Thanks to NATO, all Europe knows peace. No thanks whatsoever to the EUSSR. The sorry record of bungling in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo hasn't prevented the putrid Guy Verhofs-twat from banging the drum for war with Russia in the Ukraine with his yet-to-be-formed EUSSR army. Delusions of grandeur! You won't find him on the Russian Front. Thank God for BREXIT! It cannot come soon enough. Bring it on!
Warren Marsh the EU has given prosperity to Europe, and it makes Europeans more united and able to stand against outside influence. And looking at how brexit is going it seems as if your country will soon enough become the disunited kingdom.
@@yegors8959 You sound like one of those people who are like "the world is all full of good humanity and we should all unite and everything will be solved" xD
Spartan Fruze I mean, like that isn't true? Yeah I know it's optimistic but banding together will help Europe fight off foreign influence from China and the US.
Fun fact about those 7 meters of Belgium separating parts of Germany: the world record long jump, set in 1991, was 8.95 m meters. So the best long jumpers in the world could jump from Germany to Germany, over Belgium, at this spot.
As a Dutchman who lives in a small village next to the border to Germany (Winterswijk) I feel so awesome that my city was in a youtube video for one second
@@michel4962 Same here. I live in Rhede, Germany and Winterswijk is the nearest dutch village. Once a month or so on Saturdays we are going to your little cute Market to buy some local specials. :)
I once visited my sister in Konstanz (german side) and thought it would be fun to take the dog for a walk into switzerland. The swiss border guards let me through under the condition that i come back through the same checkpoint in less than an hour. I had a coffee and my dog a poo in switzerland and we went back. Problem was: the border guards didn't notice my dog when I went into switzerland and now thought i bought it there! It was a real hassle to get my dog back into my country. Schengen rocks.
If it was my dog, i would say to the border guard: lock. i let him stay with you, then i start walking. then see what the dog will do.^^ sure he follows^^ and the swiss dont have signed schengen (yet)
Pascus Rex Schengen also lets some airlines think they do not have to do passport checks to make sure they match the boarding card. Once I flew from Paris to Madrid on Air France, and at the boarding gate they just took the boarding card, swiped the bar code and gave it back to me. Anyone could have used that boarding card to get on the plane. KLM ALWAYS checks passport/boarding card Schengen to Schengen before boarding.
i live in Germany and my parents in France and i used to fly over for Christmas and the summer break and i rarely got a passport (or ID) check for the boarding the reason probably is that you get checked 2 times before that, at the check-in for your luggage and at the customs and you have a least to go through the customs.
@@Schuhmiball It was a short trip and I only had a Rucksack AND I didn't have to check in at the gate (I had a boarding card already issued to me from Amsterdam--Paris). So now explain. BTW at security they only wanted to see the boarding pass. FYI in the States you have to show a photo ID and they compare your name with that on the ticket.. Not saying it is better here; just saying.
@@multilingual972 yeah ok at security they should have checked your ID but sometime they don't. My guess would be that they would only check suspicious ppl or only if they are searching for someone.
i can tell you why germany has "weird" borders. Theyr not weird, they evolved in time by many wars and people who fought for their land. The "straight line" borders in America and Africa exist because someone invaded that county and said "ok well just split it up like that".
@@grzesieeeeeeeek Could you please explain how Germany invaded every country in the world? Also burning people in Auschwitz is a very sad and tragic part in our history, but not every German is a nazi in case you didnt know. We Germans tend to be very proud to be what we are but that has nothing to do with the Holocaust or Hitler. Id say Germany might be the country with the most interesting history.
@@joshuakohler2821 not every country on the World Man but every neighbor! In my privet opinion I like Germans but agein U country make shit in EU with refuges and deals with Russia Gazprom...
@@grzesieeeeeeeek well we are actually almost the only ones that DEAL with refugees, but then again you are right about the Russia thing. I respect your opinion.
I am myself actually from Rendsburg, Schleswig-Holstein and if you really like confusion I recommend you reading up more on the German-Danish nationality/border situation, which is a real historical oddness. The short version being that Schleswig was historically a part of Denmark while Holstein belonged to Germany. Though when the duke of Holstein died without an heir, his next living male relative was the danish king who then proceeded to be the king of Denmark while also ruling over Holstein as a state within the Holy Roman Empire independently. This already caused tensions as the German populations of both Schleswig and Holstein desired to live in a single unified State. With the wave of revolution sweaping over Euope in 1848, Republicans saw their chance to have both Schleswig and Holstein join the German constitiutional state that was in formation then. Thus, Rendsburg, being at the time a danish border fortress to Germany, housing the second largest garrison within of all of Denmark after her capital city of Copenhagen, was taken over by German republican troops, oddly again without a single shot fired as the vast majority of danish soldiers in this region were actually ethnically german and simply ran over to the revolutionary forces leaving their danish officers no chance to intervene what so ever. In the end of the war that ensued between german republican/revolutionary and danish forces, the borders were widely unchanged though. This was'nt for too long, as in 1864, the German-Danish war came about, in which Denmark suffered a rough defeat to the armies of Prussia and Austria-Hungary fighting together. After that, the border between Denmark and Germany was moved some 100 kilometres north with Austria occupying the duchy of Holstein and the duchy of Schleswig now belonging to Prussia. This means that Holstein at that point of time was an austrian exclave, surrounded to quite an extend by Prussia. This though lasted only for roughly two years, as one of the first actions of the German (or Austro-Prussian) War of 1866 was prussian troops overrrunning the numerically very weak Austrian garrison of Holstein. Both duchys then remained prussian/imperial German until after WW1 a referendum in Schleswig moved the border to denmark a good bit back south, the region of Nordschleswig being danish territory eversince. As a sidenote, this also explaines that there is a very strong danish minority in pretty much the entire space between the German-Danish border and the Eider river, which formally marked the border between Schleswig and Holstein. This minority is in fact so strong that the Südschleswigscher Wählerverband (South Schleswig Voters Association) is to my knowledge the only minority party ever having held a seat within the German Bundestag. Do believe me, that was the very short version of this regions history. We actually have a saying that in all of history, only three people have understood Schleswig-Holsteins history; two of them being long dead and the third having gone mad about it. Cheers to anyone who read this far, hope it was a bit interesting/intriguing/funny to anyone. Have a nice one then.
1/ A straight line, is artificial, by definition. (Natural is the opposite, natural is always crooky) 2/ Borders are : a/ antique population demarcation lines (ethnics, languages etc) and rivers as borders usually are derived from those ancient times as are the rims of mountain ranges , b/ war demarcation lines , (with military enforcement on the spot, or not) c/ old rich aristocratic (kings, dukes etc etc) ground property borders , (>> feodality etc) d/ due to blunt Sell-&-Buy treaties between countries , (exchanging plots) e/ due to industrial-economic logic treaties (an example is the Vennbahn) f/ due to collonial trade or war-head enclaves (but islands or peninsulas have always been most popular in that respect) , and come in only last in row after all the other options. Cheers
@@Wig4 Germany's borders are created by ethnic cleansing of germans further in Poland, Czech Republic as well as France taking majority ethnic German areas such as eupen and elsass
Rather dry but informative. In any case: Don't stock up on info you're not gonna use then ;) If not at least tangential to stuff you care about, hit next
wow that was a totally weird and random video suggestion youtube made to me and I clicked it, wondering what in the world is so weird about our borders... 10 mins in and I already learned a lot of stuff I didn't know about my home country. Fascinating that you, living on an island, developed such an interest in that kind of stuff. Even if it may sound boring to most, you bring it over with a lof of verve and enthusiasm. Well done!
MOST? Did you actually check the numbers? It is barely 25% that go through or near rivers. Better check your facts before posting (I am German too, by the way).
Yeah, think about the fact: All countries brodering to "Bodensee" are german-spoken. Even this part of Swizerland is (fun-fact!) german spoken :-). And another short fact to the name: Please don't try to translate the name (as some might think Boden = bottom, ground), the name itself comes from a village called "Bodman", wich used to be an important village for coinage in the time 830+ AD. Many (not-German) names for this water body refer to the German Name as there are: . nl. Bodenmeer, dan. Bodensøen, norw. Bodensjøen, swed. Bodensjön, isl. Bodenvatn, finn. Bodenjärvi, estn. Bodeni järv, lit. Bodeno ežeras, lett. Bodenezers, russ. Боденское озеро, poln. Jezioro Bodeńskie and so on...
Russia stepped in and saved poland from germany? Dude russia took the eastern part of poland so they gave poland the eastern part of germany as compensation. That basically moved poland to the west. If russia wanted to "save poland" they wouldn’t have taken a big part of it About the Oder-Neisse line in 1990: As you said, east germany had already recognized the Oder-Neisse line as the german-polish border (1950 in the treaty of Zgorzelec/Görlitz). But west germany had also recognized the Oder-Neisse line in 1970 in the treaty of Moscow. So no, russia didn’t saved poland since both germanys had no plans about regaining parts of poland. Also the 2+4-Treaty which set the borders in 1990 was a treaty between west germany, east germany, russia, USA, UK and France. So at least say that those 4 nations "saved" poland, not just russia.
Russians never cared about Poles, but when it came to Germany they both had common interest of taking as much German territory as possible and making it as weak as possible. That is why Poland got all that land after WW2, despite loosing a lot of territory to USSR or Ukraine, Belarus and Lithaunia.
WW2 had only 2 outcomes for Poland. Germany wins-Poland is completely eliminated from map permanently. USSR wins-Poland looses some eastern regions but keeps independence and gain almost all German eastern regions for itself. I think it's pretty clear what was better option for both Poland and Poles.
Independence *cough cough* was regained after 50 years of occupation that ended in 1989. For the Poles it would be best to side with either one against another back in the thirties, but the people were too idealistic to join forces with either of the two devils. In general USSR wanted to push westward as much as possible, and they knew that trying to annex Poland entirely was playing with fire, so they decided to push every border they could as far westward as possible. That is why they established the border on the river, cause historically it was one of the first Polish-German borders back in X-XI century. Later parts of southwestern (Silesia) and northeastern (pomerania) either split off from Polish rulers and got vassalized by Germans / Czechs (as happened to many Silesian principalities), or got conquered by German marches directly (what happend to Pomerania). Most of those were no longer under control of Polish crown in XIV century, however some were still governed locally by princes of Polish descent (while being officially vassals of either Czech, Austrian, or German rulers). This was used as a pretext / territorial claim by the soviets when redrawing borders.
There's one more interesting aspect about the German-Luxembourg border: the river Our (German: Sauer) is a so-called "condominium" of both countries. So the border is not in the middle of the river at the deepest trench as it usually is with state lines. Instead, the entire river is a joint dominion of both countries.
In regards to the Danish-German border, it is actually quite interesting because it is one of the only borders in the world that was decided by the people living there voting on whom they wanted to belong to instead of it simply being dictated to them. North Schleswig voted overwhelmingly for Denmark, Middle Schleswig for Germany and South Schleswig was so pro-German that no one even bothered to ask them. In fact, during WWII, the only border change after WWI that Hitler didn't dispute was the Danish-German one.
Though it should be mentioned that the vote was (a) imbalanced and (b) partially ignored (the North Schleswig vote was broken down by communes, and quite a few smaller ones (the cities of Aabenraa and Sonderburg, as well as the Tønder area in the very south west) voted to go to Germany but were ignored, while Middle Schleswig was one big voting block. I want to point out that I just mention this as a historical tidbit - the vote was roughly 100 years ago, and I see no reason whatsoever to change the status in any way. (Same with the German Polish border).
H4GEN I don't know what he thought. But in Japanese for example, vowels are ordered a, i, u, e, o ( apart from Japanese not using Latin letters or actually using syllables instead of letters. But my point is that this order is not universal)
I think it would be really cool if you could find a word with all the vowels and all three Umlauts AND ß in one single word (no special order) Wer versucht?
TheAirwolf89 I agree. And he could speak more slowly. I'm a native English speaker, but I could barely understand him sometimes since he spoke so fast.
Cutting out all the "you know" and "like" popping it 3-4 times in each sentence, would also give some opportunity to breathe, while keeping the video length :-)
long long ago, I got pretty excited about the mentioned part of the german/dutch border at Nieuweschans(Neuschanz) and this particular german police station at the motorway I managed to smuggle a pound of hash and some resinous buds under the direct watch of the cops there (inside this station) while my buddy, carrying the same amount of dutch delicacies, got busted back from the cops and in the train from Neuschanz to Leer next morning, patrolling borderpolice doublechecked/harassed us again and I screwed them once more ......stupid cop had pound of hash in his hands without realising it ! funny times and very exciting sometimes !
