The prewar
eastern Polish territories of
Kresy, which the Red Army had overrun during the Nazi-Soviet
invasion of Poland in 1939 (excluding the
Białystok region) were permanently ceded to the USSR by the new Polish communist government, and
most of their Polish inhabitants expelled. As a result of the
Potsdam Agreement to which
Poland's government-in-exile was not invited, Poland lost (45%) of prewar territories in the east, including over 12 million citizens of whom 4.3 million were Polish-speakers. Today, these territories are part of sovereign
Belarus,
Ukraine, and
Lithuania. In turn, postwar Poland was assigned considerably smaller territories to the west including the prewar
Free City of Danzig and the
former territory of Germany east of the
Oder–Neisse line, consisting of the southern portion of
East Prussia and most of
Pomerania,
Neumark (East Brandenburg), and German
Silesia. Poland also received the town of Swinemünde (now
Świnoujście) on the island of
Usedom and the city of Stettin (now
Szczecin) on the western bank of the
Oder river in accordance with the
Potsdam Agreement. Therefore, these transferred territories did not then form part of the
Soviet occupation zone of Germany or the subsequent state of
East Germany. The German population who had stayed at or had returned to their homes
were forcibly expelled before these
Recovered Territories (official term) were repopulated by Poles expelled from the eastern regions and those from central Poland. The borders of Poland resembled the borders of the German-Russian gains in World War 2, with the exception of the city of Bialystok. This is called the Curzon line. The small area of
Trans-Olza, which had been annexed by Poland in late 1938, was returned to
Czechoslovakia on Stalin's orders. == See also ==