text:
University of North Alabama

The University of North Alabama (UNA) is a public university in Florence, Alabama. It is the state's oldest public university. Occupying a 130 acre campus in a residential section of Florence, UNA is located within a four-city area that also includes Tuscumbia, Sheffield and Muscle Shoals. The four cities compose a metropolitan area with a combined population of 140,000 people.

The University of North Alabama was one of about 180 "normal schools" founded by state governments in the 19th century to train teachers for the rapidly growing public common schools. Some closed but most steadily expanded their role and became state colleges in the early 20th century and state universities in the late 20th century. It was founded as LaGrange College in 1830. It was reestablished in 1872 as the first state-supported teachers college south of the Ohio River. A year later, it became one of the nation's first coeducational colleges.

History
LaGrange College opened on January 11, 1830, in a mountain hamlet a few miles south of Leighton in northeast Colbert County, Alabama. LaGrange means "The Barn" in French. Twenty-one local college trustees were listed in Acts of Alabama, Eleventh Annual Session. The town of LaGrange and its college were sacked and burned by Union troops in 1863. But by then, however, the college had moved north across the Tennessee River to Florence. The section of Franklin County containing LaGrange Mountain is now Colbert County. LaGrange College, which became Florence Wesleyan University in 1855, is now the University of North Alabama.

LaGrange College arose from the idea offered at a November 28, 1826 meeting of the Tennessee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church to establish a college which would not be "religious or theological". By January 1829, the selection of Lawrence Hill on LaGrange Mountain was made for the site of the school.

A year later, LaGrange College opened to students of all denominations in two three-story brick buildings.

The Rev. Robert Paine was the first president. The North Carolina native was also the professor of moral science and belles lettres and taught geography and mineralogy. He was assisted by two other professors. The first board of trustees had a total of 50 members, including two Native Americans, a Choctaw politician and a Cherokee leader. In 1830, Turner Saunders, a native of Virginia, was the first president of the board of trustees. Saunders' mansion, built around 1826, still stands in Lawrence County. Among the many distant trustees was John Coffee of Florence, friend of Andrew Jackson. Among the local trustees was Henry Stuart Foote of Tuscumbia, who would move to Mississippi and defeat Jefferson Davis in the 1850 Governor's election.

In 1850, a grammar school was added to LaGrange College. (Today, UNA's Kilby Laboratory School is the only university-owned and operated elementary laboratory school in Alabama. In 1858, following the death of the school's president and the loss of most of its students to nearby Florence, the college was suspended and re-established as the LaGrange College and Military Academy, with James W. Robertson as superintendent. Under its new name, additional buildings were constructed and the school reached its highest prosperity. The state of Alabama made provision for two cadets from each county to be enrolled, and by 1861 47 of its 171 students were state cadets. The school suffered a loss of enrollment again when Alabama seceded, and in March 1862 Robertson received approval from the Alabama governor to enroll the 35th Alabama Infantry from faculty, cadets, and enlistees from surrounding counties.

On April 28, 1863, the buildings were destroyed by Union soldiers of the 10th Missouri Cavalry, including a library of 4,000 volumes.

Among LaGrange's alumni were several generals, Alabama governors Edward A. O'Neal and David P. Lewis, Alabama Supreme Court justice William M. Byrd and U.S. Senator Jeremiah Clemens, who wrote the first American Civil War novel and the first western novel.

Florence Wesleyan University
LaGrange graduate Richard H. Rivers, after becoming president of the college, led most of the students and all but one faculty member from the mountain in late 1854 to relocate to Florence. The school was re-incorporated as Florence Wesleyan University.

Admission to Florence Wesleyan required an acquaintance with English grammar, arithmetic, geography and the Latin and Greek Grammar. Prospective students also were required to demonstrate an ability to translate four books of Caesar's Gallic Wars, six books of Virgil's Aeneid, Jacob's or Felton's Greek Reader, and at least one of Xenophon's Anabasis.

One hundred and sixty students enrolled in the first year of operation (1855) of Florence Wesleyan University. The school quickly attracted students from five states and two foreign countries. Among Florence Wesleyan's graduates were Alabama governor Emmet O'Neal and Texas governor Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross (the latter of whose tenure as president of Texas A&M University was known as the 'golden age' of that institution). Ross also is the namesake of Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas.

The Civil War
The American Civil War bestowed much hardship on the institution. Robert A. Young, president of Florence Wesleyan at the time, is credited with saving the institution from destruction.

Florence Wesleyan alumnus Lawrence "Sul" Ross, the future Texas governor and university educator, served as a general in the Confederate States Army. LaGrange College and Florence Wesleyan University also produced three other Civil War generals: Confederate Generals Edward A. O'Neal (later an Alabama governor) and John Gregg and Union General Daniel McCook Jr.

State Normal School at Florence
When the Methodist Church deeded Florence Wesleyan to the State of Alabama in 1872, the institution became the State Normal School at Florence, the first state-supported teachers college south of the Ohio River. Shortly thereafter, it became one of the first co-educational institutions in the nation. A year after its becoming a state school, the institution opened its doors to women; however, none attended until 1874, when 31 young women enrolled. The first woman joined the faculty in 1879.

Florence Normal School's Newton W. Bates, professor of language and literature, published his History of Civil Government of Alabama in 1892, the first textbook on the history of Alabama.

T.S. Stribling, one of the university's most noteworthy alumni, graduated from Florence State Normal School in 1903. He is recognized as one of the leaders of the Southern Renaissance for his novels Birthright, The Forge, The Store and the Unfinished Cathedral. The Pulitzer prize-winning novelist and author outsold contemporaries William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway during the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s.

Florence State Teachers College
The institution functioned as a normal school for more than 50 years until 1929, when it became a state teachers college offering a four-year curriculum in elementary education.

The first bachelor's degrees were awarded in 1931. Less than a decade later, the curriculum was expanded to include a four-year course of study in secondary education. In 1947, the curriculum was expanded again to include A.B. and B.S. degree programs in fields other than teacher training.

Florence State College
Progress continued apace toward the comprehensive university the institution would ultimately become. In 1956, the institution crossed another academic milestone with the formation of a graduate course of study in education leading to the Master of Arts degree. With the establishment of a new Graduate Division, the graduate program was launched in the summer of 1957. The same year, the Alabama Legislature voted to change the institution's name to Florence State College to reflect its expanding academic mission.

Integration at Florence State College
Compared with other southern institutions of higher learning, particularly the universities of Alabama and Mississippi, integration occurred almost painlessly at Florence State College.