Germans are usually excited when it is about borders.. especially this border on Odra River.. aren`t they... (some years ago that was Łaba River about but in circa about 900AD they has been stopped on Odra River and still don`t feel fair about it...
some are a bit "excited" when it comes to the modern eastern border at the Oder (!) river bc beyond it there is prussia and other old traditional german territories .....which were ethnically halfslav for some centuries, but in our history this land is the old eastern part of the holy roman empire of german nation the laba ? are you sure thats the actual name of the river you think about ? some centuries before 900 A.D. there might were some goths or other eastgermanic tribes present in this area, but thats quite some time ago and I guess almost nobody today still thinks about this region as a part of somehow german homeland.... around 900 A.D. there was some trouble regarding vikings in the north (at river Eider) and marauding hungarian horsemen........latter had their last major conflict with the germans nearby river Lech - do you mean the Lech ?
Similar thing happened to my grandma. During the Soviet occupation my family was taken to regions near Moldova and the Black sea and later when they were allowed to return, they couldn't go back to their homeland because it was no longer Polish but Ukrainian and Belarusian. So they were forced by the authorities to go to Western Poland and settle in the once German lands. The entire country of Poland got shifted westward. It was a major resettlement from what I heard.
All those weird in and out on the borders are actually farmers land of each countries. Is bit hard to be farmer and have part of your farm to be other side of the border. Poland border with Germany drawn by Stalin because he grabbed 1/3 of eastern Poland to Soviet Union. At Yauta in 1944 Roosevelt and Churchill accepted this even Pols protested. And as Poland was occupied by Soviet Union to 1991 did not have anything to say in that mater. Pols from east where relocated by force to new Reclaimed land. Thay rafuse to build new house on new land as they always hope to came back to the old homes. As the hope was on the Germans side too . As they were relocated by force too. Lives of milions afected by decision of 3 men. Sad
fasola Churchill opposed in Yalta but to no avail. Marshall Rokossovsky obliterated the German Front when his ferocious Belorussian Strategic Offensive saw his tanks advance to the Baltic Sea cutting off Prussia. Stalin never let go. Now his land grab of Eastern Poland, which resulted in today’s Western Ukraine, has come to haunt them. Without it Eastern Ukraine would be Russia by the will of the local population. Now Ukraine is an awkward country divided between what used to be Poland / Austria-Hungary, and what used to be Russia.
Between Denmark and Germany, many farmers have land on both sides, or even their farmhouse (dwellings) o one side, and the barn or stable on the other side. And before Schengen, locals within a 5 km area could get a stamp allowing them to use unmanned border crossings. There were many of these small border crossings just for local people. But there were also farmers, in 1920, who asked the border commission to be included in either Germany or Denmark, and the line was sometimes changed according to this before it was made official. It is actually quite normal for farmers to have land on both sides or a border, at least between countries that have a 'friendly' border. It was of course impossible across the Iron Curtain border, but also between Communist countries.
Current Polish-German border is almost exactly same as it was in IX century so lets call it justice. You should never draw borders with weapon in your hands like Germans did in every part of their history. Slavic people living there should be part of Slavic country or they should be independent, not Germanized. Just watch some timelapse and check what ethnic those groups really are.
I live in Aachen and there is actually another weird fact about the Belgian border: Between Roetgen and Monschau (two villages near Aachen), there is the German state road B258 which goes through Belgian territory for three kilometers. (There is a Wikipedia entry explaining all the details)
The Dutch road east of Selfkant has recently been returned to Germany. I recall about a decade ago I drove over it from the Netherlands to the Netherlands (north-sout) with Germany on both sides and it only had unequal east-west road crossings so Germans could cross it without customs/douane.
ich wohne 10 Minuten von roetgen und diese paar kilometer sind super nervig, weil man vom Netzbetreiber jedesmal ne Benachrichtigung bekommt xD und beim begleiteten fahren mit 17 jähren darf man da eigentlich garnicht durch und muss theoretisch jedesmal mit dem Beifahrer Plätze tauschen :D
The city of Aachen is always the first entry in every encyclopedia because it begins "Aac'...No other place on earth begins with 2 "A"s followed by a "C".
You should do a video about the former microstate of Moresnet. The tri-point between Germany, Netherlands and Belgium was actually a quin-point between the Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Moresnet. After Napolean's defeat at Waterloo, there was a zinc mine on this site that was so valuable for the Dutch and Germans to argue over, so it was made a neutral microstate of it's own between 1816 to 1920. Only 3.5 square kilometres and about 3,000 people. After WW1, with the mine being depleted, it was formally absorbed into Belgium. The last living citizen of Moresnet died in October 2016.
Meneer Bert it was the Esperanto community who were wanting to introduce it. Basically they thought it would be easier to convince a small country to change, however the reality still required 3,500 people to change their cultural heritage by adopting a new language. Also being such a small country, they were dependent on trade and good relations with their neighbours, thus retaining the existing languages they used were more helpful than Esperanto would ever be.
Xaver Lustig No. Islands like that one and river islands don't count (at least acording to me). There are just too many of them to find and put in a video and they are kind of an extention of the real land.
Actually, the Oder-Neisse border was accepted as far back as during the Brandt government as far as West Germany was concerned. But West Germany evidently had no actual border with Poland, so the point was kind of moot and only relevant in case of a future reunification. When that reunification happened, the recognition was formalized again as an official agreement between two neighboring nations.
Fun fact: The train station “Basel Badischer Bahnhof” lies on Swiss soil but is operated by the German Railway. If you travel from Germany to Germany via “Basel Badischer Bahnhof” you haven't left the German customs area.
Actually Germany accepted the Oder-Neiße-border in 1970 parallel to a politic of reapproachement with the Soviet block. In 1990 there was only a treaty which was finalising what was policy in the past 20 years anyways.
EKRotte from Wikipedia: "The Oder-Neisse line marked the border between the German Democratic Republic(East Germany) and Poland from 1950 to 1990. East Germany confirmed the border with Poland in 1950, while West Germany, after a period of refusal, finally accepted the border (with reservations) in 1970. In 1990 the newly reunified Germany and the Republic of Poland signed a treaty recognizing it as their border." The Article is "Oder-Neisse line".
"Switzerland had been around for thousands of years" The Old Swiss Confederacy was created around the year 1300, and went through several iterations until becoming the modern Switzerland.
I think he tried to correct himself, give the guy a break!! A heck of a lot of information in such a short time….very interesting Tomcat, greetings from the “Bodensee “.
You missed an enclave of Germany into Austria, but I think this is really good. Furthermore the Dutch-German border is generally ages old, except in the south of the Netherlands (since 1840 or something). One fun fact is that the in the Wadden Sea and the Dollard there is no agreement at all about how the border runs between NL and D. Solution is "let us agree to disagree".
Ronald de Rooij There are several German places in the alps which are only accessible from Austria and vice versa Austrian places which are only accessible from Germany.
Great video! Minor correction: the "weird language" that the natives, especially old people still speak in the french area that once belonged to Germany (Elsass) isn´t some crossover language that no one understands but simply High German spoken in a typical southern german dialect (Elsässisch).
@@curtisrenkin9684 Yes and no. Basically, Lorraine was cut up in 1871. Germany took every bit of Lorraine that had a german-speaking majority. They did however also take some parts that were almost exclusively french-speaking for strategic reasons, while other parts stayed french. So the whole of Lorraine before 1871 was mostly french-speaking, the part of Lorraine that was annexed by Germany was about 50/50. However, the vast majority of the people in both Alsace and Lorraine, no matter their native language, wanted to stay french. So the census on the languages must be taken with a grain of salt.
I had low expectations for this video, but you made this extremely interesting. Thank you for this. (always nice to hear geography nerds talk about maps. One of my friends is the same)
All those poor Germans who were forced off Silesia and all the rest of east Germany. My great-grandmother had to leave her home there too. And all those polish people who now live there had to leave eastern Poland before. And we are not talking of like 100,000 people here, but of at least 15 million. It is really sad.
Tom 2404 3 of my grandparents had to leave the former east German parts too, after WW2. Sure sad for them. But without this, they had never met each other and my parents weren't born and me eather. You see there is also a positive side and I am very thankful for that.
Sagiv Boniel Friendship? Why does noone ask the germans that were forced to leave their home after ww2 if they want to be friends with these poles? Oh, I know why! Because everyone alreary knows what they would answer.
India: "The connection to the North West is soo thin-" Netherlands: "To Limburg, it's even thinner-" Germany and Austria: *haltet unser Bier* Manche Grenzen sind echt komisch xD
That being said = I REALLY WISH there was a 0.8x speed or at least a slider that you can adjust manually whatever the % you want.. I'm trying to learn some guitar solos and they sound awfully slow at 0.75 whilest can't catch up at 100% haha
There are some other cool facts especially within Basel: there is a German train station that is an enclave in Switzerland plus a completely different French train station which is inside the Swiss train station. If you want to go from the Hochrhein area to stuff like Freiburg via train, you need to pass through Switzerland, which is no problem. There is also the village of Laufenburg which has a Swiss part and a German part. On some occasions they work together quite heavily. There is also the hillarious story that when they build a bridge they used different sea levels (both planed their part), so when they hit the middle they realized they were a few meters off each other.
Also: The border crossings between Germany/France and Switzerland have customs points, not passport check points. They may check your luggage and levy import fees, but mostly it's just crowds of cross-border shoppers from Switzerland queueing at the customs houses to claim tax back on their German purchases. Novartis is based in Basel, but has a car park in France accessible only from their Swiss campus. The airport is in France, but again has a zone accessible only from Switzerland. It sounds a little confusing, but it all works just fine.
I really liked your video. I'm just wondering why you did not mention the village of Leidingen at the German-French border. A street in this village is either called Rue de la Frontiere or Grenzstraße (border street). The border is the middle of the street; French houses on the left, German houses on the right site of the street.
I have been there personally in 1976 when I was in the German Army and was stationed in Mons. My Belgian co-worker invited me to stay for the wekend. We went shopping to France by just crossing the street. However this has nothing to do with the video title.
It was only to say, there are place where border is inside a town. Leidingen is maybe the lone case between Germany and france but it's because there is the rhine in a great part of the border.
Even as a German I did not know many of those things. I also did not know that the Bodensee (and the two other lakes connected to it) are called Lake Constance in English. For the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament there is actually the law that the danish minority party will always have at least one seat in it if they get votes (I hope I recall this right. I myself am from Lower-Saxony). They do not have to pass the 5% border we usually enforce upon partys in elections. I don't know if Germany really isn't happy with the Oder-Neisse-Border. I never thought about it and I never heard it discussed anywhere. But on the other hand, in my semester abroad in the UK I just took a Post-War Germany module and some outside views surprised me but also gave me a different perspective. Btw I feel so sorry for all the other students of that module who have to learn all these complicated German names and terminology additionally to the facts for the exam in a month, while I can just lean back, learn the facts and touch up what I forgot from school time until now and then just gonna write the shit down. Well, I have to do it in English still but since my lecturer is German I can probably get away with smuggeling a little bit more German in it if I don't know the English terminology than my colleagues without any knowledge of German can. But they have my utter most respect for even taking a seminar on German history. I took one on fashist Italy in my first semester and decided to never take a seminar again that involves terminology that is neither German nor English because it is so much to study.
Mir ist auch erst hier in England aufgefallen, wie wenig ich doch eigentlich von Deutschland bisher gesehen habe. Sollte ich, sobald ich zurück bin, vielleicht endlich mal ändern. Aber man denkt hat, man hat ja alle Zeit der Welt das noch irgendwann zu tun und dann tut man es doch irgendwie nie.
As a Norwegian history freak, I can say that the Danish had Sleswig/Holstein (and Pommerania) long before even the Holy Roman empire :p However, the Danes do owe Greenland and a couple islands to us Norwegians... and don't get me started on the Swedes! They also owe Skåne to Denmark, though xD Yeah borders are a bit fleeting. Very stable in newer times relatively speaking though, all across EU.
No clue where you live but over here plenty (especially older) care for the east border. Part of my family had to flee from the russians back then. My grandgrandma told me once Schlesien is back in German hands she will go back. And i guess she is not the only one
It had to be a name My grandma's parents were removed from East Prussia, but this really never was a discussion in our family. I mean, even if we had bitter feelings about it, what are we going to do? We would have to violate international law.
