The former East German territories (in German: Ehemalige deutsche Ostgebiete) are those provinces or traditionally German regions that are located east of the East German border, drawn up by the Allied Control Commission in 1945 and which now belong to other sovereign countries. These territories included the Province of Posen (lost after the First World War) and East Prussia, Central Pomerania, East Brandenburg and Lower Silesia (lost in World War II); and other smaller regions. In present-day Germany, this term is often used to refer only to territories lost in World War II.
From 1919 to 1990 the sovereignty of most of these areas was subject to strong diplomatic activity. Between the two world wars, many people claimed in Germany that the territories ceded by Germany in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles (most of which were absorbed by Poland) returned to Germany. This claim was an important precursor of World War II. In 1939 after the invasion of Poland, Germany reoccupied and annexed these territories (in addition to an additional portion of Poland that was previously never part of the German Empire or Second Reich). Germany, subsequently, lost all territories east of the Oder-Neisse Line at the end of World War II in 1945, when international recognition of its rights over jurisdiction over any of those territories was discarded. The eastern German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line, according to the German borders of 1937, with the exception of the northern area of East Prussia administered by the Soviet Union, began to be called Territories Reclaimed in Poland after the Second War World.
