslin and Stet-
tin were part of Pommern (Pomerania). Northern East Prussia,
which was occupied by the U.S.S.R., will not be dealt with in this con-
text. The territories now under Polish administration comprise
39,400 square miles and are approximately the size of the state of Vir-
ginia, or 24 per cent of the territory of the German Reich as of 1937. ¹

These territories are often referred to as "the Oder-Neisse prov-
inces" because they comprise that part of the German Reich, as of
1937, east of the Oder and Neisse rivers. This terminology connotes
less partisanship than the German authors' use of the term "Eastern
Germany" and the Polish authors' use of the term "Western Poland."
An even more inappropriate terminology is found in the works of cer-
tain Polish authors who describe these areas -- which have not been
part of the Polish state since the Middle Ages -- as "recovered" or
"regained" Polish territories. Therefore, in this book, the term for

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