I'm from Schleswig-Holstein and your pronouncement is good, but the fourth Language Plattdeutsch isn't Dutch, it's a traditional mix of German, Dutch and English, but it is closest to the modern german, because the modern german was invented by an north german, who mostly let the new German language influence by Plattdeutsch.
Fun quote about Schleswig-Holstein. The British statesman Lord Palmerston is reported to have said: “Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business-the Prince Consort, who is dead-a German professor, who has gone mad-and I, who have forgotten all about it."
The reason why the German-Polish border or Oder-Neise-Grenze is controversial because it was given to poland so that the USSR could take the eastern part of Poland. I for one think that the border is wrong but that is a hot topic.
@@WasGuckstDuSo65 It`s a price of politics of lebenraum. Somebody who plays in this Darwin`s game can also loose. So dont complain. Volenti non fit iniuria
reason why German border was moved and Poland took that territory was that USSR took polish territory and if Germans would claim it back polish would claim east territory (mainly west Ukraine). There was nothing nice about Russian motives.
hes obviously having fun posting these videos and cannot stop himself from talking. Also do you expect him to know the history of every fucking country next to germany? wtf, im pretty sure youre the ignorant one and not him ^^
@@Muftaay "Also do you expect him to know the history of every fucking country next to germany?" Actually if you are fan of geography, you are most likely to be well educated in history as well. He's talking too much, that's for sure and suits his defence but he should really read some more before making videos or avoid difficult subjects at all.
It's probably safe to say that there have been almost no bitter feelings about German-Polish border for the last 30 years, because most Germans who lived on the other side have since died out. The recognition in 1990 was mostly a formality, the only people who regret it are a few extremists (who still exist on both sides). The Polish people who live there now are not to blame and it is their home. The Polish authorities treat the German heritage well, they have restored a lot of it and local museums show it openly and with respect. One fact not mentioned is that the border divided a number of cities who now have one part in Germany and one part in Poland, and in most cases the names resemble each other. For example Guben/Gubin, Görlitz/Zgorzelec, Küstrin/Kostrzcyn. Only in Frankfurt/Slubice the names differ.
About the names... Most of them had their Polish equivalents, but some didn't, and Communist regime simply Slavicized it. They did so even with places that had Polish names used even in medieval times, but they considered them "too German". Frankfurt would be Frankobród in Polish, but in the eyes of the government it would be too Germanic, so they choose for Słubice, which doesn't really translate the name at all... It was just a random choice. A pity. Oh, and about German heritage... Sadly, the biggest problem with it is lack of funds. There are just so many palaces, castles and towns that should have been renovated by now, yet no one would do this because there is no money. But not only that, some places were simply destroyed by Soviets. For example, I am from small village in what was once East Prussia, and before the war, there was even train station there, but the Soviets took the railroads with them to Russia, burned half of the village and it's now in a very poor state. Hell, we even had a hotel in 1945! (well, to be exact, my grand-granparents lived one village apart from the one I am from, as it was inhabited mostly by Germans, yet I've found on the inhabitants list from '45 that all of those Germans had Polish surnames. But then who knows what language they used at home). Same with town nearby, it had good location, positioned between two lakes, and very beutiful market square, but most of the buildings were bombed at the end of the war and although the town hall was reconstructed, most of the buildings are gone. But then Polish authorities are also to blame, as with nearby city, the old town wasn't reconstructed, they simply built some ugly flats on top of the ruins (!). It pains me so much when I realize how beautiful the region was before the war. Luckily, there were some intact towns left, but they are in minority. Maybe in the future, with right ammount of money, it would be possible to return some of them to their own glory? I hope so.
+peter schwarz No I'm not saying that. I think that the expellation of the Germans from those territories was a violation of human rights, and I also regret the cultural loss - for example the disappearence of the German dialects once spoken there. BUT: There is nothing we can do today to undo this. Re-annexing those territories to Germany would not undo the crimes that happened in the past. But it would violate the human rights of those Polish people who live there now. They are good people, they have not done any harm to anyone, and they are entitled to live there because it is their home today. Besides, the general attitude as far as I can tell is open-mindedness. The Poles of today appreciate the history of the place and they care for the German culture that once existed there. And the border is now open, anyone can go and visit each other, including those people who were once expelled. They can even go and live in the places of their childhood memories if they want to, they just need to adjust to the fact that everyone there speaks Polish now. At the same time Polish people can come and live in Germany. So as far as I'm concerned it's all good. We should strive to keep it that way. Oh, and I object to your wording "polish greed and aggression". Most Poles are good people, and they are entitled to their nationhood like we are to ours.
@Vitalis "I've found on the inhabitants list from '45 that all of those Germans had Polish surnames. But then who knows what language they used at home" My grandpa is from Katowice. It belonged to Upper Silesia back then. He also had a slavic surname (Orlinsky) but was german. He talked fluent German and Polish, but his wife only spoke german, but she was from a different region of Germany.
Between lower and higher silesia, we have city which name is "Opole" and in this city and land and towns around this city there are german minority, who have rights in this land to have german language as a second official language, they have german minority deputy in parliment, they have public schools where teachers speak german (but still it financed by polish goverment). And some people can ask why it is so different than other side of Silesia? Because in this particular city there wasn't many nazi supporters people before the war and many of this people are half-polish half-german, so after war polish goverment don't force them to move to Germany.
@@prkp7248 That is what they tell you. The reality is that the Germans got expelled no matter what their connection with the Nazi party or the gouvernment was, 100 percent. Even resistance fighters. How long do German people have minority rights? How long do Polish know they even exist? They probably told you that the land was always Polish. Who was not expelled was seen as naturally Polish or was a forced labour worker. That is especially true in upper Silesia with the important Industry. Btw my Bundesland Saxony incorporated 1/3 of Lower Silesia that happened to be left side of the river Oder. In communist times it was forbidden to talk about all of that.
There's a German town called Ostritz on the Polish border that ended up with its railway station on the Polish side of the border after 1945; but the station was only served by East German trains with border guards escorting people to/from the trains. Now rather popular with the far right. There is also Bayerische Eisenstein, where the railway station is literally split between Germany and Czechia. The Iron Curtain ran through the station.
If you want to know the original name, it was Královec. Founded in honor of Bohemian king, that led a crusade against local pagan Prussians, later that area became part of Prussia (Königsberg), now it's Russia (Kaliningrad/Калининград). Yeah, European history is weird...
Hi there, pretty nice Video you made there. Just correcting one thing: the french sounding like german, but noone understands, you mention, is not real french actually. Its basically more like a mutual dialect(with slight differences to each area) not only spoken in Colmar, but in the whole area of Luxemburg(Letzeburgish), Lorraine(Lothringisch), Alsace(Elsässerditsch), the Saarland(Saarländisch) and Rhineland-Palatinate )Pälzisch - its five pretty similar soundind dialects, all from the Rhinefranconian language family. The area is also titled as "SaarLorLux". Funny thing is - you´re not completely wrong: most people from outside these areas won´t understand us here, since there is heavy french influence in the dialects.
Actually Poland looks almost the same as it used to look at the beginning (from 966 till 1138), so it is not like that Poland never owned this lands. I agree Prussia ruled this lands for most of time but in fact Danzing was founded by Kingdom of Poland and was in Polish borders for around 500 years
Loved it! Great video and you've really gone into detail, well done. Love history and geography and geopolitics and all, Germany's history -if- is one of, if not _the_ most intriguing in the world when it comes to how it became what it is today geographically.
if you could zoom around less, it'd be way more comfortable to watch all those borders and explore a few of those areas on your map while you're talking. Some people here also say that you're talking to fast, but, as someone else also mentioned, I like that you're getting straight to the topic without doing to much nonsense talk. Talking might be too fast for some non-native english speakers (I'm german - so no native-speaker) but IMO your pronounciation is pretty clear and well understandable.
One quick addition: None of our borders are seriously discussed anymore, neither the Danish-German border nor the Oder-Neisse line. There are some very tiny minorities of 'Ewiggestrige' (roughly translatable as 'people living in the past') who might have a different feeling about the current borders but most Germans are content with the current situation and we're happy to live peacfully with our neighbors for such a long time now.
Actually that is what the people with a washed brain want us to believe. The millions of people who are from that parts of Germany never forgot. And the Germans who are living there are not so forgetful like left wing hipsters. Not in Alsace (Elsaß), not in Tirol, not in South Denmark and not in Bohemia, Poland or even Transsilvania. Been there, talked to them. Just not anybody wants another war. Probably you live in a bubble and nobody dares to talk to you truth because you are judgy.
@GamingTSC • Actually Germany should be much smaller when we exclude their conquered lands. Plus they should give a choice to break free to lands they are actually occupy like Bavaria for example which desire freedom or autonomy at least as they feel different.
@GamingTSC • Why you telling me this? Tell Bavarians instead. Those are theirs demands. Also ask Austrians if they wanna be part of Germany. You would face the truth.
@GamingTSC • Austrians are in Germanic ethnic group, but they never was citizens of Germany (situations where they were forced to do so doesn't count cuz if it would count Czechs should be recognized as Germans too). Just like Czechs/Slovaks and Poles same Slavic group. Austrians had their own country for centuries before thing like Germany were created. Would say more, lots of Germans hated unification process which was full of bloodshed, tricky political games and propaganda. According to statistic from 2017 1/3 Bavarians would vote for independence/autonomy just like 22% Saarlands citizens and 21% Saxons, but "only" 13% Berlins and 8% Rheinland-Pfalz citizens. After mess which Merkel did i think numbers changed. So we are talking about millions of people.
@GamingTSC • Yea they were so happy to see around 200 000 German soldiers in their country to help them with referendum. If you believe that results of referendum wasn't fabricated, there is nothing to discuss. According to accurate results of votes in one region 15% of people voted for Yes for incorporation, 30% agreed for opportunistic reasons, 20% were pessimistic and 35% were totally against it. Nazis never played fair.
7 ปีที่แล้ว +8
One caveat: Google Maps isn't a geographical and/or political reference. They do have errors in their data, so, as said, be aware that anything you see on Google Maps (or other, non-official, maps) could be completely wrong.
Fun fact: After WW1 Denmark was offered to get all of Schleswig back, but since we're so nice we decided to have a referendum so each part of the area could decide which country they wanted to belong to, and as a result we only got half of it back.
What is weird about a referendum? The major danish part lives in Aabenraa and the major german part lives in Flensburg. It was one of the fairest and most peaceful border changes to that time, maybe it is weird for you because it was a more peaceful referendum?
Had to read about it, as I see danish nationalist were upset, because they didn´t got a major ethnic german part. There were no fights at all or to say it bloody conflicts in a bigger dimension. Maybe if they had fought in the Great War, but they were completely neutral. In comparison of the bolshevik conflicts in poland and the turkish war for liberation is this pretty peaceful.
Okay, I'm not a native speaker so this may just be a problem for me but... wow, you're a fast talker o.O Very hard to follow. Other than that: Cool video, didn't realise our borders are so weird. I find straight borders weird, guess it depends on how you grow up :D
i live in an area where people talk like this regularly, so it’s not that difficult for me to follow, though i do understand how, as a non-native speaker, it could definitely be difficulty to follow.
Frisian and Dutch are basically dialects of German. Similar to "Bayerische" or "Schwiizertüütsch". Dutch sounds very similar to "Plattdeutsch" which is a recognised dialect today in Germany
Those exclaves / inclaves are really interesting, didn't know that Germany's borders were so complicated. Also, had to check if the playback speed was set to higher than normal, but it turned out that you talk so fast :D
Borders between the German federal states can be quite a nightmare as well. At least in one place between Lower Saxony and North Rhine Westphalia, the state border actually goes right through a farmhouse... And it gets even more complicated when you take a look at the German federal churches, because their borders tend to emulate even older lines of allegiance, resulting in some rather odd exclaves as well.
I like how fascinated you are. I grew up going to Mexico regularly and it still fascinates me how once you cross the river, boom cell phone signal was gone (back in the 2000’s, now it’s free across the continent)
Well-strucutred video, also really like that you didn't butcher up the villages/towns you mentioned and actually dared to pronounce them! (You did your research well)
Polish German border evaluated since more than 1000 years. So you basically tells the lie that border between Poland and Germany should be here and here because it was Germany here before.