In 1963, Wendell Wilkie Gunn became the first African-American student to enroll at the college. Gunn had initially been denied admission. Then-President E.B. Norton sent Gunn a letter informing him that the Alabama Legislature and Board of Education would not allow the college to accept his application. Speaking at UNA in 2005, famed civil rights attorney Fred Gray, who represented Gunn, recalled that the hearing that integrated UNA lasted only ten minutes, after which Gunn returned to campus and enrolled. Gray described the episode as "the easiest case of my civil rights career."

Gunn, who subsequently earned degrees from Florence State College and the University of Chicago, went on to a distinguished career in banking and finance, including an appointment as international trade adviser to President Ronald Reagan in 1982. Wendell Gunn was appointed to the board of trustees of the University of North Alabama by Governor Kay Ivey in 2019.

Florence State University
In 1967 the Alabama Legislature removed jurisdiction for the college from the State Board of Education and vested it in a board of trustees. A year later, the new board voted for another name change to Florence State University, once again symbolizing the steady expansion of the institution's academic offerings and mission.

Ethelbert Brinkley "E.B." Norton, who was serving as president at the time this name was adopted, is distinguished as the only president in the university's history to preside over three institutional name changes: Florence State Teachers College, followed by Florence State College in 1957, and, roughly a decade later, by Florence State University.

The change of name also was accompanied by an extensive reorganization of the university's academic and administrative structure, including the establishment of separate schools within the university.

The University of North Alabama
Less than a decade later, on August 15, 1974, the university underwent another change of name to the University of North Alabama, symbolizing its coming of age as a comprehensive, regional university. The following year, the graduate curriculum again was expanded with the introduction of the master's degree program in business administration.

Following a reorganization in 1991, the university's administrative structure consists of four divisions: Academic Affairs, Business Affairs, Student Affairs and Advancement, each headed by a vice president. In 1993, the Board of Trustees, anticipating continued and steady enrollment growth, adopted a new master facilities plan to ensure that UNA will be equipped to accommodate 10,000 students.

Kenneth D. Kitts became the 20th president of the University of North Alabama in March 2015. Kitts formerly worked as provost at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Kitts also taught at Francis Marion University in South Carolina, the University of South Carolina, and Appalachian State University in North Carolina.

Campus
The UNA campus is adjacent to the Seminary-O'Neal Historic District, named for the street on which the Florence Synodical Female College was located and for two Alabama governors. The district, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, also is noted for its residential structures, built between 1908 and 1943 and representing a wide array of architectural styles.

UNA's campus facilities master plan was developed by the Olmsted Brothers, the sons of the architect who designed New York City's Central Park. A copy of the original Olmsted plan is permanently displayed in the President's Office in 601 Cramer Way.

The campus has three antebellum structures: Wesleyan Hall; Rogers Hall; and Coby Hall. All three are listed in the National Historic Register.

Mitchell Burford Science and Technology Building
The UNA Science and Engineering Technology Building was completed in 2015. The five-story, 160,000-square-foot facility was designed by Lambert Ezell Durham Architects and constructed by BL Harbert, The state-of-the-art building houses engineering technology,  biology, chemistry, occupational health science, physics and earth science. It also includes conference areas, faculty offices, research facilities, specialized classrooms, a dining area, computer laboratories, super laboratories and lecture halls. The UNA Science and Engineering Technology Building is a FEMA rated storm shelter capable of withstanding an F5 tornado. In June 2018, the building was renamed the Mitchell Burford Science and Technology Building in honor of Mitchell Burford, the largest individual private donor in the university's history.

Wendell W. Gunn University Commons
The Wendell W. Gunn University Commons was completed in 2014 and is located between Rogers Hall and Keller Hall at the north end of Court Street. The $8 million complex houses the University Success Center, Student Financial Services, the UNA branch of Listerhill Credit Union, Starbucks and Chick-fil-A. The Wendell W. Gunn University Commons was designed by Hugo Dante and Create Architects, and was built by Consolidated Construction. In March 2018, the building was renamed the Wendell W. Gunn University Commons in honor of Wendell Gunn, the first African-American student to enter Florence State College (now the University of North Alabama) in 1963.

Mattielou and Olive Residence Halls
Mattielou and Olive residence halls were completed in fall 2015 and spring 2016, respectively. The new residence halls are located on the extreme north end of campus, behind Covington and Hawthorne halls. Mattielou has 335 spaces and Olive has 429 spaces. These buildings were built primarily for incoming freshmen students. There are double and limited single rooms and each unit has its own bathroom.

Laura Harrison Plaza
Harrison Plaza was made possible by 1955 alumna Laura McAnally Harrison and her husband, Donald C. Harrison, of Cincinnati. The plaza, constructed around a large Italian limestone fountain, occupies the former intersections of Morrison and Wesleyan Avenues and Seminary Street between 601 Cramer Way, Keller Hall and the George H. Carroll Lion Habitat, which houses UNA's live mascots. Harrison Plaza now constitutes the hub of UNA's three pedestrian walkways and serves as the principal entrance to campus.

Wesleyan Hall and Bell
With its distinctive towers, Wesleyan Hall, one of UNA's most familiar structures, is considered one of the most eminent landmarks in North Alabama. The Gothic Revival structure was designed to serve LaGrange College when this Methodist institution relocated from Franklin to Lauderdale county and was renamed Florence Wesleyan University. During the Civil War, Wesleyan Hall was occupied by both Union and Confederate armies. General William Tecumseh Sherman is considered the most famous Civil War-era occupant of Wesleyan Hall.

After the war, the building was deeded to the state of Alabama and thereafter served as a state normal school. It currently serves as the center for Foreign Languages (French, German, and Spanish), Psychology, and Geography.

Wesleyan Hall houses personal effects and mementoes of former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice and U.S. Senator Howell Heflin, a native of nearby Tuscumbia. The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Adjacent to Wesleyan Hall in a specially constructed tower is the Wesleyan Bell, which tolled regularly throughout the last quarter of the 19th century to summon Florence Normal School students to class. Sometime around 1910, the bell was removed from Wesleyan Hall and stored. Rediscovered in 2002, the 130-year-old Wesleyan Bell was restored to a prominent place on campus following construction of the Smith Bell Tower in 2004.

Rogers Hall (Courtview)
Rogers Hall, another one of UNA's most distinctive structures, was constructed by planter George Washington Foster in 1855 at the summit of Court Street (hence its original name, Courtview). Because construction would result in the permanent obstruction of a major thoroughfare, the city had to secure the approval of the Alabama Legislature before work could begin. In the fall of 1864, the residence served as the headquarters of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Courtview was occupied by members of the Foster family until 1900, when it became the home of Alabama Gov. Emmet O'Neal. In the 1920s, the residence was acquired by Thomas M. Rogers Sr., and in 1948 by the university. It houses the Offices of Advancement, Alumni Relations, and Communications and Marketing.

