"How does it feel to be in enemy territory?" Somewhat of a strange question to be asked at a church social, as I was in the summer of 1982.

My wife Monica, our two children and I had returned to Germany in March 1982, and I was assigned to serve as pastor of congregations in Berlin, Hamburg and Hannover. The question was asked by a member about my age whom I had known from my earlier stay in Germany (1973-1978). She was referring to the missing peace treaty between the Allied powers and Germany. For her, Germany was technically still hostile territory, since no peace treaty had ever been signed at the end of WW2.

The need for a final peace agreement dates back to late July and early August 1945, when the victorious Allied powers met for a final summit conference in Potsdam, just outside Berlin. World News & Prophecy managing editor Darris McNeely and I visited the site of the conference in Potsdam today, the "Cecilienhof", former residence of a Hohenzollern prince. Fellow Missourian Harry Truman, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin represented their countries. Churchill was voted out of office during the conference and was replaced by Clement Attlee.

The Potsdam conference determined the post-war face of Europe until the 1990s, when the Soviet system collapsed. In the closing declaration of the conference, the question of the final position of the German-Polish border and the future of the German territory placed under Polish administration was to be determined in a future peace conference, which would end the formal state of war between Germany and its WW2 opponents.

As we all know, that peace conference was delayed for years. At the time of the Potsdam conference, the outline of a future Iron Curtain was already on the horizon for Europe. The areas east of the Oder-Neisse border became part of Poland, and that border itself became the final border between Germany and Poland. The "4 plus 2" treaty of 1990 between the four Allied powers (Britain, France, Soviet Union and the USA) and the two German states recognized the united Germany and formally ended the post-war arrangement. As part of the treaty, the two Germanys agreed that the border between East Germany (GDR) and Poland was to be the final border between a unified Germany and Poland. They also agreed that Germany had no territorial claims on any former territory to the east of that border.

That treaty was the one alluded to in the Potsdam conference 45 years earlier. Just as the Potsdam conference changed the face of Europe, the unification of Germany and the collapse of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe again changed the face of Europe.

I just remembered something! I have never told that lady what it feels like now to be on peaceful territory. I just might do that this coming weekend when I see her at services. 🙂