Very fascinating video, I also like these border anomalies. Other oddities: * disputed border between D & NL: if you're on a ferry between Emden, Germany and Borkum, Germany, according to the Dutch, you might be in the Netherlands, according to the Germans, you're not. * After WW2, the Dutch initially wanted to annex large parts of Western Germany, Cologne or the Ruhrgebiet could have become Dutch at that time, but in the end, they only got a handful of villages and fields (Emmerich-Elten, Selfkant). Most of them were returned in 1963, except one hill that's Dutch to this day * there are quite a few streets shared between Germany and the Netherlands, e.g. the Neustraße/Nieuwstraat in Herzogenrath (D) and Kerkrade (NL). * Quadpoint near Aachen: today's shared point of Germany, NL and B used to be a four-countries-point between 1819 and 1915 (around these dates) when there was the country of Neutral-Moresnet where the Vienna Congress couldn't decide who to give to. The road from the Dutch village of Vaals to the Trinational point is still called "Viergrenzenwg" (Four Borders Road) * German-speakers in Belgium: after WW1, Germany had to give some small patches of land to Belgium, that are now the German-speaking community of Belgium around the towns of Eupen and Sankt Vith. * the river between Luxembourg and Germany is actually a condominium * as the Alsace used to be part of Germany in the past and was inhabited by German-speaking people, many place names are very German to this day. E.g. one tram line of the Strasbourg tram system connects Illkirch and Hœnheim, both in France while sounding German. * two trams cross the German-France border: the Saarbahn between Saarbrücken (D) and Sarreguemines (F) and tram D between Kehl (D) and Strasbourg (F) * the German Railways own a lot of railways in Switzerland: the line from Basel to Schaffhausen as you mentioned, and also Basel's second largest station, the Badischer Bahnhof. * there is also a tram from Basel to Germany since a few years * trains and cars going from main Austria to Tyrol very likely cross through Germany as the route via Rosenheim (D) is one of the best to go to that part of Austria. * the railway station of Bayerisch Eisenstein (D) and Železná Ruda (CZ) lies exactly on the border of the two nations * as the border came after the cities, there are quite a few divided cities on the Oder-Neiße border, such as Görlitz/Zgorzelec, Guben/Gubin, Frankfurt (Oder)/Słubice and Kostrzyn nad Odrą/Küstrin-Kietz. * even though the border is named "Oder-Neiße" it actually diverts in the north so that the important port of Szczecin (Stettin) became wholly Polish, together with the sea town of Świnoujście (Swinemünde) on the island of Usedom (Uznam).
6 ปีที่แล้ว +1
SimonHellinger the tram to saareguemines comes quite often (once in 40min). Its pretty normal for french kids to visit schools in saarbrücken, too (these are mostly kids from richer families)
The German-Polish Border really bothers me. More so, what the Soviets did to Polish borders bothers me. Kaliningrad is incredibly annoying to me. For a bit of a deeper explanation, Germany owned most of Western and Northern Poland prior to The Great War. After the war ended the German puppet of the kingdom of Poland, which was basically Congress Poland (which in itself was a Russian puppet before the war), was able to gain independence. Then, in the region known as Greater Poland, their was a massive uprising by the local polish population. It was such a massive movement that it got the Paris Peace to set new Polish-German borders. These would be the borders that Germany and Poland would share up until World War 2. Those borders were actually ethnically speaking pretty fair. With exception of Southern Eats Prussia, which is just south of Kaliningrad today, Germans were in german land and Poles were in polish land. However, Eastern Polish holdings during the interwar period has major Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian minority populations in them. These lands were also won in a war between the Soviets and the Polish in the early 1920's. The Soviets wanted in back and when they were able to invade most of Eastern Europe, they took the territory back for themselves and gave much of East Prussia to Poland and relocated the local German population. It's an interesting story, and it also pisses me off. Konigsberg, a major Prussian city, and where the "Seven Bridges of Konigsberg" problem comes from, was razed to the ground during the second world war. The Soviet's took it for their own, built a new city, and kept the land after the union fell apart. Honestly, most Soviet era borders bother me. Anyways, i like this video, rant over...
Just compare Königsberg and Dresden. Both were totally destroyed by bombs in the war. Then both started to build up again, and now Dresden is a beautiful city and the former-Königsberg really really awful
Kaliningrad needs better city planning. Shame Russians don't care about that, since that region has so much potential. Germany deserved to be punished after the war.
+Kosta M. Yep, I am sure my grandmother had so much influence on the german politics of that time beeing borne in 1927. Such an evil person supporting Hitler while beeing six years old. So vile. Was that enough sarcasm to understand? Should we charge the US for mudering millions of civilians aswell? Or the Royal Airforce for deliberately burning people in their homes?
Jasper Zanovich Did Germany care about civilians when it bombed Rotterdam, Warsaw, London... And countless other cities, it's army commited some of the worse crimes in history. And when Allies wrecked them, they were like "it was a joke bro". When you start a global war with intent of extermination of your enemy you should not expect any mercy in return if you loose.
Some additional points. 1. The German/Luxemburg border in the river Mosel is also a condominium 2. The quadpoint at Jungholz is a point, marked by one border stone (not a gap as detailed by 'google Maps inaccuracy) www.grensmarkeringen.be/Jungholz.htm
What you forgot to mention: Büsingen am Hochrhein did not accept Daylight Savings Time when it was introduced in Germany and therefore had it's own timezone. They used the Swiss Time and after Switzerland introduced DST a year later, they became synchronised again. And to this day, modern Operating Systems sometimes still list "Büsingen am Hochrhein" as it's own Timezone at UTC+1
"They haven't invaded each other for at least 60 years so I could say things are going well." European Politics
Thanks to NATO, all Europe knows peace. No thanks whatsoever to the EUSSR.
The sorry record of bungling in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo hasn't prevented the putrid Guy Verhofs-twat from banging the drum for war with Russia in the Ukraine with his yet-to-be-formed EUSSR army. Delusions of grandeur! You won't find him on the Russian Front.
Thank God for BREXIT! It cannot come soon enough. Bring it on!
Haha
Warren Marsh the EU has given prosperity to Europe, and it makes Europeans more united and able to stand against outside influence. And looking at how brexit is going it seems as if your country will soon enough become the disunited kingdom.
@@yegors8959 You sound like one of those people who are like "the world is all full of good humanity and we should all unite and everything will be solved" xD
Spartan Fruze I mean, like that isn't true? Yeah I know it's optimistic but banding together will help Europe fight off foreign influence from China and the US.
Fun fact about those 7 meters of Belgium separating parts of Germany: the world record long jump, set in 1991, was 8.95 m meters. So the best long jumpers in the world could jump from Germany to Germany, over Belgium, at this spot.
Fabulousaurus Peks Hehe...so he could say he fuuckin jumped over Belgium
In other places, they have cows jumping of the *Moon* ! We over here are much more modest nowadays xD xD .
now there's a cool fact! :D
haha thats awesome
Honestly, Belgium was never an obstacle for anyone; ask Germany.
As a German who lives in a small village next to the border to the Netherlands I feel so awesome that my city was in a youtube video for one second
As a Dutchman who lives in a small village next to the border to Germany (Winterswijk) I feel so awesome that my city was in a youtube video for one second
Michel - You and Theresa should get together.
theresaloveskitkat - You and Michel should get together.
@@michel4962 Same here. I live in Rhede, Germany and Winterswijk is the nearest dutch village. Once a month or so on Saturdays we are going to your little cute Market to buy some local specials. :)
Nice to see some people from around my little city (Vreden) ;)
Germany: I don't like my borders. They're too weird.
Austria and Poland: *nervous sweating*
Austria and Poland and Denmark and the Netherlands and France and Czechoslovakia and….
Habsburg to Austria: "You have no idea my son."
Austria: "Aren't you dead?"
Like your mother
@leishelpeix To be fair: Three of these broke under the pressure already.
Chechia fumbles nervously while eying sudettenland
I live in Germany, study in Basel (Switzerland) and get there by driving through France.
rheinfelden
But his pronunciation!
Me too
That's a weird way of driving. You obviously take a Umweg.
Do you still do this?
I once visited my sister in Konstanz (german side) and thought it would be fun to take the dog for a walk into switzerland. The swiss border guards let me through under the condition that i come back through the same checkpoint in less than an hour. I had a coffee and my dog a poo in switzerland and we went back. Problem was: the border guards didn't notice my dog when I went into switzerland and now thought i bought it there! It was a real hassle to get my dog back into my country. Schengen rocks.
If it was my dog, i would say to the border guard: lock. i let him stay with you, then i start walking. then see what the dog will do.^^
sure he follows^^
and the swiss dont have signed schengen (yet)
Pascus Rex Schengen also lets some airlines think they do not have to do passport checks to make sure they match the boarding card. Once I flew from Paris to Madrid on Air France, and at the boarding gate they just took the boarding card, swiped the bar code and gave it back to me. Anyone could have used that boarding card to get on the plane. KLM ALWAYS checks passport/boarding card Schengen to Schengen before boarding.
i live in Germany and my parents in France and i used to fly over for Christmas and the summer break and i rarely got a passport (or ID) check for the boarding the reason probably is that you get checked 2 times before that, at the check-in for your luggage and at the customs and you have a least to go through the customs.
@@Schuhmiball It was a short trip and I only had a Rucksack AND I didn't have to check in at the gate (I had a boarding card already issued to me from Amsterdam--Paris). So now explain. BTW at security they only wanted to see the boarding pass. FYI in the States you have to show a photo ID and they compare your name with that on the ticket.. Not saying it is better here; just saying.
@@multilingual972 yeah ok at security they should have checked your ID but sometime they don't. My guess would be that they would only check suspicious ppl or only if they are searching for someone.
i can tell you why germany has "weird" borders. Theyr not weird, they evolved in time by many wars and people who fought for their land. The "straight line" borders in America and Africa exist because someone invaded that county and said "ok well just split it up like that".
@@grzesieeeeeeeek Could you please explain how Germany invaded every country in the world? Also burning people in Auschwitz is a very sad and tragic part in our history, but not every German is a nazi in case you didnt know. We Germans tend to be very proud to be what we are but that has nothing to do with the Holocaust or Hitler. Id say Germany might be the country with the most interesting history.
@@joshuakohler2821 not every country on the World Man but every neighbor! In my privet opinion I like Germans but agein U country make shit in EU with refuges and deals with Russia Gazprom...
@@grzesieeeeeeeek well we are actually almost the only ones that DEAL with refugees, but then again you are right about the Russia thing. I respect your opinion.
Joshua Köhler
lass die trolle Trollen... :)
@@thymethome6755 Da stimme ich dir zu.
The weirdest borders in the thumbnail are those long horizontal straight ones.
Under-rated joke XD
Up to down: burnt Wurst, Winnetou, Rheingold
I am myself actually from Rendsburg, Schleswig-Holstein and if you really like confusion I recommend you reading up more on the German-Danish nationality/border situation, which is a real historical oddness.
The short version being that Schleswig was historically a part of Denmark while Holstein belonged to Germany. Though when the duke of Holstein died without an heir, his next living male relative was the danish king who then proceeded to be the king of Denmark while also ruling over Holstein as a state within the Holy Roman Empire independently.
This already caused tensions as the German populations of both Schleswig and Holstein desired to live in a single unified State. With the wave of revolution sweaping over Euope in 1848, Republicans saw their chance to have both Schleswig and Holstein join the German constitiutional state that was in formation then. Thus, Rendsburg, being at the time a danish border fortress to Germany, housing the second largest garrison within of all of Denmark after her capital city of Copenhagen, was taken over by German republican troops, oddly again without a single shot fired as the vast majority of danish soldiers in this region were actually ethnically german and simply ran over to the revolutionary forces leaving their danish officers no chance to intervene what so ever.
In the end of the war that ensued between german republican/revolutionary and danish forces, the borders were widely unchanged though. This was'nt for too long, as in 1864, the German-Danish war came about, in which Denmark suffered a rough defeat to the armies of Prussia and Austria-Hungary fighting together. After that, the border between Denmark and Germany was moved some 100 kilometres north with Austria occupying the duchy of Holstein and the duchy of Schleswig now belonging to Prussia. This means that Holstein at that point of time was an austrian exclave, surrounded to quite an extend by Prussia. This though lasted only for roughly two years, as one of the first actions of the German (or Austro-Prussian) War of 1866 was prussian troops overrrunning the numerically very weak Austrian garrison of Holstein.
Both duchys then remained prussian/imperial German until after WW1 a referendum in Schleswig moved the border to denmark a good bit back south, the region of Nordschleswig being danish territory eversince.
As a sidenote, this also explaines that there is a very strong danish minority in pretty much the entire space between the German-Danish border and the Eider river, which formally marked the border between Schleswig and Holstein. This minority is in fact so strong that the Südschleswigscher Wählerverband (South Schleswig Voters Association) is to my knowledge the only minority party ever having held a seat within the German Bundestag.