601 Cramer Way (formerly Bibb Graves Hall)

Constructed in 1930, 601 Cramer Way houses UNA's senior administrative offices.

The building is named for David Bibb Graves (1873–1942), who served as Alabama's governor from 1927 to 1931 and 1935–39. Graves proved unsuccessful in his early political career, but eventually he used his connections and leadership in the Ku Klux Klan to propel his ascendancy to the Governor's office. Once in office, Graves's passage of the largest education budget in Alabama history led to the moniker as the "Education Governor", Graves's support for education led to recognition on virtually every Alabama college campus.

The Office of the President, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Vice President for Business and Financial Affairs, Human Resources, and the College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering are housed in the building.

Coby Hall
Coby Hall was donated to the university in 1990 by David Brubaker in memory of his wife, Coby Stockard Brubaker. Built by John Simpson on the site of his earlier home in 1843, the Simpson House/Irvine Place, as it had been known, later was purchased by George W. Foster, builder of Courtview, for his daughter, Virginia, and her husband, James B. Irvine.

The University Admissions office is located in the building. Coby Hall is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The Guillot University Center
The Robert M. Guillot University Center is named after UNA's former president, who served from 1972 to 1989.

Popularly known as the "GUC," it houses the Post Office, 256 Grill, Moe's Southwest Grill, Panda Express and the Lion's Den Game Room (a recreational center where students can play video games, table tennis, or pool). The GUC also houses the Student Engagement Office, the Vice President for Student Affairs Office, Student Conduct, Title IX, University Case Manager, Career Planning, the University Center Operations and Event Management Office, Disability Student Services, UNA Dining, Military and Veterans Services, University Ombudsman, Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, PMA Program and the Student Government Association. The Performance Center, located on the second floor, hosts a variety of events including concerts and comedy acts.

Collier Library
Collier Library is named in memory of C.B. Collier, Dean of Florence State Teacher's College from 1918 to 1946. Notable items in the 350,000-volume library include the collections of several musicians, actors, and writers, including W.C. Handy, acclaimed the world over as "father of the blues." The Pulitzer Prize Certificate and Collection of T.S. Stribling, one of the South's premiere novelists and an alumnus of Florence Normal School, is housed in the library.

Script collections include those of science fiction author Ray Bradbury and actors Lucas Black, Ernest Borgnine, Tom Cherones, Elinor Donahue and Noble Willingham. Also included are the memorabilia of science fiction writer Forrest Ackerman.

Collier Library is the location of the George Lindsey Television and Film Collection, part of which is displayed in Norton Auditorium. In 2018 the library launched the UNA Scholarly Repository, a digital repository of the research and scholarly output of UNA faculty and students.

Memorial Amphitheater

The Memorial Amphitheater, located on the grassy commons between Guillot University Center and Collier Library, is another one of the most familiar sites on the University of North Alabama campus. Erected in 1934 as a memorial to World War I veterans, the amphitheater is used for outdoor plays, concerts and speeches. Much like the nearby Guillot Center, it is a popular site for socializing, lounging and studying between classes.

Opler Clock
The Opler Clock is located on Waterloo Road between Floyd Science Building and LaGrange Hall.

Keller Hall
Originally a men's dormitory, Keller Hall, constructed in 1947, is named after James Albert Keller, who served as president of Florence State Teachers College from 1938 to 1948.

Keller Hall serves as the headquarters of UNA's College of Business & Technology, housing the dean, faculty offices, computer labs and classrooms, as well as the Steele Center for Professional Selling.

Keller Hall underwent a significant expansion following dedication of the Raburn Wing in 2002. This new addition provides state-of-the-art classrooms and related space for the College of Business & Technology.

Willingham Hall
Originally a women's dormitory, Willingham Hall, named after long-serving President Henry J. Willingham, was constructed by the Works Projects Administration in 1939. Willingham Hall houses the Department of English, the Department of History, and the Department of Politics, Justice, Law, and Philosophy. It stands on the site of the old Locust Dell Academy, founded by Nicholas Marcellus Hentz and commemorated by a historical marker.

The President's Home
The President's Home, completed in 1941, was constructed by the Works Projects Administration. Occupied by President and Mrs. Kenneth Kitts, the residence is located next to the George H. Carroll Lion Habitat, home of Leo III and Una, the university's live lion mascots. Overnight guests often are awakened by the lions' roaring.

East Campus
The University of North Alabama encompasses two campuses, following a decision in June 2006, by the university's board of trustees to purchase J.W. Powell School from the Florence City Schools. The East Campus houses several academic units, including the Office of Continuing Studies and Outreach and the Human Environmental Sciences' state-of-the-art Culinary Facility. The Culinary Arts program is the only four-year Culinary Program in a public institution of higher learning in Alabama.

Academic organization
"...for the discovery, preservation, and transmission of knowledge through teaching, research, and public service."

Classification and accreditation
According to the Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education, the University of North Alabama is considered an M1; Master's Colleges and Universities: Larger Programs. UNA is a mid-sized, four year institution accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

Degrees conferred
The University of North Alabama's five colleges offer degree programs in more than 80 different areas of study. UNA conferred 1,304 undergraduate degrees and 643 graduate degrees in the 2020–2021 academic year.

Cum laude honors are conferred to graduates with a GPA of 3.5-3.69. Magna cum laude honors are conferred with a GPA of 3.70-3.89. Summa cum laude honors are conferred with a GPA of 3.9 or higher.

Programs
The University of North Alabama offers 219 bachelor's degree programs and concentrations, 45 master's degree programs, 3 education specialist degree programs, 1 doctoral program, and 4 micro-credentials. UNA is composed of five colleges:

Colleges:

 * Anderson College of Nursing and Health Professions
 * College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering
 * College of Business and Technology
 * College of Education and Human Sciences
 * Delores and Weldon Cole Honors College

Kilby School
The College of Education and Human Sciences oversees the Kilby Laboratory School (child development center, kindergarten through sixth grade). The vision of Kilby Laboratory School is to serve as a site for university students to engage in meaningful interdisciplinary teaching, research, and service opportunities.

Academic calendar
The university follows a standard academic calendar based on the semester system, which divides the academic year, starting in mid-August, into two 15 week semesters (fall and spring) and the summer. The fall semester ends in December and the spring term lasts from January to early May. The summer, which lasts from mid-May to August, is divided into 3-week "mini-semesters" in May and two four-week sessions in June and July, respectively. Also, some programs offer "mini-semesters" within the fall and spring, concluding courses in 8 weeks instead of the typical 15–16 week course. UNA also debuted a new Winter Session "mini-semester" in 2018.

