Eupen-Malmedy

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Eupen-Malmedy, (the French-speaking Belgians once called them the "Redeemed Cantons"; or the "East Cantons" (in German, die Ostkantone; in French, les Cantons de l’Est), are composed of the former Prussian districts (Kreise in German) of Malmedy, Eupen, increased by the addition of neutral Moresnet. These territories were annexed to Belgium in 1919 according to the Versailles Treaty. Secret negotiation between the Belgian and German governments failed in 1925 because France did not want any clause of the Versailles Treaty to be reviewed, and wanted more pre-War German lands to be alienated.

At the beginning of the 1920s, the municipalities composing these territories were regrouped into three districts: Eupen, Malmedy and Sankt Vith.

Currently, and after the municipalities’ mergers of 1976-1977, the 11 municipalities sharing the territory of the East Cantons were regrouped as follows:

District of Eupen:

District of Sankt Vith:

  • Sankt Vith, in French Saint-Vith, (Sankt Vith, Crombach, Lommersweiler, Schönberg and Recht)
    • Bütgenbach, in French Butgenbach, (Bütgenbach and Elsenborn)
    • Büllingen, in French Bullange, ((Büllingen, Manderfeld and Rocherath)
    • Amel, in French Amblève, (Amel, Heppenbach and Meyerode)
    • Burg-Reuland (Reuland and Thommen)

District of Malmedy"

Contents

[edit] Languages spoken in the area

The linguistic situation of the whole area is complex since this zone lies on the border between the Roman and Germanic languages and on an isogloss dividing several German dialects.

For instance, in Aubel, Baelen, Plombières, Welkenraedt (neighbouring Belgian municipalities), Eupen, Kelmis and Lontzen, the local languages belong rather to Limburgish, while the inhabitants of Raeren speak Ripuarian and those of the district of Sankt Vith use the Moselle Franconian (Luxembourgish). On the other hand, most of the people living in Malmedy and Waimes speak French, but there is a minority of German speakers. Moreover, Walloon is still widely spoken is the Malmedy-Waimes area.

The East Cantons as a whole should therefore not be confused with the region of German language created in 1963 or with the German-speaking Community of Belgium.

[edit] History before 1795

Historically, those territories have little in common. While the Northern part around Eupen was originally part of the Duchy of Limburg, which depended from the Duchy of Brabant, and eventually ended up in the possession of the Austrian Habsburgs, who also owned the Austrian Netherlands, the Southern part (i.e. more or less what is now the district of Sankt Vith) belonged to the Duchy of Luxembourg. However, the small village of Manderfeld-Schönberg belonged to the Kurfürstendom of Trier. Malmedy and Waimes, but the village of Faymonville, were part of the abbatial principality of Stavelot-Malmedy which was part of the Holy Roman Empire.

[edit] 1795-1815 French annexation

In 1795, as the French Revolutionary Army entered the Austrian Netherlands, the area was also taken over and eventually incorporated in its entirety into the French department of the Ourthe.

[edit] 1815-1919 Prussian administration

At the Congress of Vienna, the whole area was awarded to Rhenish Prussia. In the North West of the area, Moresnet, coveted by both the Netherlands and Prussia for its calamine, was declared a neutral territory. After 1830, the 50% guardianship of the Netherlands was taken over by newly independent Belgium, and this remained so even after 1839, when Belgium relinquished its claims to neighbouring Dutch Limburg.

This change didn't significantly affect the inhabitants of this region. Even in the French and Walloon speaking Malmedy, changes went smoothly since the municipality was allowed to continue to use French for its admnistration.

For instance, during a visit to the city in 1856, the King Frederick William IV would say "I am proud to have in my kingdom a little country where people speak French". For the people of Malmedy, this would eventually change when Bismarck came to the power in Prussia and, within the framework of the Kulturkampf imposed German as only official language for the administration. If this was not a problem in Eupen and St.Vith, it obviously became one in Malmedy-Waimes. There was some resistance to this and, for instance, Roman Catholic priests who were forbidden to preach in French started to preach in Walloon in order to avoid to have to preach in German.

However, after several decades, the inhabitants became used to speaking German (which was also the only language tolerated in the schools) with their administration, although Walloon was still widely spoken. At the beginning of the first world war, most of the inhabitants considered themselves German and fought for that side during the war.

[edit] 1919-1925 Provisional Belgian administration

In 1918, as the First World War was drawing to a close the French government was determined to increase the size of Belgian territory at the expense of Germany. Frustrated in its own attempt to annex the Saarland and in getting the neutral Netherlands to agree to an exchange of territory claimed by Belgium in 1830 but relinquished in 1839 (Dutch Limburg and Zeeuwsch Vlaanderen) with German territory that had once been Dutch (Bentheim, Emden and the Land of Cleve), it sided with Belgium's claim on the "lost" cantons of Eupen, Malmedy and Sankt Vith. As always (under pressure by the United States whose war aims had included popular sovereignty) a plebiscite was planned, but not a secret ballot - inhabitants of the cantons who objected to the annexation had to register (by name) at village hall. This procedure opened the way to mass intimidation (people were led to believe that anyone objecting would not receive Belgian nationality, and be deported to Germany).