Do believe me, that was the very short version of this regions history. We actually have a saying that in all of history, only three people have understood Schleswig-Holsteins history; two of them being long dead and the third having gone mad about it.
Cheers to anyone who read this far, hope it was a bit interesting/intriguing/funny to anyone.
Have a nice one then.
Wow my grandma is from Rendsburg but she moved to Sweden after World War II.
Haven’t been to Rendsburg but heard its a really nice town.
I don't often like comments but it's ones like this I bother reading through the trash for
Moin!
@@Morphior mojn! (the correct way of spelling it ;)
@@fune3487 if you're from Schleswig or Denmark, sure.
Germay's borders are artificial. Whereas others are drawn in a straight line. Seems legit...
I known
*naturally formed over decades by colonialism
1/ A straight line, is artificial, by definition. (Natural is the opposite, natural is always crooky)
2/ Borders are :
a/ antique population demarcation lines (ethnics, languages etc) and rivers as borders usually are derived from those ancient times as are the rims of mountain ranges ,
b/ war demarcation lines , (with military enforcement on the spot, or not)
c/ old rich aristocratic (kings, dukes etc etc) ground property borders , (>> feodality etc)
d/ due to blunt Sell-&-Buy treaties between countries , (exchanging plots)
e/ due to industrial-economic logic treaties (an example is the Vennbahn)
f/ due to collonial trade or war-head enclaves (but islands or peninsulas have always been most popular in that respect) , and come in only last in row after all the other options.
Cheers
@@Wig4 dude
@@Wig4 Germany's borders are created by ethnic cleansing of germans further in Poland, Czech Republic as well as France taking majority ethnic German areas such as eupen and elsass
It's like watching "Fun with flags".
You get information which you never wanted to know.
Rather dry but informative. In any case: Don't stock up on info you're not gonna use then ;) If not at least tangential to stuff you care about, hit next
best comment ever.. yeah he is a Sheldon type geography nerd :D
People obsessed with countries are actually intriged by this information :)
It is like fun with flags but it is actually rather interesting.
I thought exactly the same.
"My country has no land borders"
As an Irishman I couldn't agree more
North Ireland: Let me introduce myself
(I do believe North Ireland should be Irish so I support you in some way I guess🇮🇪)
Northern Ireland = UK
So glad, Sir, that you see the whole island of Ireland as a part of the UK with H M The Queen Elizabeth II as your sovereign.
@@MBasu-km8by So glad that you too, Sir, support the return of the Irish Republic to the British Crown.
ONE ISLAND ONE IRELAND
wow that was a totally weird and random video suggestion youtube made to me and I clicked it, wondering what in the world is so weird about our borders... 10 mins in and I already learned a lot of stuff I didn't know about my home country. Fascinating that you, living on an island, developed such an interest in that kind of stuff. Even if it may sound boring to most, you bring it over with a lof of verve and enthusiasm. Well done!
same here ^^
Luemm3l .Is the guy doing the video fron Great Britain?
Luemm3l Du hast sehr gut Englisch fur ein Deutschlander.
Most German borders are *along the rivers.* Nothing strange about that.
yea thats pretty much what he says. _most_ and except for the borders along the rivers there are anomalies..
MOST? Did you actually check the numbers? It is barely 25% that go through or near rivers. Better check your facts before posting (I am German too, by the way).
Were you trying to imply something else besides how non-weird it is?
Did you watch the video?
Still strange, because east and west are both german rivers - not border rivers. Soon
"Germany has the weirdest borders"
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan:
*am i a joke to u*
that was kinda me. sorry
Russia: "Yeah, kinda."
Also, Lake Constance is the English name for the lake. German speakers call it Bodensee.
and in French it's called the "Lac des Quatre Cantons" (the four-canton lake).
The german name literally means "ground sea"
Yeah, think about the fact: All countries brodering to "Bodensee" are german-spoken. Even this part of Swizerland is (fun-fact!) german spoken :-). And another short fact to the name: Please don't try to translate the name (as some might think Boden = bottom, ground), the name itself comes from a village called "Bodman", wich used to be an important village for coinage in the time 830+ AD. Many (not-German) names for this water body refer to the German Name as there are: . nl. Bodenmeer, dan. Bodensøen, norw. Bodensjøen, swed. Bodensjön, isl. Bodenvatn, finn. Bodenjärvi, estn. Bodeni järv, lit. Bodeno ežeras, lett. Bodenezers, russ. Боденское озеро, poln. Jezioro Bodeńskie and so on...
Robert Jeantet is that not the Vierwaldstättersee or Lake Lucerne in English. Lucerne via the French for Luzern or Lutzern.
i grew up in France and i never heard that. I always heard that name "Lac de Constance" or "Lac Constance" and why 4 cantons, because of Bayern ?
Russia stepped in and saved poland from germany? Dude russia took the eastern part of poland so they gave poland the eastern part of germany as compensation. That basically moved poland to the west. If russia wanted to "save poland" they wouldn’t have taken a big part of it
About the Oder-Neisse line in 1990: As you said, east germany had already recognized the Oder-Neisse line as the german-polish border (1950 in the treaty of Zgorzelec/Görlitz). But west germany had also recognized the Oder-Neisse line in 1970 in the treaty of Moscow. So no, russia didn’t saved poland since both germanys had no plans about regaining parts of poland. Also the 2+4-Treaty which set the borders in 1990 was a treaty between west germany, east germany, russia, USA, UK and France. So at least say that those 4 nations "saved" poland, not just russia.
Russians never cared about Poles, but when it came to Germany they both had common interest of taking as much German territory as possible and making it as weak as possible.
That is why Poland got all that land after WW2, despite loosing a lot of territory to USSR or Ukraine, Belarus and Lithaunia.
russians might have not cared about poland, but still if the Nazis would have kept Poland, there would be no Poland nowadays
WW2 had only 2 outcomes for Poland.
Germany wins-Poland is completely eliminated from map permanently.
USSR wins-Poland looses some eastern regions but keeps independence and gain almost all German eastern regions for itself.
I think it's pretty clear what was better option for both Poland and Poles.
Adûnâi Poles of Nordic stock?
There would be no Poles if Germany won.
Independence *cough cough* was regained after 50 years of occupation that ended in 1989. For the Poles it would be best to side with either one against another back in the thirties, but the people were too idealistic to join forces with either of the two devils.
In general USSR wanted to push westward as much as possible, and they knew that trying to annex Poland entirely was playing with fire, so they decided to push every border they could as far westward as possible. That is why they established the border on the river, cause historically it was one of the first Polish-German borders back in X-XI century. Later parts of southwestern (Silesia) and northeastern (pomerania) either split off from Polish rulers and got vassalized by Germans / Czechs (as happened to many Silesian principalities), or got conquered by German marches directly (what happend to Pomerania). Most of those were no longer under control of Polish crown in XIV century, however some were still governed locally by princes of Polish descent (while being officially vassals of either Czech, Austrian, or German rulers).
This was used as a pretext / territorial claim by the soviets when redrawing borders.
There's one more interesting aspect about the German-Luxembourg border: the river Our (German: Sauer) is a so-called "condominium" of both countries. So the border is not in the middle of the river at the deepest trench as it usually is with state lines. Instead, the entire river is a joint dominion of both countries.
In regards to the Danish-German border, it is actually quite interesting because it is one of the only borders in the world that was decided by the people living there voting on whom they wanted to belong to instead of it simply being dictated to them. North Schleswig voted overwhelmingly for Denmark, Middle Schleswig for Germany and South Schleswig was so pro-German that no one even bothered to ask them.
In fact, during WWII, the only border change after WWI that Hitler didn't dispute was the Danish-German one.
Though it should be mentioned that the vote was (a) imbalanced and (b) partially ignored (the North Schleswig vote was broken down by communes, and quite a few smaller ones (the cities of Aabenraa and Sonderburg, as well as the Tønder area in the very south west) voted to go to Germany but were ignored, while Middle Schleswig was one big voting block.
I want to point out that I just mention this as a historical tidbit - the vote was roughly 100 years ago, and I see no reason whatsoever to change the status in any way. (Same with the German Polish border).
It's still danish though
-A danish 13 year old who spent 5 seconds on wikipedia about this
Another interesting thing is that the german word Magermilchjoghurt contains all vowels of the german language in alphabetical order
Frankreichtour does as well ;-) But why should these vowels be specifically German?
H4GEN I don't know what he thought.
But in Japanese for example, vowels are ordered a, i, u, e, o ( apart from Japanese not using Latin letters or actually using syllables instead of letters. But my point is that this order is not universal)
I think it would be really cool if you could find a word with all the vowels and all three Umlauts AND ß in one single word (no special order) Wer versucht?
"Y" is not a vowel in german alphabet?
@@multilingual972 Heizölrückstoßabdämpfung and i raise it by having no letter more then once
"A German Exclave"
I dont want that polish corridor incident again....
Interesting content, but for the love of god... breath once in a while =)
He's sped it up. Set your youtube playback to 0.75 speed and it's much more like a normal person
TheAirwolf89 I agree. And he could speak more slowly. I'm a native English speaker, but I could barely understand him sometimes since he spoke so fast.
How come everyone i see makes this mistake? Breath is a noun, the verb is breathe.
English isn't even my first language btw...
Cutting out all the "you know" and "like" popping it 3-4 times in each sentence, would also give some opportunity to breathe, while keeping the video length :-)
He didn't speed it up, because otherwise, he's moves very slowly for a human being... He just speaks too fast, so fast that it makes me feel dizzy
I love how excited he gets about borders! I wish we could be buds yo, I get that excited as well
long long ago, I got pretty excited about the mentioned part of the german/dutch border at Nieuweschans(Neuschanz) and this particular german police station at the motorway
I managed to smuggle a pound of hash and some resinous buds under the direct watch of the cops there (inside this station) while my buddy, carrying the same amount of dutch delicacies, got busted
back from the cops and in the train from Neuschanz to Leer next morning, patrolling borderpolice doublechecked/harassed us again and I screwed them once more ......stupid cop had pound of hash in his hands without realising it !
funny times and very exciting sometimes !
Germans are usually excited when it is about borders.. especially this border on Odra River.. aren`t they... (some years ago that was Łaba River about but in circa about 900AD they has been stopped on Odra River and still don`t feel fair about it...
some are a bit "excited" when it comes to the modern eastern border at the Oder (!) river bc beyond it there is prussia and other old traditional german territories .....which were ethnically halfslav for some centuries, but in our history this land is the old eastern part of the holy roman empire of german nation
the laba ? are you sure thats the actual name of the river you think about ? some centuries before 900 A.D. there might were some goths or other eastgermanic tribes present in this area, but thats quite some time ago and I guess almost nobody today still thinks about this region as a part of somehow german homeland....
around 900 A.D. there was some trouble regarding vikings in the north (at river Eider) and marauding hungarian horsemen........latter had their last major conflict with the germans nearby river Lech - do you mean the Lech ?
21:12 my grandma was actually affected by that expelling of Germans and had to leave her home with nothing more then her clothes and one bag
Similar thing happened to my grandma. During the Soviet occupation my family was taken to regions near Moldova and the Black sea and later when they were allowed to return, they couldn't go back to their homeland because it was no longer Polish but Ukrainian and Belarusian. So they were forced by the authorities to go to Western Poland and settle in the once German lands. The entire country of Poland got shifted westward. It was a major resettlement from what I heard.
I live in Germany and never knew about most of these. Thanks for sharing!
Do you want to trade Borkum for Kerkrade? Kerkraders are basically German anyway
frisianmouve Why should we?
Um, not really, no. ;-)
dutch people are basically german anyway
frisianmouve I dont want Kerkrade
"Germany has weird borders!"
HRE: Hold my beer
ValdoreJavorsky lol 4 tho
Bangladesh : AMATEURS
ValdoreJavorsky whats HRE?
ModernCombatZocker Holy Roman Empire
Mizzurani Friend "it is neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire"
I am fascinated how much and how fast you can talk :D
Greetings from Germany
May be a train to catch ... lol
It's a nightmare for non native speakers like me
But I guess I trained my ears
All those weird in and out on the borders are actually farmers land of each countries. Is bit hard to be farmer and have part of your farm to be other side of the border.
