EUPEN AND MALMEDY
Eupen-Malmedy, or the East Cantons, is a group of cantons in Belgium, composed of the former Prussian districts of Malmedy and Eupen, together with the Neutral Moresnet.
The districts of Eupen and Malmedy had been part of Prussia, and later Germany, since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. They were granted to Belgium at the Paris Peace Conference for the purpose of enhancing Belgian defences against possible future German aggression.
Eupen
Eupen is a municipality in the Belgian province of Liège, 15 km (9.32 mi) from the German border (Aachen), from the Dutch border (Maastricht) and from the "High Fens" nature reserve (Ardennes).
The town is also the capital of the Euro region Meuse-Rhine.
On 1 January 2006 Eupen had a total population of 18,248 inhabitants. The total area is 103.74 km2 (40.05 sq mi) which gives a population density of 175.90 inhabitants per km².
This city is the seat of the Council of the German speaking community in Belgium and the official language in Eupen is German.
Malmedy
Malmedy is a municipality of Belgium. It lies in the country's Walloon Region, Province of Liège.
On January 1, 2006 Malmedy had a total population of 11,829 inhabitants. The total area is 99.96 km².
It belongs to the French Community of Belgium, within which it is French-speaking with facilities for German speakers.
History
Before 1795
The Northern part around Eupen was originally part of the Duchy of Limburg, a dependency of the Duchy of Brabant, and was latterly owned by the Austrian Habsburgs, as part of the Austrian Netherlands. The Southern part belonged to the Duchy of Luxembourg. The small village of Manderfeld-Schönberg belonged to the Archbishopric of Trier.
Malmedy and Waimes, except the village of Faymonville, were part of the abbatial principality of Stavelot-Malmedy which was — like Luxembourg and Trier — an Imperial Estate of the Holy Roman Empire.
French annexation (1795-1815)
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.
Prussian administration (1815-1919)
At the Congress of Vienna, the whole area was awarded to Rhineland (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 did not significantly affect the inhabitants of this region. Even in the mainly French or Walloon speaking Malmedy, changes went smoothly since the municipality was allowed to continue to use French for its administration.
Most of the territory had spoken German or German dialects for centuries, with Walloon being spoken by about two-thirds of the population in the district of Malmedy at the time it was newly created in 1816.
At the beginning of World War I, most of the inhabitants of the Eupen and Malmedy districts considered themselves German and fought for the German Empire during the war.
Provisional Belgian administration (1920-1925)
In 1920, the Treaty of Versailles awarded all the communities of Eupen, Malmedy and Sankt Vith, on a provisional basis to Belgium. A five-year transition period under the command of the Royal High Commissioner, General Herman Baltia, ensued.
Under pressure from the United States, whose war aims had included popular sovereignty, a plebiscite was planned, and between 26 January and 23 July 1920, it was held on Baltia's orders under Article 34 of the Treaty.
However, it was not a secret ballot - inhabitants of the cantons who objected to the annexation had to register (by name) at the village hall. This procedure led to mass intimidation - people were led to believe that anyone objecting to annexation by Belgium would not receive Belgian nationality, but be deported to Germany or at least have their food ration cards taken away.
Integration into Belgium (1925-1940)
In the event, only 271 people out of 33,726 voted for the communes to remain in Germany. Hence it was no actual plebiscite that was held, because those opposing annexation into Belgium had to enter a register at city hall; those who did risked being fired, losing their ration cards etc.; few registered and so annexation proceeded unopposed.
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 who favoured 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 predominantly 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" (Patriotic Front).
Annexed to Germany (1940-1945)
During World War II the East Cantons (and some other 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 into the German army.
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.
Back to Belgium in 1945
After the war, the Belgian state reasserted sovereignty 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". The Belgian authorities opened more than 15,000 inquiries procedures against citizens of Eupen-Malmedy, which represents 25% of the population. In comparison, for the whole of Belgium, these inquiries concerned less than 5% of the population.
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, or 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 linguistic groups.
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 protected rights for the minority language in both areas.
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