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.
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 лет назад+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)
I'm surprised that Denmark didn't demand that Schleswig-Holstein be returned to Denmark after WWII. Fun fact: The Angles (who came to eastern, middle, and northern England and southern Scotland) originally came from a peninsula within Schleswig-Holstein.
Funny story (for me, at least): in german you can say "oder" at the and of a sentence, which means something like "right?". Now, they call Frankfurt (the big one) "Frankfurt (am) Main", and the small Frankfurt simply "Frankfurt Oder" because it's on the Oder river. The first time I was there, I really wanted to go to random people and ask them "Ich bin in Frankfurt, oder?" (Literally: I'm in Frankfurt, right?). My wife wasn't amuse, and I didn't do that :-/
I remember having fun on the german-netherlandic(?) border. I jumped and ran several times from Germany to the Netherlands and vice versa. You may think I was a kid but in fact I was stoned as hell.
If you want to see a weird border, check out the town Baarle-Hertog on the Belgian-Dutch border instead. This video is not even close to being as weird as that!
That was very interesting! I did not know that we had so many interesting borders.🙌 P.S.: try breathing a bit more between your sentences, you are talking soooo fast🙌😅
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. :)
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.
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.
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.
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
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 :-)
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...
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
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.
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!
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.
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 ?
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.
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).
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.
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?
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
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
"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 “.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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)
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.
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.
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...
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.
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."
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.
Do you know the history of Poland and Germany before Germany began to rob Poland of its territory? For example, 1795? Do you know that today's Kaliningrad belonged to Poland, and Poland brought there "Teutonic Knights" to transform these lands into Christian ones and that they still belonged to Poland after all? Did you know that the Pomeranian princes were more for Poland than for the Germans? Do you know anything about Prussian tribute? Did you know that the lands of your Brandenburg also belonged to Poland? And the lands of today's Leipzig? So, stop banging nonsense about the fact that Poland has taken away any territory! These are the lands recovered by Poland! Poland and Germany have always separated the Oder. By Hitler Poland lost more land than it gained. For example, the capital of Lithuania and Belarus are old Polish cities! Ukrainian Lviv still contains Polish architecture! Why do not you mention it? Why do Germans always make sacrifices? You are the one to blame for what is now! Kaliningrad also belonged to Poland and these lands were taken by Russia. Not only did you rob Poland of cultural and gold goods and you bombed Poland just like 60 bombs thrown at Hiroshima, killing 6 million Poles, which makes Poland less than half the population of Germany today, you still point out that Poland stole lands from you! Next time, think about what you write and what you say, because you only talk about fake news, without knowing the history of Poland and Germany, simply because they do not teach you in schools. To convince you Spain at 2WW, you gave them the church golden bells that you stole from Poland. So you should be ashamed of yourself, and not yet make the sacrifice of the world to which the land was taken. They should reduce you, because you write such nonsense that you want to puke! And there is no Polish-German friendship, because you have always been making thieves and poor people out of Poles, and you are the only thieves and the main cause of old poverty in Poland. Both you and Russia! But fortunately in 10 years you will envy the Poles a strong country and government, and an army that you absolutely do not have. You have an army that is old, dull, rusty, in small quantities. And Poland? In Poland today you make a bank transfer over your mobile phone and in one minute you have money on the second account. Electronic medical exemptions and you still go with the cards and send you to Krankenkasse. With us, the internet for 5 euros is better than you are when you buy 15 euros for 4 GB. In Poland, the Internet is receiving even in the worst village and you can not do it! Even though you have knocked out six million Poles, our country, having half the population less than you, is moving forward more than you think. You are constantly mocking Poland and you have not even been to this country and you have no idea what's going on. And there is peace and you can have fun even in the city center at 1 am and you are safe. Go to Berlin or Stockholm. You will not go quietly down the street, because there is rudeness and thievery and a threat to life. AND! Something very important! You keep saying that Poland has received money from the Union and that is why it is growing. Do you know why she got that money? Because it pays them, first of all, two of them were to open the market to German stores like Lidl and Netto. These stores were to be tax-free in Poland, thanks to which you received even more money than Poland was getting! And who is robbing people here ?! This time without a war, but you're still robbing Poland. And when now Poland suddenly wants to tax everything as normal Polish stores, the European Union begins the fight for the rule of law. And in Poland there is absolutely no dictatorship, you can write what you want in social media, because it is democracy. And how is it known in Germany that some censorship was created? You can not write freely because they delete uncomfortable entries. Also nice friend ... I live in Germany, I see your realities on a daily basis. I did not go for money and out of curiosity, because I was a professional soldier in Poland and I earned nice money. And here? It turns out that I studied in Poland according to EU standards at school, I am a laboratory chemist, and Germany does not accept my documents. Also, first start yourself to be fine with other nations and then have any opinion. Because you have been for several years unreliable and simply stupid naive people with whom the leftist government does what it wants! You are weak and not worth any support. You should be separated from everyone by a huge wall and sit alone in your AHMEDOLAND! AND I AM NOT A RASIST, BUT I ACTUATE FACTS.
