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Show Oder-Neisse Rivers ! Symbol of Dispute Two rivers of north-central Europe, Eu-rope, the Oder and the Neisse, have become a symbol of one of the world's most explosive problemsthe prob-lemsthe establishment of a permanent per-manent postwar German-Polish boundary. These two rivers, whose combined com-bined course marks Poland's acquisition ac-quisition of formerly German territory, are normally important in themselves as arteries of trade and traffic. Less familiar outside Europe than the continent's more glamorous glam-orous Danube and Rhine, they came into wide prominence with the provisional border arrangements arrange-ments made at Yalta and Potsdam, Pots-dam, toward the end of World War II. Today, the mere mention of the Oder-Neisse line brings to mind a host of complicated questions geographic, political and economic growing more explosive as the East-West division continues and intensifies. As is graphically shown on a map, the western expansion of Poland Po-land more or less balancing the loss of eastern areas to the Russians has literally moved an entire nation from 50 to 100 miles westward. The territory gained between the prewar Polish border and the present Oder-Neisse line amounts to nearly 40,000 square miles. It stretches from the Baltic Sea at the edge of the northern lowlands to the mountain frontier of Czechoslovakia. Czecho-slovakia. Within this broad band of land lies a variety of valuable national assets, including a sea outlet at the port of Szczecin (Stettin) ; fertile fer-tile farmlands in the river basins of the middle areas; and industrial indus-trial cities amid the rich coal and other mineral resources of Upper and Lower Silesia. During the war, the Oder-Neisse area was an important German base of operations. It was from scattered points along its Baltic-to-Czechoslovakia front that the land were launched. |