Libraries
The university libraries include Collier Library (main library), the Learning Resources Center located in Stevens Hall, the Music Library located in the Music Building and the Kilby School Library. The combined holdings of the libraries provide users with access to literature from a wide range of disciplines and include newer formats such as streaming media. Materials not found in the libraries are available through interlibrary loan. Library instruction sessions tailored to meet the needs of individual classes may be scheduled through the library. Common topics include location books and articles, searching the Internet, and evaluation information sources.

International emphasis
According to the tenth edition of American Universities and Colleges, published in 1968 by the American Council on Education, the University of North Alabama, then known as Florence State College, had only three international students enrolled during the 1966–1967 academic year — two undergraduate students and one graduate student, all from the Middle East. However, during the Robert Potts administration, UNA undertook a concerted effort to diversify its student body by recruiting individuals from throughout the world. By 2004, international enrollment had grown to nearly 300 students representing 35 countries.

Today, UNA has the third highest international student enrollment of any institution in its category according to U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges. Roughly 4 percent of the UNA student body is international. The Global Lions Organization has become one of the largest and most influential student organizations on campus. A major focus of the GLO is organizing campus and community activities to integrate international students more closely with other UNA students and also with the surrounding Shoals community.

Student body
The table below displays the Fall 2021 Gender/Ethnic Breakdown of Students for the University of North Alabama.

Full-time, four-year undergraduates comprise a large amount of the total university enrollment. In Fall 2021, 72% of all students were considered full-time and 28% were considered part-time. Total enrollment for the Fall 2021 semester was 8,832. Total enrollment for the Fall 2020 semester was 8,361. In regards to source of student, 70.5% of students came from within the state of Alabama, 21.0% were from out-of-state areas, and 8.5% were considered international students in Fall 2021.

Media

 * The Diorama, UNA's student-run yearbook.
 * The Flor-Ala, named after Florence, Alabama, has functioned as the school newspaper since 1931. Published in 29 issues each year, the paper is run by UNA students who serve in all facets of news gathering, writing and production. The Flor-Ala is a member of the Associated Collegiate Press.
 * Lights & Shadows, published once a year, is the university's literary and art magazine, and was started as a publication of the Florence State Teachers College English Club in 1956.
 * UNA Magazine, UNA's alumni magazine, is published bi-annually.

Athletics
UNA operated a collegiate athletic program in NCAA Division II's Gulf South Conference for almost fifty years as a founding member of the conference. The North Alabama Lions football, men's basketball, women's volleyball, and softball teams have each won national championships.

UNA operates 14 varsity teams, which have collected more than 40 conference championships, dozens of No. 1 national rankings and seven national titles. It also possesses the oldest costume mascot program in the state of Alabama.

As of July 1, 2018, UNA began its transition to Division I as a member of the ASUN Conference in 2018. Because the ASUN did not sponsor football at the time, the football team became an independent in the second level of D-I football, the Football Championship Subdivision, at the same time. The following year, UNA became a football-only member of the FCS Big South Conference. The Lions remained in Big South football through the 2020–21 season, after which the ASUN entered into a football-only alliance with the Western Athletic Conference, which reinstated football at the FCS level in fall 2021. The Lions now play football in the successor to the ASUN–WAC alliance, the football-only United Athletic Conference.

Greek life

The university's embryonic Greek community initially was housed in O'Neal Hall, which was demolished in the 1980s to clear space for the construction of the Guillot University Center.

Fraternities
Robert Guillot, president from 1972 to 1989, accurately could be described as the father of UNA Greek life. He chose seven national fraternities to colonize UNA, stipulating that all chapter colonies had to be granted charters by November 1, 1974. Failure meant dissolution and replacement by new groups, which, in turn, could petition the same or other selected national fraternities for affiliation.

The threat apparently worked. Chartered fraternity chapters - Alpha Tau Omega, Delta Chi, Kappa Sigma, Phi Gamma Delta, Pi Kappa Alpha, Lambda Chi Alpha (closed 1981) and Sigma Chi - began acquiring off-campus lodges that over time were upgraded to or replaced by fraternity houses. Kappa Sigma's Lambda-Omicron chapter was the first chapter to acquire an off-campus lodge, the site of the present-day Off-Campus Bookstore.

Kappa Sigma's Lambda-Omicron chapter was the first fraternity to construct a house on UNA's fraternity row, which opened on April 4, 1984.

Sigma Chi's Eta Rho Chapter at the University of North Alabama served as the international fraternities' first official colony. Eta Rho is the Alpha colony of Sigma Chi

In the Spring of 2017, the Alpha Chapter of Lambda Sigma Phi was established at UNA. Alpha Chapter was the first expansion chapter of Lambda Sigma Phi, which was established at the University of Alabama. Lambda Sigma Phi (commonly referred to as Lambda Sig) is a member of the Interfraternity Council, and is the only Christian fraternity at UNA.

Sororities
A similar strategy was followed with sorority recruitment. As with the fraternities, invitations were extended to national sororities with the strongest alumni presence in the Florence area - Alpha Delta Pi, Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Omicron Pi (no longer on campus), Phi Mu, and Zeta Tau Alpha.

Young women interested in joining the emerging Greek system were encouraged to sign up for recruitment and subsequently were divided into several groups to visit rooms on campus assigned to sorority recruiters. In the interest of fairness, only four alumnae could be present in each of these rooms while recruiting occurred.

Alpha Delta Chi Christian Sisterhood at UNA was founded in 2006. The group functions as a student organization outside the Greek system.

Greek system today
President Guillot's decision to organize a UNA Greek system was greeted with strong opposition by some segments of the administration. Previous attempts to establish a Greek community had been resisted for years.

Nevertheless, after more than two generations, UNA Greek life is alive and well, even though fraternities and sororities combined represent slightly less than 10 percent of the undergraduate student population. Despite these comparatively small numbers, Greeks historically have exerted a major influence on virtually every facet of student life at UNA.