[edit] 1925-1940 Integration into Belgium

In 1920, the Treaty of Versailles awarded all communities on a provisional basis to Belgium. A five-year transition period under the command of the Royal High Commissioner, General Herman Baltia, ensued. Between 26 January and 23 July 1920, a plebiscite for the inhabitants of the region was held under Article 34 of the Treaty on Baltia's orders. The results showed 271 of 33,726 voting for the communes to remain in Germany; the vote was not secret and voters strongly feared being expelled or at least having their food ration cards taken away if they voted to stay in Germany.

In 1925, the area around Eupen, Malmedy, and Sankt Vith, together with the former Neutral Moresnet (Kelmis) was finally included in the Belgian state. However, in 1926 Belgium and the Weimar Republic conducted secret negotiations which would have led to the return of the East Cantons to Germany in return for 200 million gold marks - but the fury of the French Government on hearing about the plan led to the break-up of the talks.

After the inhabitants of the East cantons finally received full Belgian nationality and the vote, parties clamouring for a return of the East Cantons to the German Reich got between 44 and 57% of the vote in the East Cantons, achieving high scores even in French-speaking Malmedy. After the accession to power of Adolf Hitler, the socialist party of the East Cantons stopped agitating for a return to Germany. This caused a drop in the irredentist vote but also meant that the pro-Germany vote was now dominated by the openly Nazi "Heimattreue Front".

[edit] 1940-1945 Annexed to Germany again

During World War II the East Cantons (also including a number of small villages that had been Belgian but German speaking in 1914) were annexed by Nazi Germany, with the clear consent of most of the inhabitants. Support for the German takeover eroded sharply after the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the subsequent conscription of most of the male population in the German army (out of 8,700 drafted new Germans, 3,200 perished in the East). In December 1944 bomber raids first destroyed Malmedy, then Sankt Vith almost completely. Many communities were similarly affected by the Ardennes Offensive of 1944-45. Indeed, the southern part of the East cantons was the theatre of hard battles including St. Vith, Rocherath-Krinkelt, Bütgenbach and many others.

[edit] 1945 Back to Belgium

After the war, the Belgian state reasserted sovreignty over the area which caused the male inhabitants of the area who had served in the German army to lose their civil rights as "traitors to the Belgian state". However, although many of the men who had been in this situation were put under close scrutiny by the Belgian authorities, there were eventually no more treason convictions of people living in this area than in the part of Belgium not annexed by Germany. All the men who were not formally condemned by a Belgian court eventually recovered their full civil rights.

The bad blood caused by the reluctance of the Belgian government to remedy the legal situation concerning the annexation (only remedied by an amnesty law in 1989), would lead to the emergence of a German Belgian national party, the PDB, the Party of German-speaking Belgians. The PDB (which at the European level co-operates with both the Scottish National Party and the Greens) has never agitated for a return to Germany, but advocated increased rights for the German minority in Belgium, including full equality with the Flemish and Walloon ethnic groups. This has caused many commentators on recent developments in Belgian politics to muse that the German speakers are now the last Belgians!

The nine German-speaking communities of the East Cantons now comprise the German-speaking Community of Belgium, while Malmedy and Waimes are part of the French Community of Belgium. There are special privileges for the minority language in both areas.

[edit] Chronology

  • 6 March 1815 : Malmedy part of Prussia (from 1871 Germany).
  • 1918 - 1920 : Under Allied occupation (British to Aug 1919, then Belgian).
  • 28 June 1919 : Ceded to Belgium by Germany under Treaty of Versailles.
  • 20 September 1920 : Eupen, Malmedy and Sankt-Vith annexed (fully re-incorporated 1925).
  • 1926 The Belgian government wants to "sell" the East Cantons to the Weimar Republic. France objects furiously.
  • 29 July 1940 - Feb 1945 : Eupen, Malmedy and Sankt-Vith are annexed to Germany, together with the Luxembourg village of Bého (renamed Bocholz) and former Neutral Moresnet (they were part of the Prussia's Rheinprovinz and within this province part of Aachen Regierungsbezirk).
  • 1956 Belgo-German peace treaty. The Federal Republic of Germany recognizes the illegality of the 1940 annexation.
  • 1960-1964 The Belgian language border is fixed and finally divides the East Cantons. Eupen, Sankt Vith and others become German-speaking with special privileges for French speakers, Malmedy and Waimes join Aubel, Welkenraedt, Bleiberg and Baelen as French-speaking with (potential) special privileges for German speakers.
  • 18 July 1966 Belgian law on the language use by local and national government. The "region of the German language" is mentioned. Federal Government services to answer German queries from a member of the general public in German.
  • 1973 The Rat der Deutschsprachigen Gemeinschaft is set up.
  • 1989 New amnesty law, undoing the legal effects of the annexation and its voiding.
  • 1993 The Executive of the Rat der Deutschsprachigen Gemeinschaft is recognized as one of the Belgian regional governments in the new federal constitution. The German-speaking area remains a part of the Walloon economic area.
  • 2005 The authority of the Rat is increased by granting it the right of tutelage over religious institutions and over its nine villages.

[edit] Sources

[edit] External links

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