Conditions shaping the development of the Polish-German borderland after World War II

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII. One of the consequences of this fact was establishing a new course of the Polish-German borders on the Oder and Lusatian Neisse. The new borders bad significant influence on the post-war development and spatial planning in the Polish-German borderland as well as its integration with the rest of the country. This article discusses the changes which took place as a result of the new border arrangement in the following areas: • settlement network, and consisted in a) changing the rank and arrangement of particular housing estates as a result of decrease in their population, war damages and dividing some of the cities by a state border b) changes in the size and shape of service areas resulting from decomposition of the previously formed settlement arrangements and c) changes in the direction of flows both in particular areas as well as the whole of the settlement network of the present border zone, • economy, consisting in e.g. a) dividing an extractive and manufacturing industrial district located near Turoszów into two parts by a state border b) leaving municipal equipment e.g. water supply infrastructure, gasworks, sewage treatment plants on the German side, • transport infrastructure, which led to the formation of: a) isolated nodes which do not have railway connections, b) creating many transport subunits detached from one another in the border zone c) lack of direct connections between towns located near the border. Changes in the relationships between neighbouring countries, reconstruction of war damages as well as intensive development of a number of phenomena in the borderlands led to increased territorial cohesion and integrating these regions with the rest of the country. The process came in a few stages which marked events important for the development of the borderland: the end of WWII, signing the Treaty of Zgorzelec, abolishing a number of military and administrative limitations in the borderland, „opening” of the border in 1972, socio-economic crisis and radical political transformation in the country, signing a border treaty by Poland and Germany and the Polish-German Treaty of Good Neighbourship and Friendly Cooperation, Poland 's accession to the European Union and the Schengen Agreement. The post-war analysis is preceded by a short description of the socio-economic situation of the area of the present borderland before WWII, when it was a coherent, undivided entity