Inter-Fraternity Council

 * Alpha Tau Omega, Founded January 1974
 * Delta Chi, Founded September 2006
 * Kappa Sigma, Founded May 4, 1974
 * Lambda Sigma Phi, Founded April 23, 2017
 * Phi Gamma Delta, Founded March 23, 1974
 * Pi Kappa Alpha, Founded March 3, 1974
 * Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Founded February 24, 1989
 * Sigma Chi, Founded April 20, 1974

Collegiate Panhellenic Council

 * Alpha Delta Pi, Founded February 17, 1973
 * Alpha Gamma Delta, Founded 1975
 * Phi Mu, Founded March 2, 1973
 * Zeta Tau Alpha, Founded March 3, 1973

National Pan-Hellenic Council

 * Alpha Phi Alpha, local chapter founded January 17, 1975
 * Kappa Alpha Psi, local chapter founded October 10, 1976
 * Phi Beta Sigma, local chapter founded December 4, 2010 (initially colonized December 2, 1998)
 * Alpha Kappa Alpha, local chapter founded December 7, 1980
 * Delta Sigma Theta, local chapter founded April 12, 1980
 * Zeta Phi Beta, local chapter founded November 22, 2003

School colors
Purple and gold are the school colors of the University of North Alabama. While they are a ubiquitous sight on campus and especially at UNA athletic events, no one has ever ascertained who or what inspired their adoption. Little in the school archives accounts for the origin of these colors, according to Cecil Nabors, a UNA archivist and associate professor. All that is certain is that the 1912 yearbook, published the same year as inauguration of the football team, was named the "Purple and Gold."

UNA Fight Song
The "UNA Fight Song" is the fight song of the University of North Alabama, and is played by the Marching Pride of North Alabama. The song is based on one of three songs called "Three School Songs," which was published in the 1960s. The lyrics were chosen by band members in the late 1970s.

"Lion Pride" and "Pride Rock"
"Lion Pride" is a term frequently used by members of the UNA community to describe commitment to school traditions and activities reflected among students, alumni and friends of the university.

Perhaps nowhere is this level of commitment more strongly expressed than in the university's Pride Rock tradition, which began in 1994. Pride Rock is a 69-pound, engraved granite stone bearing the actual paw print of Leo II, UNA's second live lion mascot. Placed just behind the north end zone of all UNA home games, Pride Rock is touched by players as they file past on their way to the field. Pride Rock serves not only as a motivational tool for the players but also as a tangible expression of the deep well of pride, community and tradition associated with the University of North Alabama and particularly with its athletic program.

Live lions
On July 22, 1974, former UNA president Robert M. Guillot brought a 35-pound lion cub to the campus and Leo I spent the next 14 years "roaring" the school to victory. The original Leo died on January 20, 1988, and a great outpouring of support from the Shoals community resulted in Leo II being brought to UNA in July 1988. Leo II lived in the compound that once housed the original Leo and grew to a weight of more than 600 pounds at eleven years of age. In 1997, Leo II was selected as the nation's "Second Best Mascot" by Sports Illustrated. He died in February 2000. Leo III was born on November 18, 2002, and resided on the campus in the 12764 sqft George H. Carroll Lion Habitat. Leo III had lived on campus with his sister, Una, who died on June 30, 2020, at the age of 17 after a brief illness. He also died in 2024.

Traditional mascots
Leo and Una, the mascots of the University of North Alabama, are two anthropomorphic lion siblings. Leo's name is taken from the Latin word for lion, and Una is named after the common abbreviation of the university's name. Leo is described as more of a comedic character, while Una's personality leans more towards being cute. The duo was featured in a children's book titled Leo's Game Day Rules in 2015.

The earliest usage of UNA's character mascot (also called Leo) is in an article from the January 1949 edition of the Flor-Ala, describing him as a "cartoon" to be used in that years issue of the Diorama. The exact date of the debut of Leo as a costume mascot is unknown, however, the earliest recorded mention was from another article of the Flor-Ala from November 6, 1961, portrayed at the time by Claude Hunt, who initiated efforts to begin a mascot program at the university. The original suit was made if a head created by the Art Department of the University, and a body made by Hunt's mother. At this time, it was speculated that Leo was the only mascot in the state. Prior to the advent of Una in 2008, Leo's original female counterpart was a lioness with a much simpler design, called Leona.

Around 1975, the year following the acquisition of the university's first live lion, the mascot program was done away with. Just as efforts by a student began the program, though, a push by a student named Ramona Sutton would revive Leo, but not Leona, in 1979 during her freshmen year. As the original costume was no longer in usable condition, a new one would be created in a manner very similar to the first, with the body being produced by Sutton's mother and the head made by a company in Nashville.

This costume, too, would be replaced in a relatively short amount of time, as a more realistic design would be used from 1985 to 1995. During this decade, Leo would be place in 2 National Collegiate Championships, earning 8th place in 1987 and 6th place in 1988 while being portrayed by Blake Cooke. Leo's next design would be much more stylized and cartoonish, but would also produce a placing, this time 3rd, in 1999. The performer at this time, Pete Nelson, would go on to be the first portrayer of T-Rac, mascot of the newly formed Tennessee Titans.

Two new costumes would be produced in 2009 based on a design by a staff member named Walt Vandiver, including the very first costume for Una. After one more change in design, the university would mark 75 years since the creation of the mascot on January 19, 2024.

Miss UNA Scholarship Pageant
The Miss UNA Scholarship Pageant is an official preliminary for the Miss Alabama/Miss America Pageant. The Miss UNA Scholarship pageant has been a UNA tradition for over 31 years. The pageant provides an opportunity for the university's young women to compete in the following categories for scholarship money and prizes. In 2007 over $12,000 in scholarships and prizes was awarded to the contestants. Each young woman is encouraged and mentored to develop skills that will enrich her personal and professional life beyond her university experience. Miss University of North Alabama spends her year in service to the university and Shoals Area community. She promotes the platform of her choice, makes official appearances as a university representative, and represents the university at the Miss Alabama Scholarship Pageant.

Spirit Hill Tailgating and Lion Walk
Within the past few years, pregame tailgating at Spirit Hill, an area adjoining Braly Municipal Stadium, has developed into a major UNA tradition, thanks largely to the efforts of former Athletic Director Joel Erdmann. Erdmann enlisted the UNA Greek community, general student organizations and alumni to expand this tradition, which had been lacking.

Along with former head UNA football Coach Mark Hudspeth, Erdmann also was instrumental in developing the highly popular Lion Walk, a pregame parade down Royal Avenue (next to Spirit Hill) that includes Lion athletes, cheerleaders and the Marching Pride of North Alabama. The parade is held before every UNA home game.

UNA's Marching Pride of North Alabama
The Marching Pride of North Alabama was founded in 1949. The Marching Band has represented the university at many different events since, including a performance for President Jimmy Carter during his historic 1980 visit to neighboring Tuscumbia.

The band also appeared in the award-winning movie, Blue Sky, starring Jessica Lange, Tommy Lee Jones and Powers Boothe. The Marching Band also has recorded a CD with famed musician and producer Jimmy Johnson.