Poland border with Germany drawn by Stalin because he grabbed 1/3 of eastern Poland to Soviet Union. At Yauta in 1944 Roosevelt and Churchill accepted this even Pols protested. And as Poland was occupied by Soviet Union to 1991 did not have anything to say in that mater. Pols from east where relocated by force to new Reclaimed land. Thay rafuse to build new house on new land as they always hope to came back to the old homes. As the hope was on the Germans side too . As they were relocated by force too. Lives of milions afected by decision of 3 men. Sad
fasola Churchill opposed in Yalta but to no avail. Marshall Rokossovsky obliterated the German Front when his ferocious Belorussian Strategic Offensive saw his tanks advance to the Baltic Sea cutting off Prussia. Stalin never let go. Now his land grab of Eastern Poland, which resulted in today’s Western Ukraine, has come to haunt them. Without it Eastern Ukraine would be Russia by the will of the local population. Now Ukraine is an awkward country divided between what used to be Poland / Austria-Hungary, and what used to be Russia.
Between Denmark and Germany, many farmers have land on both sides, or even their farmhouse (dwellings) o one side, and the barn or stable on the other side. And before Schengen, locals within a 5 km area could get a stamp allowing them to use unmanned border crossings. There were many of these small border crossings just for local people.
But there were also farmers, in 1920, who asked the border commission to be included in either Germany or Denmark, and the line was sometimes changed according to this before it was made official.
It is actually quite normal for farmers to have land on both sides or a border, at least between countries that have a 'friendly' border.
It was of course impossible across the Iron Curtain border, but also between Communist countries.
However, just for the numbers: 2-3 Mio Polish expellees obatined lands where 8-10 Mio Germans had lived. So this was not a fair solution but revenge.
Current Polish-German border is almost exactly same as it was in IX century so lets call it justice. You should never draw borders with weapon in your hands like Germans did in every part of their history. Slavic people living there should be part of Slavic country or they should be independent, not Germanized. Just watch some timelapse and check what ethnic those groups really are.
@oh yeah yeah The only history you are part of is about german women being rapped on the streets by refugees kido.
I live in Aachen and there is actually another weird fact about the Belgian border: Between Roetgen and Monschau (two villages near Aachen), there is the German state road B258 which goes through Belgian territory for three kilometers. (There is a Wikipedia entry explaining all the details)
Leonard Schneiders nice I also live in Aachen :)
The Dutch road east of Selfkant has recently been returned to Germany. I recall about a decade ago I drove over it from the Netherlands to the Netherlands (north-sout) with Germany on both sides and it only had unequal east-west road crossings so Germans could cross it without customs/douane.
ich wohne 10 Minuten von roetgen und diese paar kilometer sind super nervig, weil man vom Netzbetreiber jedesmal ne Benachrichtigung bekommt xD und beim begleiteten fahren mit 17 jähren darf man da eigentlich garnicht durch und muss theoretisch jedesmal mit dem Beifahrer Plätze tauschen :D
The city of Aachen is always the first entry in every encyclopedia because it begins "Aac'...No other place on earth begins with 2 "A"s followed by a "C".
16:26 In the U.N. Buffer Zone between Cyprus and Northern Cyprus, at one point in Nicosia, there is a 1 metre gap.
True lol
You should do a video about the former microstate of Moresnet. The tri-point between Germany, Netherlands and Belgium was actually a quin-point between the Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and Moresnet. After Napolean's defeat at Waterloo, there was a zinc mine on this site that was so valuable for the Dutch and Germans to argue over, so it was made a neutral microstate of it's own between 1816 to 1920. Only 3.5 square kilometres and about 3,000 people. After WW1, with the mine being depleted, it was formally absorbed into Belgium. The last living citizen of Moresnet died in October 2016.
Graeme Bray and didn't they try to make the state language Esperanto?
Meneer Bert it was the Esperanto community who were wanting to introduce it. Basically they thought it would be easier to convince a small country to change, however the reality still required 3,500 people to change their cultural heritage by adopting a new language. Also being such a small country, they were dependent on trade and good relations with their neighbours, thus retaining the existing languages they used were more helpful than Esperanto would ever be.
You will LOVE the story of Moresnet!!! I have a good book about it. It's in Dutch though. Very readable.
Germany has the piece of forest...BECAUSE WE F*CKING LOVE FORESTS
it seems more like a landlord once owned this piece of land, and it was never disputed.
FOOORESTS AHHHHHHHHHHH
🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲💓💓💓💓🌲🌲🌲🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
really enjoy seeing someone so wholesomely excited about something :)
IDEA: Do a video about islands with borders.
Sint Maarten/Saint Martin
Haiti/Dominican Republic
Ireland/Northern Ireland
Indonesia/Papua New Guinea (New Guinea Island)
itzDutch Brunai/Malasia/Indonesia
Indonesia/East Timor
UK/Cyprus/TRoN Cyprus (debateble)
itzDutch also USA/Cuba
Sweden/Finland
Usedom: Germany/Poland
Xaver Lustig No. Islands like that one and river islands don't count (at least acording to me). There are just too many of them to find and put in a video and they are kind of an extention of the real land.
I'm german, but I never "explored" our border that closely. That was unexpectedly interesting wow
Ich glaube kein Mensche in Deutschland tut das
ChacUayabXoc It’s not the real border. Half of Prussia is missing.
I remember watching your minecraft stuff back in like 2013/2014. I'm not into that anymore and got into countries/flags/borders and found you again.
Actually, the Oder-Neisse border was accepted as far back as during the Brandt government as far as West Germany was concerned. But West Germany evidently had no actual border with Poland, so the point was kind of moot and only relevant in case of a future reunification. When that reunification happened, the recognition was formalized again as an official agreement between two neighboring nations.
That tripoint is the highest point of the netherlands
Around 30 if I remember correctly?
322.4 meter today, it is slightly rising compared to sealevel.
Wow 322 meters must be like Mount Everest to the Dutch xD
In fact there's a mountain on the Caribbean island of Saba that's considered the highest point 😉
The top of the highest mountain in the Netherlands is in Germany
An European bison called żubr which was living freely in Poland accidentally crossed [swim the Odra river] to Germany. It was instantly killed.
Fun fact: The train station “Basel Badischer Bahnhof” lies on Swiss soil but is operated by the German Railway. If you travel from Germany to Germany via “Basel Badischer Bahnhof” you haven't left the German customs area.
Actually Germany accepted the Oder-Neiße-border in 1970 parallel to a politic of reapproachement with the Soviet block. In 1990 there was only a treaty which was finalising what was policy in the past 20 years anyways.
I have not checked myself, but are you sure that in 1970 the GDR and BRD both aggreed to that border?
EKRotte from Wikipedia: "The Oder-Neisse line marked the border between the German Democratic Republic(East Germany) and Poland from 1950 to 1990. East Germany confirmed the border with Poland in 1950, while West Germany, after a period of refusal, finally accepted the border (with reservations) in 1970. In 1990 the newly reunified Germany and the Republic of Poland signed a treaty recognizing it as their border."
The Article is "Oder-Neisse line".
"Switzerland had been around for thousands of years"
The Old Swiss Confederacy was created around the year 1300, and went through several iterations until becoming the modern Switzerland.
No Switzerland is forever
SWITZERLAND IS ETERNAL🇨🇭
I think he tried to correct himself, give the guy a break!! A heck of a lot of information in such a short time….very interesting Tomcat, greetings from the “Bodensee “.
You missed an enclave of Germany into Austria, but I think this is really good. Furthermore the Dutch-German border is generally ages old, except in the south of the Netherlands (since 1840 or something). One fun fact is that the in the Wadden Sea and the Dollard there is no agreement at all about how the border runs between NL and D. Solution is "let us agree to disagree".
Ronald de Rooij
There are several German places in the alps which are only accessible from Austria and vice versa Austrian places which are only accessible from Germany.
Great video! Minor correction: the "weird language" that the natives, especially old people still speak in the french area that once belonged to Germany (Elsass) isn´t some crossover language that no one understands but simply High German spoken in a typical southern german dialect (Elsässisch).
Jakob Brenner and germans from close to there have no trouble understanding it!
The guy mixed it up with weird French. I am from saxony and had no trouble understanding them. Lovely People.
What about Lorraine? Was that mostly French before 1871?
@@curtisrenkin9684 Alsace was for 95% german, while Lorraine was about 80% German
@@curtisrenkin9684 Yes and no. Basically, Lorraine was cut up in 1871. Germany took every bit of Lorraine that had a german-speaking majority. They did however also take some parts that were almost exclusively french-speaking for strategic reasons, while other parts stayed french.
So the whole of Lorraine before 1871 was mostly french-speaking, the part of Lorraine that was annexed by Germany was about 50/50.
However, the vast majority of the people in both Alsace and Lorraine, no matter their native language, wanted to stay french. So the census on the languages must be taken with a grain of salt.
You think that's weird - go look at the border between The Netherlands and Belgium.
Very interessting. I didnt know our borders are that "cool" xD
Wusst ich auch nicht
Okay gut
Saaaame.
Me too
poland lost a lot of territory to the Soviet Union, and then they got German territory instead...
Ger Tar oo
Ger Tar thats true
Meetlaof well that's what happens when sandwiched between two huge European powers.
Actually it is. 1000 years of "official" history and 100 years of not being its own state.
Ger Tar well that happened because Soviets controlled both Poland and East Germany after the war.
there is only one thing wrong with those borders: Preussen is cut off
Preussen was much bigger than the German East you wanna be anime Nazi.
@slovene ball and also all europe should be a part of germany
@Bygoreak actually just clowning people who still debate on how the border should be but ok
I spot a butthurt german
It's our now!
I had low expectations for this video, but you made this extremely interesting. Thank you for this. (always nice to hear geography nerds talk about maps. One of my friends is the same)
There is a friendship bridge between Zgorzelec, Poland and Gorlitz, Germany.
All those poor Germans who were forced off Silesia and all the rest of east Germany. My great-grandmother had to leave her home there too. And all those polish people who now live there had to leave eastern Poland before. And we are not talking of like 100,000 people here, but of at least 15 million. It is really sad.
Tom 2404
3 of my grandparents had to leave the former east German parts too, after WW2.
Sure sad for them. But without this, they had never met each other and my parents weren't born and me eather.
You see there is also a positive side and I am very thankful for that.
Yeah but I would not be surprised if both sides have it rigged to blow.
Sagiv Boniel Friendship? Why does noone ask the germans that were forced to leave their home after ww2 if they want to be friends with these poles? Oh, I know why! Because everyone alreary knows what they would answer.
Tom 2404 my Granduncle left middle Germany for what's now Poland in WW2 and stayed there (some 5 feet under). So what?
India: "The connection to the North West is soo thin-"
Netherlands: "To Limburg, it's even thinner-"
Germany and Austria: *haltet unser Bier*
Manche Grenzen sind echt komisch xD
"Halt mein Bier" is something a true German would never say. We say: "Halt mein leeres Bierglas."
@@dream_weaver6207 stimmt lol
settings -> speed -> 0.75 -> your welcome :)
Alexander i like it the way it is. More information in less time and very understandable as a non native speaker
That being said = I REALLY WISH there was a 0.8x speed or at least a slider that you can adjust manually whatever the % you want.. I'm trying to learn some guitar solos and they sound awfully slow at 0.75 whilest can't catch up at 100% haha
You have so much passion and talk so quick,that i wasnt bored...I like this guy ! :D
Damn i like that passion ! It's like me with languages c: !
The lake in between Germany, Switzerland and Austria is actually called Bodensee and Lake Constance is the English name for it
Just a minor correction: The dialect of Alsace is a german dialect with french influences, not the other way around.
There are some other cool facts especially within Basel: there is a German train station that is an enclave in Switzerland plus a completely different French train station which is inside the Swiss train station. If you want to go from the Hochrhein area to stuff like Freiburg via train, you need to pass through Switzerland, which is no problem.
There is also the village of Laufenburg which has a Swiss part and a German part. On some occasions they work together quite heavily. There is also the hillarious story that when they build a bridge they used different sea levels (both planed their part), so when they hit the middle they realized they were a few meters off each other.
GelberStuhl Rheinfelden too
Also:
The border crossings between Germany/France and Switzerland have customs points, not passport check points. They may check your luggage and levy import fees, but mostly it's just crowds of cross-border shoppers from Switzerland queueing at the customs houses to claim tax back on their German purchases.
Novartis is based in Basel, but has a car park in France accessible only from their Swiss campus.
The airport is in France, but again has a zone accessible only from Switzerland.
It sounds a little confusing, but it all works just fine.