You bring up many true historical points but you do it in a very hostile and over-the-top way and assume the guy who made the video is German when he sounds like some variety of Briton. As the old saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. There are plenty of youtube videos and channels whining about bringing back a Grossdeutschland for the glory of the German people blah blah etc etc that would justify angry responses. This guy just made a pretty harmless video going over a border the history of which he isn't as familiar with, which you can't really blame him for, being an Englishman or something, and doesn't seem in any way like another internet neonazi. It's also worth remembering that most English-language histories of Poland derive from German sources - I honestly believe it's entirely accidental that he said something the e-hitlers would approve of! No need to get all political when people will listen more and actual read what you're saying if it's to the point and polite - even if the relevant (about the border and its history) core information is the same. An angry wall of text is more likely to make people go 'oh another frothing at the mouth nationalist' and just not bother reading it instead of going 'huh, I wonder if that historical stuff is true' then finding out that it is. Prosze cie pan, pisac spokojnie i wyniki bedzie lepiej! (Przepraszam za moje bardzo slabo Polski)
So much wrong with this Video…. "Germany begrudgingly accepted the Polish German border in 1990 and “really really don’t likes it”"? Nope, pure BS. The German Parliament unanimously decided that they will except the “Oder-Neiße-Grenze” as the German Polish Boarder, in case Germany would ever get reunified again, back in 1972. Russia saved Poland? You know that the Soviet Union invade Poland together with Nazi Germany in 1939, right? And then, after the Second World war, the installed a socialistic puppet? Ohh and just one more thing: Google Maps/Earth doesn’t have the Accurate Boarders. For checking them quickly it’s okay, but trying to deep analysis on them? Ohh Boy….
DerSim688 No, before the 'reunification' of Germany politicians always promised that a reunification would only happen with all of Germany (including everything Poland and Russia annexes after ww2). Even leftist parties like the SPD promied this. They only agrees to the Oder-Neiße-border in 1990 because they realised it wasn't possible to get the rest of Germany back without a war (which waa definitiv not an option).
@@janzjenau8400 My recollection and opinion is that the Oder-Neisse border was ratified in 1990 otherwise the 4 powers would not have agreed the reunification of the DDR and BRD. That being said, it's my opinion that the majority of those voting had no problem with doing so.
@@janzjenau8400 as a Polish guy I would have no problem giving back lands lost by Germany as long as Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine gave back Polish lands taken in 1945.
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.
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
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
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)
"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.
This Feeling when you grew up near those weird German-Swiss borders... XD
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)
I'm surprised that Denmark didn't demand that Schleswig-Holstein be returned to Denmark after WWII.
Fun fact: The Angles (who came to eastern, middle, and northern England and southern Scotland) originally came from a peninsula within Schleswig-Holstein.
That was educating for me - and I AM german. :D Kudos.
Those are not the REAL German borders however!
The borders are weird because the allies take big parts of germany and set new borders after the second world war.
Funny story (for me, at least): in german you can say "oder" at the and of a sentence, which means something like "right?". Now, they call Frankfurt (the big one) "Frankfurt (am) Main", and the small Frankfurt simply "Frankfurt Oder" because it's on the Oder river. The first time I was there, I really wanted to go to random people and ask them "Ich bin in Frankfurt, oder?" (Literally: I'm in Frankfurt, right?). My wife wasn't amuse, and I didn't do that :-/
My family is from a little town near the bodensee and it is called bodensee. Konstanz is the biggest town on the lake
I remember having fun on the german-netherlandic(?) border. I jumped and ran several times from Germany to the Netherlands and vice versa. You may think I was a kid but in fact I was stoned as hell.