With more than 210 members, the group is the largest organization on campus and serves as a major contributor to school spirit, especially at athletic events. The UNA Marching Band performs at all home football games, local parades and travels the state performing in exhibition at high school competitions. They are known for precision marching and drill design, while entertaining with strongly played jazz standards.

Step Sing
In the spring, Step Sing is a well-attended event in Norton Auditorium sponsored by the University Program Council featuring take-offs of musical comedy production numbers by campus organizations. Money raised from ticket sales supports the local United Way.

Notable people
Alumni and other former students of the University of North Alabama include business leaders; a number of governors, congressmen and other government and military leaders; professional athletes; artists and entertainers.

title: University of North Alabama


text:
Talk:The Music Lovers

Untitled
I have gone with 1971 rather than 1970 as the release date. IMDb says 71, Halliwell's 8th edition says 70. I prefer the later as there seems to have been a prerelease version in 1970 under a different name (see IMDb link). Cutler 17:45, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am moving this film from 1971 in film to 1970 in film, because all films are listed in their original country (and language) release. I am also substituting the table with the usual film infobox template. Hoverfish 17:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Themusiclovers1.jpg
Image:Themusiclovers1.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 02:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Factual errors
This is supposedly a factual error: In one sequence, Tchaikovsky and his patron see each other on the road, although in fact the two never met. I understand they did twice encounter each other quite by chance, although they never spoke to each other.

I'm also intrigued by this "Count Anton Chiluvsky". I can find no such person in the literature. There were the brothers Vladimir and Konstantin Shilovsky, with both of whom Tchaikovsky had emotional attachments. Could this be one of them? -- JackofOz (talk) 15:53, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Fantasy sequence?
Is the the meeting in the canal path not meant to be a fantasy sequence?

63.194.208.34 (talk) 01:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on The Music Lovers. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080310224838/http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/reviews/73662/The_Music_Lovers.html to http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/reviews/73662/The_Music_Lovers.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 18:05, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:The Music Lovers


text:
STS-46

STS-46 was a NASA Space Shuttle mission using Atlantis and was launched on July 31, 1992, and landed on August 8, 1992.

Mission highlights
The mission's primary objectives were the deployment of the European Space Agency's European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA) and the joint NASA/ASI (Italian Space Agency) Tethered Satellite System (TSS-1). EURECA was deployed a day later than scheduled because of a problem with its data handling system. Seven and a half hours after deployment, the spacecraft's thrusters were fired to boost EURECA to its planned operating altitude of around 500 km. However, thruster firing was cut to six minutes from twenty-four minutes because of unexpected attitude data from the spacecraft. The problem was resolved, and EURECA was successfully boosted to its operational orbit on the mission's sixth day. TSS-1 deployment also was delayed one day because of the problems with EURECA. During deployment, the satellite reached a maximum distance of only 260 m from the orbiter instead of the planned 20 km because of a jammed tether line. After numerous attempts over several days to free the tether, TSS-1 operations were curtailed, and the satellite was stowed for return to Earth. It would be reflown in 1996 on STS-75, with astronauts Allen, Hoffman, Nicollier and Chang-Díaz also flying again on that mission.

Secondary payloads included the Evaluation of Oxygen Integration with Materials/Thermal Management Processes (EOIM-III/TEMP 2A), Consortium for Materials Development in Space Complex Autonomous Payload (CONCAP II and CONCAP III), IMAX Cargo Bay Camera (ICBC), Limited Duration Space Environment Candidate Materials Exposure (LDCE), Pituitary Growth Hormone Cell Function (PHCF), and the Ultraviolet Plume Instrument (UVPI). The mission was extended by a day in order to complete scientific objectives.

title: STS-46


text:
Former eastern territories of Germany

The former eastern territories of Germany (Ehemalige deutsche Ostgebiete) refer in present-day Germany to those territories east of the current eastern border of Germany, i.e., the Oder–Neisse line, which historically had been considered German and which were annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union after World War II in Europe. In most of these territories, Germans used to be the dominant or sole ethnicity. In contrast to the lands awarded to the restored Polish state by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, the German territories lost with the Potsdam Agreement after World War II in Europe on 2 August 1945 were either almost exclusively inhabited by Germans before 1945 (the bulk of East Prussia, Lower Silesia, Farther Pomerania, and parts of Western Pomerania, Lusatia, and Neumark), mixed German-Polish with a German majority (the Posen-West Prussia Border March, Lauenburg and Bütow Land, the southern and western rim of East Prussia, Ermland, Western Upper Silesia, and the part of Lower Silesia east of the Oder), or mixed German-Czech with a German majority (Glatz). Virtually the entire German population of the territories that did not flee voluntarily in the face of the Red Army advance of 1945, was violently expelled to Germany, with their possessions being looted and stolen.

The ceding of the east German lands to Poland was done in large part to compensate Poland for losing the Kresy lands east of the Curzon line, a region that was annexed by the Soviet Union after the German invasion of Poland in 1939. This territory had large populations of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians - the main ethnic groups of three of the western republics of the Soviet Union - and many towns that were primarily inhabited by Poles and Jews. The Jewish comminities in this region were mostly exterminated in the Holocaust and the Polish communities were mostly expelled to the restored Polish state after World War II, the communist ruled People's Republic of Poland. Poles from the northern part of Kresy were primarily resettled in Pommerania and Poles from Galicia were primarily resettled in Silesia, e.g. the Ossolineum and the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów were both relocated to Wrocław, the former Breslau. The territories acquired by Poland after World War II are known there as the Recovered Territories. The territories Poland annexed had been ruled as part of Poland by the Piast dynasty in the High Middle Ages, with the exception of southern East Prussia, which originally was inhabited by Old Prussians and came under Polish suzerainty in the Late Middle Ages. The northern part of East Prussia was annexed by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic as the Kaliningrad Oblast, now forming a Russian exclave.

The post-war border between Germany and Poland along the Oder–Neisse line was defined in August 1945 by the Potsdam Agreement of the leaders of the three main Allies of World War II, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States; and was formally recognized by East Germany in 1950, by the Treaty of Zgorzelec, under pressure from Stalin. In 1952, recognition of the Oder–Neisse line as a permanent boundary was one of Stalin's conditions for the Soviet Union to agree to a reunification of Germany (see Stalin Note). The offer was rejected by Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of West Germany, at least in part because one of Stalin's other conditions was for Germany to never join NATO (similarly to Austria). The then official West German government position on the status of the former territories of Germany east of the Oder and Neisse rivers was that the areas were "temporarily under Polish [or Soviet] administration", because the border regulation at the Potsdam Conference had been taken as preliminary provisions to be revisited at a final peace conference which, due to the Cold War, had been indefinitely postponed; however, West Germany in 1972 recognised the Oder–Neisse line as the western boundary of Poland when the 1970 Treaty of Warsaw between West Germany and Poland took effect; and in 1973, the Federal Constitutional Court acknowledged the capability of East Germany to negotiate the Treaty of Zgorzelec as an international agreement binding as a legal definition of its boundaries. In signing the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, both West Germany and East Germany recognised the existing boundaries of post-war Europe, including the Oder–Neisse line, as valid in international law.

