Strange Maps

Thanks to archispass.org, I found this great website called strange maps. The title basically says it all, it's a collection of strange maps with the accompanying stories. For everyone who's into these kinds of things, it's great read. I've spent a whole bunch of time reading there...



This map, for instance, is indicating the plans that the Dutch government designed shortly after the second world war for annexing large parts of the German territories as war repairment payment. The main figure behind this all was Frits Bakker-Schut, member of the official governmental "Staatscommissie ter Bestudering van het Annexatievraagstuk" (state commitee for the study of annexation), as well as the un-governmental "Nederlandsch Comité voor Gebiedsuitbreiding" (Dutch commitee for territorial expansion).
Shortly after the war, they rallied for support with the above plan (in three versions)
- Plan A: Annexation of all areas west of the line Wilhelmshaven-Osnabrück-Hamm-Wesel-Cologne-Aachen (including all those cities).
- Plan B: Basically the same proposal, but excluding the densely populated areas around Neuss, Mönchengladbach and Cologne from annexation.
- Plan C: The smallest proposed area of annexation, with the border being moved to a line beginning in Varel, including all of Emsland and the Wesel area down towards Krefeld.

Early 1947, at the Conference of the Western Occupying Powers of Germany in London, Netherlands came with a annexe-claim, consisting of a smaller version of plan C.
Needless to say, the Dutch didn't get that much. At the Germany Conference in London on April 23, 1949, 20 German fragments of land became Dutch over night - in total less than 69 square kilometres...