It seems every country has weird borders. If all do, then that is the norm, so no country has weird borders
Island nations don't ;)
If i'm not mistaken, the Basel-Tramway is the only tri-national-tramnetwork
If you want to see a weird border, check out the town Baarle-Hertog on the Belgian-Dutch border instead. This video is not even close to being as weird as that!
To the commentator, lower your dosage of dexadrine. I've never heard anyone machine gun the English language, that much, in my life. Yikes.
Germany’s boarders would look even weirder if Pomerania and Silesia were still part of it.
Schaffhausen makes me crazy
That was very interesting! I did not know that we had so many interesting borders.🙌
P.S.: try breathing a bit more between your sentences, you are talking soooo fast🙌😅
I'd rather said Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan borders are weird... I don't think German borders are weird...
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
"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
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.
"Germany has the weirdest borders"
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan:
*am i a joke to u*
that was kinda me. sorry
Russia: "Yeah, kinda."
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
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
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
"A German Exclave"
I dont want that polish corridor incident again....
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
"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 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 ?
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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
Very interessting. I didnt know our borders are that "cool" xD
Wusst ich auch nicht
Okay gut
Saaaame.
Me too
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.
21:45 poznan was always polish
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
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.
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
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 think that's weird - go look at the border between The Netherlands and Belgium.
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 :)
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.
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.
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".
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.
really enjoy seeing someone so wholesomely excited about something :)
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.
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.
"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 “.
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.
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: !
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
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 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.
I live in Germany and didn't know one of these facts. But I saw my homevillage :D
Du ungebildeter Bauer
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.
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?
This because of WW2.
Rest in peace Prussia. 💚😖
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".
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)
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.
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.
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
This is probably the only RUclips video about Germany where the comment section hasn't been taken over by Germans
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
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*
“They turned into French people, but weirdly”
rape
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.
congrats, you pissed off a german
+1
Talk about countries surrounding countries
Just a minor correction: The dialect of Alsace is a german dialect with french influences, not the other way around.
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...
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.
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!
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
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.
Do you know the history of Poland and Germany before Germany began to rob Poland of its territory? For example, 1795? Do you know that today's Kaliningrad belonged to Poland, and Poland brought there "Teutonic Knights" to transform these lands into Christian ones and that they still belonged to Poland after all? Did you know that the Pomeranian princes were more for Poland than for the Germans? Do you know anything about Prussian tribute? Did you know that the lands of your Brandenburg also belonged to Poland? And the lands of today's Leipzig? So, stop banging nonsense about the fact that Poland has taken away any territory! These are the lands recovered by Poland!
Poland and Germany have always separated the Oder. By Hitler Poland lost more land than it gained. For example, the capital of Lithuania and Belarus are old Polish cities! Ukrainian Lviv still contains Polish architecture! Why do not you mention it?
Why do Germans always make sacrifices? You are the one to blame for what is now! Kaliningrad also belonged to Poland and these lands were taken by Russia.
Not only did you rob Poland of cultural and gold goods and you bombed Poland just like 60 bombs thrown at Hiroshima, killing 6 million Poles, which makes Poland less than half the population of Germany today, you still point out that Poland stole lands from you!
Next time, think about what you write and what you say, because you only talk about fake news, without knowing the history of Poland and Germany, simply because they do not teach you in schools.
To convince you Spain at 2WW, you gave them the church golden bells that you stole from Poland. So you should be ashamed of yourself, and not yet make the sacrifice of the world to which the land was taken. They should reduce you, because you write such nonsense that you want to puke!
And there is no Polish-German friendship, because you have always been making thieves and poor people out of Poles, and you are the only thieves and the main cause of old poverty in Poland. Both you and Russia! But fortunately in 10 years you will envy the Poles a strong country and government, and an army that you absolutely do not have. You have an army that is old, dull, rusty, in small quantities. And Poland? In Poland today you make a bank transfer over your mobile phone and in one minute you have money on the second account.
Electronic medical exemptions and you still go with the cards and send you to Krankenkasse. With us, the internet for 5 euros is better than you are when you buy 15 euros for 4 GB. In Poland, the Internet is receiving even in the worst village and you can not do it!