In 1990, as part of the reunification of Germany, both German countries accepted clauses in the peace treaty with the four countries representing the Allies (Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany) to replace the Potsdam Agreement, whereby Germany renounced all claims to territory outside East and West Germany. As the result of this treaty, Germany's recognition of the Oder–Neisse line as the border was formalised by the re-united Germany in the German–Polish Border Treaty on 14 November 1990 and by the repeal of Article 23 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany under which German states outside the Federal Republic could formerly have declared their accession. Germany went from a territory of 468,787 km2 before the 1938 annexation of Austria to 357,022 km2 after the 1990 reunification of Germany, a loss of 24%. Despite its acquisition of the formerly German territory, the war also saw Poland's territory reduced by about 20% overall because of its losses in the east to the Soviets.

Farther Pomerania and parts of Western Pomerania
Farther Pomerania comprised the eastern part of the Prussian Province of Pomerania. It stretched roughly from the Oder River in the west to Pomerelia in the east, and roughly corresponds to today's Polish West Pomeranian Voivodeship. Along with Farther Pomerania, a small area of Western Pomerania including Stettin (now Szczecin) and Swinemünde (now Świnoujście) was transferred to Poland in 1945.

The Pomeranian parts of the former eastern territories of Germany had been under Polish rule several times from the late 10th century on, when Mieszko I acquired at least significant parts of them. Mieszko's son Bolesław I established a bishopric in the Kołobrzeg area in 1000–1005–07, before the area was lost by Poland again to pagan Slavic tribes.

The Duchy of Pomerania was established as a vassal state of Poland in 1121, which it remained until the fragmentation of Poland after the death of Polish ruler Bolesław III Wrymouth in 1138. The Dukes of Pomerania then became independent, and later were vassals of the Duchy of Saxony from 1164 to 1181, of the Holy Roman Empire from 1181 to 1185, of Denmark from 1185 to 1227 and finally, from 1227 on, were under the Holy Roman Empire (including periods of vassalage to the Margraves of Brandenburg). By the end of the Middle Ages, because of an influx of Germanic settlers, the assimilation of the Slavic population, the introduction of German town law, the influence of Germanic customs, and the trade of the Hanse, the area had been largely Germanized.

Following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Farther Pomerania became part of Brandenburg-Prussia. In 1772 the Lauenburg and Bütow Land and the former Starostwo of Draheim were annexed by the King in Prussia and integrated into the Province of Pomerania of the Kingdom of Prussia, though not into the Holy Roman Empire, and did not become part of Germany until being included in the German Confederation in 1815. After the Napoleonic Wars, Swedish Pomerania was merged into the Prussian province in 1815, both now constituting the Province of Pomerania. In 1938, the northern part of the dissolved Grenzmark Posen-West Prussia became part of the province.

At the turn of the 20th century, the total population of the province of almost 1.7 million inhabitants had a Polish-speaking minority of less than 1%.

East Brandenburg (Neumark)
The medieval Lubusz Land, on both sides of the Oder River up to the Spree in the west, including Lubusz (Lebus) itself, also formed part of Mieszko's realm. Poland lost Lubusz when the Silesian duke Bolesław II Rogatka sold it to the Ascanian margraves of Brandenburg in 1249. Brandenburg also acquired the castellany of Santok from Duke Przemysł I of Greater Poland and made it the nucleus of its Neumark ("New March") region. The Bishopric of Lebus remained a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Gniezno until 1424, when it passed under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg. The Lubusz Land was part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown from 1373 to 1415.

Silesia, Kłodzko Land and Eastern Lusatia
After Germanic tribes left the area in the Migration Period, Lechitic tribes began to settle Silesia, while Lusatia was settled by the Milceni and the Polabian Slavs and the Kłodzko Land was settled by Bohemians. In the 10th century Mieszko I of Poland made Silesia part of his realm. From the 10th century to the 12th century, Silesia, Lusatia and the Kłodzko Land were contested between Bohemia and Poland. Several independent duchies formed, and eventually some attached themselves to the Kingdom of Bohemia, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, while the Kłodzko Land became a constituent part of the kingdom itself. In the 14th century, the Treaty of Namysłów had King Casimir III the Great give up all Polish claims to Silesia and ceded the Duchies of Silesia to the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. Ecclesiastically, the Diocese of Wrocław covering Silesia remained a suffragan of the Polish Archdiocese of Gniezno until becoming exempt in 1821.

The first German colonists arrived in the late 12th century, and large-scale German settlement started in the early 13th century during the reign of Henry I. New forms of agriculture, technology and law brought in by the German settlers, took root in the region, also benefiting the Slavic population. By the late 14th century, 130 towns and 1300 villages had adopted German law. Silesian cities such as Jelenia Góra (Hirschberg), Lwówek Śląski (Löwenberg) and Złotoryja (Goldberg) had typical architecture, being centered around a central square, the ring, which became known in Polish as rynek. German craftsmen and miners also started settling the region's mountainous areas.

The Bohemian Lands were under the rule of the House of Jagiellon in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary until the Battle of Mohács in 1526. Afterwards, they were ruled in personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary and the Archduchy of Austria by the Holy Roman Emperors of the House of Habsburg, finally ceasing de facto (but not de jure) to exist as a separate realm and becoming a part of the Habsburg monarchy in the aftermath of the Bohemian Revolt's defeat in the Battle of White Mountain. After losing the 18th-century Silesian Wars, the Habsburg monarchy was forced to cede most of the region to the Kingdom of Prussia in the treaties of Breslau and of Berlin, retaining only Austrian Silesia. The ceded lands also included the (sometimes considered Moravian) territories of the Duchies of Troppau and of Krnov north of the Opava river, as well as the strategically important Kłodzko Land, a part of the core territory of the Kingdom of Bohemia.