This is probably the only TH-cam video about Germany where the comment section hasn't been taken over by Germans
I really liked your video. I'm just wondering why you did not mention the village of Leidingen at the German-French border. A street in this village is either called Rue de la Frontiere or Grenzstraße (border street). The border is the middle of the street; French houses on the left, German houses on the right site of the street.
Look the map at the border between mouscron (belgium) and tourcoing (france)
I finished to see where was the border at the 4th or 5th passage...
I have been there personally in 1976 when I was in the German Army and was stationed in Mons. My Belgian co-worker invited me to stay for the wekend. We went shopping to France by just crossing the street. However this has nothing to do with the video title.
It was only to say, there are place where border is inside a town. Leidingen is maybe the lone case between Germany and france but it's because there is the rhine in a great part of the border.
Even as a German I did not know many of those things. I also did not know that the Bodensee (and the two other lakes connected to it) are called Lake Constance in English.
For the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament there is actually the law that the danish minority party will always have at least one seat in it if they get votes (I hope I recall this right. I myself am from Lower-Saxony). They do not have to pass the 5% border we usually enforce upon partys in elections.
I don't know if Germany really isn't happy with the Oder-Neisse-Border. I never thought about it and I never heard it discussed anywhere. But on the other hand, in my semester abroad in the UK I just took a Post-War Germany module and some outside views surprised me but also gave me a different perspective. Btw I feel so sorry for all the other students of that module who have to learn all these complicated German names and terminology additionally to the facts for the exam in a month, while I can just lean back, learn the facts and touch up what I forgot from school time until now and then just gonna write the shit down. Well, I have to do it in English still but since my lecturer is German I can probably get away with smuggeling a little bit more German in it if I don't know the English terminology than my colleagues without any knowledge of German can. But they have my utter most respect for even taking a seminar on German history. I took one on fashist Italy in my first semester and decided to never take a seminar again that involves terminology that is neither German nor English because it is so much to study.
Mir ist auch erst hier in England aufgefallen, wie wenig ich doch eigentlich von Deutschland bisher gesehen habe. Sollte ich, sobald ich zurück bin, vielleicht endlich mal ändern. Aber man denkt hat, man hat ja alle Zeit der Welt das noch irgendwann zu tun und dann tut man es doch irgendwie nie.
As a Norwegian history freak, I can say that the Danish had Sleswig/Holstein (and Pommerania) long before even the Holy Roman empire :p However, the Danes do owe Greenland and a couple islands to us Norwegians... and don't get me started on the Swedes! They also owe Skåne to Denmark, though xD
Yeah borders are a bit fleeting. Very stable in newer times relatively speaking though, all across EU.
No clue where you live but over here plenty (especially older) care for the east border. Part of my family had to flee from the russians back then. My grandgrandma told me once Schlesien is back in German hands she will go back. And i guess she is not the only one
MissDatherinePierce
You are right about the danish minority party.
It had to be a name My grandma's parents were removed from East Prussia, but this really never was a discussion in our family. I mean, even if we had bitter feelings about it, what are we going to do? We would have to violate international law.
I'm from Schleswig-Holstein and your pronouncement is good, but the fourth Language Plattdeutsch isn't Dutch, it's a traditional mix of German, Dutch and English, but it is closest to the modern german, because the modern german was invented by an north german, who mostly let the new German language influence by Plattdeutsch.
Fun quote about Schleswig-Holstein. The British statesman Lord Palmerston is reported to have said: “Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business-the Prince Consort, who is dead-a German professor, who has gone mad-and I, who have forgotten all about it."
nice
The reason why the German-Polish border or Oder-Neise-Grenze is controversial because it was given to poland so that the USSR could take the eastern part of Poland. I for one think that the border is wrong but that is a hot topic.
the border is wrong.
I agree. Borders in general should be abolished.
poland got also lands to the west of the oder river.
@@WasGuckstDuSo65 It`s a price of politics of lebenraum. Somebody who plays in this Darwin`s game can also loose. So dont complain. Volenti non fit iniuria
@@WasGuckstDuSo65 Poland has had lands to the west of the Odra river in ~10/11th century.
reason why German border was moved and Poland took that territory was that USSR took polish territory and if Germans would claim it back polish would claim east territory (mainly west Ukraine). There was nothing nice about Russian motives.
You obviously know nothing of the German-Poland-USSR history
He doesn't know much about history at all, it would seem.
hes obviously having fun posting these videos and cannot stop himself from talking. Also do you expect him to know the history of every fucking country next to germany? wtf, im pretty sure youre the ignorant one and not him ^^
Asdfer411
>You're ignorant for knowing more!
What?
@@Muftaay "Also do you expect him to know the history of every fucking country next to germany?"
Actually if you are fan of geography, you are most likely to be well educated in history as well. He's talking too much, that's for sure and suits his defence but he should really read some more before making videos or avoid difficult subjects at all.
It's probably safe to say that there have been almost no bitter feelings about German-Polish border for the last 30 years, because most Germans who lived on the other side have since died out. The recognition in 1990 was mostly a formality, the only people who regret it are a few extremists (who still exist on both sides). The Polish people who live there now are not to blame and it is their home. The Polish authorities treat the German heritage well, they have restored a lot of it and local museums show it openly and with respect.
One fact not mentioned is that the border divided a number of cities who now have one part in Germany and one part in Poland, and in most cases the names resemble each other. For example Guben/Gubin, Görlitz/Zgorzelec, Küstrin/Kostrzcyn. Only in Frankfurt/Slubice the names differ.
About the names... Most of them had their Polish equivalents, but some didn't, and Communist regime simply Slavicized it. They did so even with places that had Polish names used even in medieval times, but they considered them "too German".
Frankfurt would be Frankobród in Polish, but in the eyes of the government it would be too Germanic, so they choose for Słubice, which doesn't really translate the name at all... It was just a random choice. A pity.
Oh, and about German heritage... Sadly, the biggest problem with it is lack of funds. There are just so many palaces, castles and towns that should have been renovated by now, yet no one would do this because there is no money. But not only that, some places were simply destroyed by Soviets.
For example, I am from small village in what was once East Prussia, and before the war, there was even train station there, but the Soviets took the railroads with them to Russia, burned half of the village and it's now in a very poor state. Hell, we even had a hotel in 1945! (well, to be exact, my grand-granparents lived one village apart from the one I am from, as it was inhabited mostly by Germans, yet I've found on the inhabitants list from '45 that all of those Germans had Polish surnames. But then who knows what language they used at home).
Same with town nearby, it had good location, positioned between two lakes, and very beutiful market square, but most of the buildings were bombed at the end of the war and although the town hall was reconstructed, most of the buildings are gone.
But then Polish authorities are also to blame, as with nearby city, the old town wasn't reconstructed, they simply built some ugly flats on top of the ruins (!). It pains me so much when I realize how beautiful the region was before the war.
Luckily, there were some intact towns left, but they are in minority. Maybe in the future, with right ammount of money, it would be possible to return some of them to their own glory? I hope so.
+peter schwarz No I'm not saying that. I think that the expellation of the Germans from those territories was a violation of human rights, and I also regret the cultural loss - for example the disappearence of the German dialects once spoken there.
BUT: There is nothing we can do today to undo this. Re-annexing those territories to Germany would not undo the crimes that happened in the past. But it would violate the human rights of those Polish people who live there now. They are good people, they have not done any harm to anyone, and they are entitled to live there because it is their home today.
Besides, the general attitude as far as I can tell is open-mindedness. The Poles of today appreciate the history of the place and they care for the German culture that once existed there. And the border is now open, anyone can go and visit each other, including those people who were once expelled. They can even go and live in the places of their childhood memories if they want to, they just need to adjust to the fact that everyone there speaks Polish now. At the same time Polish people can come and live in Germany. So as far as I'm concerned it's all good. We should strive to keep it that way.
Oh, and I object to your wording "polish greed and aggression". Most Poles are good people, and they are entitled to their nationhood like we are to ours.
@Vitalis
"I've found on the inhabitants list from '45 that all of those Germans had Polish surnames. But then who knows what language they used at home"
My grandpa is from Katowice. It belonged to Upper Silesia back then. He also had a slavic surname (Orlinsky) but was german. He talked fluent German and Polish, but his wife only spoke german, but she was from a different region of Germany.
I live in Germany and didn't know one of these facts. But I saw my homevillage :D
Du ungebildeter Bauer
So Basel has an International, International Airport?
haha :)
The Swiss Airport Basel is located in France, at German border and called Basel/Mulhouse International.
It's used by Swissmen, Germans + French.
Fun fact were is Trainstation in Basel, the German Station. This depart to Germany :)
“They turned into French people, but weirdly”
rape
19:34 CZECHIAN ISN'T A DENOMYM. You're supposed to use Czech.
thank you. I can't watch when he uses Czechian. it hurts my ears.
Hard to know all 190 denomym I guess
But didn’t Czech Republic change there name to Czechia
@@bruhz_089 The demonym of Czechia still is Czech
I'm German and as a little kid I was allways irritated bey straight borders
Im 16 now but straight borders still dont seem natural for me.
The major area that Germany lost after the war was Silesia, which went to Poland. There are still Germans alive today who were born in that area.
Earl of Doncaster and half of East-Prussia, Hinterpommern and East-Brandenburg.
And Westpreußen, half of Vorpommern, all of Oberschlesien, most of Niederschlesien, but mostly it was people losing their homeland. 15 million people.
And a small number of Germans who remain.
Between lower and higher silesia, we have city which name is "Opole" and in this city and land and towns around this city there are german minority, who have rights in this land to have german language as a second official language, they have german minority deputy in parliment, they have public schools where teachers speak german (but still it financed by polish goverment). And some people can ask why it is so different than other side of Silesia? Because in this particular city there wasn't many nazi supporters people before the war and many of this people are half-polish half-german, so after war polish goverment don't force them to move to Germany.
@@prkp7248 That is what they tell you. The reality is that the Germans got expelled no matter what their connection with the Nazi party or the gouvernment was, 100 percent. Even resistance fighters. How long do German people have minority rights? How long do Polish know they even exist? They probably told you that the land was always Polish.
Who was not expelled was seen as naturally Polish or was a forced labour worker. That is especially true in upper Silesia with the important Industry. Btw my Bundesland Saxony incorporated 1/3 of Lower Silesia that happened to be left side of the river Oder. In communist times it was forbidden to talk about all of that.
There's a German town called Ostritz on the Polish border that ended up with its railway station on the Polish side of the border after 1945; but the station was only served by East German trains with border guards escorting people to/from the trains. Now rather popular with the far right.
There is also Bayerische Eisenstein, where the railway station is literally split between Germany and Czechia. The Iron Curtain ran through the station.
ibx2cat the name was Königsberg I believe
Jesse Tovar no, it was east prussia. Its capital was königsberg
Osiris exactly the city in the Russian oblast is now known as Kaliningrad which used to be known as Königsberg
If with we you mean yourself. Good luck then!
It's Królewiec in Prusy królewskie you moron.
If you want to know the original name, it was Královec. Founded in honor of Bohemian king, that led a crusade against local pagan Prussians, later that area became part of Prussia (Königsberg), now it's Russia (Kaliningrad/Калининград).
Yeah, European history is weird...
Hi there, pretty nice Video you made there. Just correcting one thing: the french sounding like german, but noone understands, you mention, is not real french actually. Its basically more like a mutual dialect(with slight differences to each area) not only spoken in Colmar, but in the whole area of Luxemburg(Letzeburgish), Lorraine(Lothringisch), Alsace(Elsässerditsch), the Saarland(Saarländisch) and Rhineland-Palatinate )Pälzisch - its five pretty similar soundind dialects, all from the Rhinefranconian language family. The area is also titled as "SaarLorLux". Funny thing is - you´re not completely wrong: most people from outside these areas won´t understand us here, since there is heavy french influence in the dialects.
Give back elsass-lothringen
Actually Poland looks almost the same as it used to look at the beginning (from 966 till 1138), so it is not like that Poland never owned this lands. I agree Prussia ruled this lands for most of time but in fact Danzing was founded by Kingdom of Poland and was in Polish borders for around 500 years
Loved it! Great video and you've really gone into detail, well done.
Love history and geography and geopolitics and all, Germany's history -if- is one of, if not _the_ most intriguing in the world when it comes to how it became what it is today geographically.
if you could zoom around less, it'd be way more comfortable to watch all those borders and explore a few of those areas on your map while you're talking.
Some people here also say that you're talking to fast, but, as someone else also mentioned, I like that you're getting straight to the topic without doing to much nonsense talk.
Talking might be too fast for some non-native english speakers (I'm german - so no native-speaker) but IMO your pronounciation is pretty clear and well understandable.