Even though you have knocked out six million Poles, our country, having half the population less than you, is moving forward more than you think. You are constantly mocking Poland and you have not even been to this country and you have no idea what's going on. And there is peace and you can have fun even in the city center at 1 am and you are safe. Go to Berlin or Stockholm. You will not go quietly down the street, because there is rudeness and thievery and a threat to life.
AND! Something very important! You keep saying that Poland has received money from the Union and that is why it is growing. Do you know why she got that money? Because it pays them, first of all, two of them were to open the market to German stores like Lidl and Netto. These stores were to be tax-free in Poland, thanks to which you received even more money than Poland was getting! And who is robbing people here ?! This time without a war, but you're still robbing Poland. And when now Poland suddenly wants to tax everything as normal Polish stores, the European Union begins the fight for the rule of law. And in Poland there is absolutely no dictatorship, you can write what you want in social media, because it is democracy. And how is it known in Germany that some censorship was created? You can not write freely because they delete uncomfortable entries.
Also nice friend ... I live in Germany, I see your realities on a daily basis. I did not go for money and out of curiosity, because I was a professional soldier in Poland and I earned nice money. And here? It turns out that I studied in Poland according to EU standards at school, I am a laboratory chemist, and Germany does not accept my documents.
Also, first start yourself to be fine with other nations and then have any opinion. Because you have been for several years unreliable and simply stupid naive people with whom the leftist government does what it wants! You are weak and not worth any support. You should be separated from everyone by a huge wall and sit alone in your AHMEDOLAND!
AND I AM NOT A RASIST, BUT I ACTUATE FACTS.
You bring up many true historical points but you do it in a very hostile and over-the-top way and assume the guy who made the video is German when he sounds like some variety of Briton. As the old saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. There are plenty of youtube videos and channels whining about bringing back a Grossdeutschland for the glory of the German people blah blah etc etc that would justify angry responses. This guy just made a pretty harmless video going over a border the history of which he isn't as familiar with, which you can't really blame him for, being an Englishman or something, and doesn't seem in any way like another internet neonazi. It's also worth remembering that most English-language histories of Poland derive from German sources - I honestly believe it's entirely accidental that he said something the e-hitlers would approve of! No need to get all political when people will listen more and actual read what you're saying if it's to the point and polite - even if the relevant (about the border and its history) core information is the same. An angry wall of text is more likely to make people go 'oh another frothing at the mouth nationalist' and just not bother reading it instead of going 'huh, I wonder if that historical stuff is true' then finding out that it is. Prosze cie pan, pisac spokojnie i wyniki bedzie lepiej! (Przepraszam za moje bardzo slabo Polski)
Could you do a video on The Republics of Russia? Tuva and Altai in particular?
So much wrong with this Video…. "Germany begrudgingly accepted the Polish German border in 1990 and “really really don’t likes it”"? Nope, pure BS. The German Parliament unanimously decided that they will except the “Oder-Neiße-Grenze” as the German Polish Boarder, in case Germany would ever get reunified again, back in 1972. Russia saved Poland? You know that the Soviet Union invade Poland together with Nazi Germany in 1939, right? And then, after the Second World war, the installed a socialistic puppet?
Ohh and just one more thing: Google Maps/Earth doesn’t have the Accurate Boarders. For checking them quickly it’s okay, but trying to deep analysis on them? Ohh Boy….
DerSim688 No, before the 'reunification' of Germany politicians always promised that a reunification would only happen with all of Germany (including everything Poland and Russia annexes after ww2). Even leftist parties like the SPD promied this. They only agrees to the Oder-Neiße-border in 1990 because they realised it wasn't possible to get the rest of Germany back without a war (which waa definitiv not an option).
+janzjenau yeah, they promised it.... back in the 50th and 60th....
DerSim688 Border = Grenze Boarder is someone who rents a room in someone's house....
@@janzjenau8400 My recollection and opinion is that the Oder-Neisse border was ratified in 1990 otherwise the 4 powers would not have agreed the reunification of the DDR and BRD. That being said, it's my opinion that the majority of those voting had no problem with doing so.
@@janzjenau8400 as a Polish guy I would have no problem giving back lands lost by Germany as long as Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine gave back Polish lands taken in 1945.
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
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
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.
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.
The ussr expelled lots of polish from their land too! Also it was the ussr who expelled the germans not polish!
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