One quick addition: None of our borders are seriously discussed anymore, neither the Danish-German border nor the Oder-Neisse line. There are some very tiny minorities of 'Ewiggestrige' (roughly translatable as 'people living in the past') who might have a different feeling about the current borders but most Germans are content with the current situation and we're happy to live peacfully with our neighbors for such a long time now.
Actually that is what the people with a washed brain want us to believe. The millions of people who are from that parts of Germany never forgot. And the Germans who are living there are not so forgetful like left wing hipsters. Not in Alsace (Elsaß), not in Tirol, not in South Denmark and not in Bohemia, Poland or even Transsilvania. Been there, talked to them. Just not anybody wants another war. Probably you live in a bubble and nobody dares to talk to you truth because you are judgy.
@GamingTSC • Actually Germany should be much smaller when we exclude their conquered lands. Plus they should give a choice to break free to lands they are actually occupy like Bavaria for example which desire freedom or autonomy at least as they feel different.
@GamingTSC • Why you telling me this? Tell Bavarians instead. Those are theirs demands. Also ask Austrians if they wanna be part of Germany. You would face the truth.
@GamingTSC • Austrians are in Germanic ethnic group, but they never was citizens of Germany (situations where they were forced to do so doesn't count cuz if it would count Czechs should be recognized as Germans too). Just like Czechs/Slovaks and Poles same Slavic group. Austrians had their own country for centuries before thing like Germany were created. Would say more, lots of Germans hated unification process which was full of bloodshed, tricky political games and propaganda. According to statistic from 2017 1/3 Bavarians would vote for independence/autonomy just like 22% Saarlands citizens and 21% Saxons, but "only" 13% Berlins and 8% Rheinland-Pfalz citizens. After mess which Merkel did i think numbers changed. So we are talking about millions of people.
@GamingTSC • Yea they were so happy to see around 200 000 German soldiers in their country to help them with referendum. If you believe that results of referendum wasn't fabricated, there is nothing to discuss. According to accurate results of votes in one region 15% of people voted for Yes for incorporation, 30% agreed for opportunistic reasons, 20% were pessimistic and 35% were totally against it. Nazis never played fair.
One caveat: Google Maps isn't a geographical and/or political reference. They do have errors in their data, so, as said, be aware that anything you see on Google Maps (or other, non-official, maps) could be completely wrong.
And may show different things, due to political considerations, depending on from where it thinks you're browsing.
Like the one time one country invaded another, because Google maps had a mistake and the thought it is now their land
Fun fact: After WW1 Denmark was offered to get all of Schleswig back, but since we're so nice we decided to have a referendum so each part of the area could decide which country they wanted to belong to, and as a result we only got half of it back.
Cruzer Yea that's weirs
What is weird about a referendum? The major danish part lives in Aabenraa and the major german part lives in Flensburg. It was one of the fairest and most peaceful border changes to that time, maybe it is weird for you because it was a more peaceful referendum?
Corsair EmeraldProjects
The referendum was kinda unfair for Denmark. And it escalated into the Easter crisis if I'm not mistaking
Had to read about it, as I see danish nationalist were upset, because they didn´t got a major ethnic german part. There were no fights at all or to say it bloody conflicts in a bigger dimension. Maybe if they had fought in the Great War, but they were completely neutral.
In comparison of the bolshevik conflicts in poland and the turkish war for liberation is this pretty peaceful.
Corsair EmeraldProjects yea it was surprisingly peaceful
Ibxtoycat is one of the best youtubers because he does some of my two favourite subjects on his two channels; it’s exactly what I need
I only watch ibx2cat videos in 2.5x speed
mfaizsyahmi. YOU ARE HARD CORE M8
😂😂😂
0.5 is the drunken style and it's hilarious
Okay, I'm not a native speaker so this may just be a problem for me but... wow, you're a fast talker o.O Very hard to follow. Other than that: Cool video, didn't realise our borders are so weird. I find straight borders weird, guess it depends on how you grow up :D
I'm a native speaker and I had to slow it down.
Yeah just put it to 0.75 makes it sound "normal" :D
i live in an area where people talk like this regularly, so it’s not that difficult for me to follow, though i do understand how, as a non-native speaker, it could definitely be difficulty to follow.
As a 19yrs old german its easy to understand everything in this vis
I'm not native speaker either, but still I had no problems with his speed. Must be because I speak fast by myself
Frisian and Dutch are basically dialects of German. Similar to "Bayerische" or "Schwiizertüütsch". Dutch sounds very similar to "Plattdeutsch" which is a recognised dialect today in Germany
and people still disagree if luxemburgish is it's own language or a german dialect.
Those exclaves / inclaves are really interesting, didn't know that Germany's borders were so complicated.
Also, had to check if the playback speed was set to higher than normal, but it turned out that you talk so fast :D
Jakub Jankowski You should google the HRE, those borders are really bad.
Borders between the German federal states can be quite a nightmare as well. At least in one place between Lower Saxony and North Rhine Westphalia, the state border actually goes right through a farmhouse... And it gets even more complicated when you take a look at the German federal churches, because their borders tend to emulate even older lines of allegiance, resulting in some rather odd exclaves as well.
@@robinroos2254 they are border gore
The "quadripoint" between Austria and Germany IS actually an official quadripoint! Google Maps was just inaccurate when drawing the border.
I like how fascinated you are. I grew up going to Mexico regularly and it still fascinates me how once you cross the river, boom cell phone signal was gone (back in the 2000’s, now it’s free across the continent)
If you go to the Video-settings and set the speed to 0.75 then he speaks like a normal human.
Phil Osoph what? He speak normal speed anyway
I am not a native but I am clearly able to understand him.
...but you'll learn things 25% slower than the rest of us.
thanks Phil, good pick
Well-strucutred video, also really like that you didn't butcher up the villages/towns you mentioned and actually dared to pronounce them! (You did your research well)
alternatively - I'm really good at guessing the names of towns/cities that surround Germany :P
Frektel Felms ayy my meme boi
True, but one small pedantic thing that kinda irritated me was the mispronunciantion of basel. Its bah-sel, not bae-sel
Also it's Fr-eye-burg, not Freeburg...
French names were quite butchered. But it's cool. Impossible to guess unless you actually speak french.
I’m surprised this isn’t a fan channel
congrats, you pissed off a german
This Feeling when you grew up near those weird German-Swiss borders... XD
Polish German border evaluated since more than 1000 years. So you basically tells the lie that border between Poland and Germany should be here and here because it was Germany here before.
Talk about countries surrounding countries
Very fascinating video, I also like these border anomalies. Other oddities:
* disputed border between D & NL: if you're on a ferry between Emden, Germany and Borkum, Germany, according to the Dutch, you might be in the Netherlands, according to the Germans, you're not.
* After WW2, the Dutch initially wanted to annex large parts of Western Germany, Cologne or the Ruhrgebiet could have become Dutch at that time, but in the end, they only got a handful of villages and fields (Emmerich-Elten, Selfkant). Most of them were returned in 1963, except one hill that's Dutch to this day
* there are quite a few streets shared between Germany and the Netherlands, e.g. the Neustraße/Nieuwstraat in Herzogenrath (D) and Kerkrade (NL).
* Quadpoint near Aachen: today's shared point of Germany, NL and B used to be a four-countries-point between 1819 and 1915 (around these dates) when there was the country of Neutral-Moresnet where the Vienna Congress couldn't decide who to give to. The road from the Dutch village of Vaals to the Trinational point is still called "Viergrenzenwg" (Four Borders Road)
* German-speakers in Belgium: after WW1, Germany had to give some small patches of land to Belgium, that are now the German-speaking community of Belgium around the towns of Eupen and Sankt Vith.
* the river between Luxembourg and Germany is actually a condominium
* as the Alsace used to be part of Germany in the past and was inhabited by German-speaking people, many place names are very German to this day. E.g. one tram line of the Strasbourg tram system connects Illkirch and Hœnheim, both in France while sounding German.
* two trams cross the German-France border: the Saarbahn between Saarbrücken (D) and Sarreguemines (F) and tram D between Kehl (D) and Strasbourg (F)
* the German Railways own a lot of railways in Switzerland: the line from Basel to Schaffhausen as you mentioned, and also Basel's second largest station, the Badischer Bahnhof.
* there is also a tram from Basel to Germany since a few years
* trains and cars going from main Austria to Tyrol very likely cross through Germany as the route via Rosenheim (D) is one of the best to go to that part of Austria.
* the railway station of Bayerisch Eisenstein (D) and Železná Ruda (CZ) lies exactly on the border of the two nations
* as the border came after the cities, there are quite a few divided cities on the Oder-Neiße border, such as Görlitz/Zgorzelec, Guben/Gubin, Frankfurt (Oder)/Słubice and Kostrzyn nad Odrą/Küstrin-Kietz.
* even though the border is named "Oder-Neiße" it actually diverts in the north so that the important port of Szczecin (Stettin) became wholly Polish, together with the sea town of Świnoujście (Swinemünde) on the island of Usedom (Uznam).
SimonHellinger the tram to saareguemines comes quite often (once in 40min). Its pretty normal for french kids to visit schools in saarbrücken, too (these are mostly kids from richer families)
The borders are weird because there is no PREUßEN JEEZ
The German-Polish Border really bothers me. More so, what the Soviets did to Polish borders bothers me. Kaliningrad is incredibly annoying to me. For a bit of a deeper explanation, Germany owned most of Western and Northern Poland prior to The Great War. After the war ended the German puppet of the kingdom of Poland, which was basically Congress Poland (which in itself was a Russian puppet before the war), was able to gain independence. Then, in the region known as Greater Poland, their was a massive uprising by the local polish population. It was such a massive movement that it got the Paris Peace to set new Polish-German borders. These would be the borders that Germany and Poland would share up until World War 2. Those borders were actually ethnically speaking pretty fair. With exception of Southern Eats Prussia, which is just south of Kaliningrad today, Germans were in german land and Poles were in polish land. However, Eastern Polish holdings during the interwar period has major Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian minority populations in them. These lands were also won in a war between the Soviets and the Polish in the early 1920's. The Soviets wanted in back and when they were able to invade most of Eastern Europe, they took the territory back for themselves and gave much of East Prussia to Poland and relocated the local German population. It's an interesting story, and it also pisses me off. Konigsberg, a major Prussian city, and where the "Seven Bridges of Konigsberg" problem comes from, was razed to the ground during the second world war. The Soviet's took it for their own, built a new city, and kept the land after the union fell apart. Honestly, most Soviet era borders bother me. Anyways, i like this video, rant over...
And before anyone says it, I'll say it, I should spell checked... and grammar checked...
Just compare Königsberg and Dresden. Both were totally destroyed by bombs in the war. Then both started to build up again, and now Dresden is a beautiful city and the former-Königsberg really really awful
Kaliningrad needs better city planning.
Shame Russians don't care about that, since that region has so much potential.
Germany deserved to be punished after the war.
+Kosta M. Yep, I am sure my grandmother had so much influence on the german politics of that time beeing borne in 1927. Such an evil person supporting Hitler while beeing six years old. So vile.
Was that enough sarcasm to understand?
Should we charge the US for mudering millions of civilians aswell? Or the Royal Airforce for deliberately burning people in their homes?
Jasper Zanovich Did Germany care about civilians when it bombed Rotterdam, Warsaw, London...
And countless other cities, it's army commited some of the worse crimes in history.
And when Allies wrecked them, they were like "it was a joke bro".
When you start a global war with intent of extermination of your enemy you should not expect any mercy in return if you loose.
almost every land has borders like germany but america... straight lines
Nicky Drinks Water
Colonial Nations have straight lines too.
Just drawn by Imperialists who had not much time.
*Cries in Colorado*
Which means, only America isn’t gay.
*Cries in north Africa*
Some additional points.
1. The German/Luxemburg border in the river Mosel is also a condominium
2. The quadpoint at Jungholz is a point, marked by one border stone (not a gap as detailed by 'google Maps inaccuracy) www.grensmarkeringen.be/Jungholz.htm
What you forgot to mention:
Büsingen am Hochrhein did not accept Daylight Savings Time when it was introduced in Germany and therefore had it's own timezone.
They used the Swiss Time and after Switzerland introduced DST a year later, they became synchronised again.
And to this day, modern Operating Systems sometimes still list "Büsingen am Hochrhein" as it's own Timezone at UTC+1
unjinzTrash I think there are infinitely many things he _forgot_ to mention. Interesting stuff tho