As the result of the peaceful influx of German-speakers, Lusatia, Silesia and the Kłodzko Land became predominantly German-speaking. Czech continued to be spoken in parts of Austrian Silesia, in the Hlučín Region of Upper Silesia and in the western part of the Kłodzko Land (Czech Corner). Sorbian was spoken in parts of Lusatia, while Polish prevailed in Middle Silesia north of the Oder river, in parts of Austrian Silesia and in Upper Silesia. In the latter case, the Germans who arrived during the Middle Ages became mostly Polonised, especially with the advent of the industrial revolution which created employment and business opportunities, attracting numerous Poles to the area. In contrast the Polish-speaking parts of Lower and Middle Silesia, commonly described until the late 19th century as the Polish side, were mostly Germanised in the 18th and 19th centuries, except for a few patches and a larger area along the northeastern frontier.

East Prussia, including Warmia, and the Klaipėda Region
Originally inhabited mainly by the pagan Old Prussians, the regions were conquered and incorporated into the state of the Teutonic Knights in the 13th and 14th centuries. Under the Teutonic Order, the region's towns were founded, woodlands were cleared and marshlands made arable to be settled by colonists, predominantly from German-speaking areas but also from neighboring Polish and Lithuanian lands. The area became predominantly German during the Ostsiedlung, either almost exclusively (Sambia, Natangia, and Bartia together forming the central part of the region), mixed German-Lithuanian (the North-Eastern part called Lithuania Minor including Sudovia, Nadrovia and Scalovia), or mixed German-Polish (Masurians, Warmiacy) comprising the southern (Sasna and Galindia, together forming Masuria) and western (Warmia, Pomesania, and Pogesania, the latter two together forming Powiśle) rim of the region. By the Second Peace of Thorn (1466), Warmia and the Malbork Land (comprising northern parts of Pomesania and Pogesania) became subject to the Polish Crown as a part of Royal Prussia, a region initially holding considerable autonomy and continuing to use the German language as official, but ultimately becoming fully integrated with the Crown of Poland upon conclusion of the Union of Lublin. Masuria and the southern part of Pomesania and Pogesania stayed part of the rump Teutonic state (called thereafter Monastic Prussia or Teutonic Prussia) which became a German fief of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, finally secularised in 1525 to become the Ducal Prussia. The latter later emancipated, taking advantage of the Russo-Swedish Deluge, and merged with the Electorate of Brandenburg to form Brandenburg-Prussia, shortly thereafter becoming a kingdom. Subsequently, it entered into an alliance with Austria and Russia, invading Polish territories of Royal Prussia in the First Partition of Poland (1772), with Warmia being made part of the newly formed province of East Prussia in 1773. As a result of the Treaty of Versailles, a minor part around Soldau was transferred to Poland, the Klaipėda Region formed a free city supervised by the League of Nations, annexed following the Klaipėda Revolt by Lithuania but reclaimed by Germany in 1938, while the bulk (including entire Warmia and Masuria) remained a part of Germany, following the East Prussian plebiscite, and became enlarged by the addition of the formerly West Prussian Malbork Land.

Other uses and definitions of the term
In the Potsdam Agreement the description of the territories transferred is "The former German territories east of the Oder–Neisse line", and permutations on this description are the most commonly used to describe any former territories of interwar Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line.

The term has sometimes been confused with the name East Germany, a political term, used to be the common colloquial English name for the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and mirrored the common colloquial English term for the other German state of West Germany. When focusing on the period before World War II, "eastern Germany" is used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe (East Elbia), as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt,    but because of the border changes in the 20th century, after World War II the term "East Germany" and eastern Germany in English has meant the territory of the German Democratic Republic.

In German, only one corresponding term Ostdeutschland exists, meaning both East Germany and Eastern Germany. The rather ambiguous German term never gained as widespread use for the GDR during its existence, as did the English designation, or the derived demonym Ossi (Eastie), and only following the German reunification has it started to be commonly used to denote both the historic post-war German Democratic Republic, and its counterpart five successor states in the current reunited Germany. However, because people and institutions in the states traditionally considered as Middle Germany, like the three southern new states Saxony-Anhalt, the Free State of Saxony and the Free State of Thuringia, still use the term Middle Germany when referring to their area and its institutions, the term Ostdeutschland is still ambiguous.

Early history, Kingdom of Poland, Teutonic Order State, Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire

As various Germanic tribes had left present-day Poland and East Germany, West Slavic tribes moved to these places from the 6th century onward. Duke Mieszko I of the Polans, from his stronghold in the Gniezno area, united various neighboring tribes in the second half of the 10th century, formed the first Polish state and became the first historically recorded Piast duke. His realm bordered the German state, and control over the borderlands would shift back and forth between the two polities over the centuries to come.

Mieszko's son and successor, king Bolesław I Chrobry, upon the 1018 Peace of Bautzen expanded the southern part of the realm but lost control over the lands of Western Pomerania on the Baltic coast. After pagan revolts and a Bohemian invasion in the 1030s, Duke Casimir I the Restorer (reigned 1040–1058) again united most of the former Piast realm, including Silesia and Lubusz Land, on both sides of the middle Oder River but without Western Pomerania, which returned to of the Polish state only under Bolesław III Wrymouth from 1116 to 1121, when the noble House of Griffins established the Duchy of Pomerania. On Bolesław's death in 1138, Poland was for almost 200 years was subjected to fragmentation and ruled by Bolesław's sons and by their successors, who were often in conflict with one another. Władysław I the Elbow-high, who was crowned king of Poland in 1320, achieved a partial reunification, but the Silesian and Masovian duchies remained independent Piast holdings.

In the 12th to the 14th centuries, German settlers, most of whom spoke Low German, moved into Central and Eastern Europe in a migration process known as the Ostsiedlung, and the Hanseatic League dominated the shores of the Baltic Sea. In Pomerania, Brandenburg, East Prussia, Lusatia, Kłodzko Land and Lower Silesia, the former West Slav (Bohemians, Polabian Slavs and Poles) or Baltic population became minorities in the course of the following centuries, but substantial numbers of them remained in areas such as Upper Silesia. In Greater Poland and in Eastern Pomerania (Pomerelia), German settlers always remained a minority. Some of the territories, such as Pomerelia and Masovia, reunited with Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries. Silesia, Lubusz Land and Lusatia (as parts of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown) and the Duchy of Pomerania became more firmly incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire.

Partitions of Poland, Kingdom of Prussia, Duchy of Warsaw, Austrian Empire, Grand Duchy of Posen and German Confederation
In the course of the Partitions of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Empire acquired vast territorial shares of the demised Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Napoleonic era the Greater Polish territories and the Chełmno Land formed part of the Duchy of Warsaw following the Treaties of Tilsit, and Danzig was granted a status of a Free City. However, after the Congress of Vienna, the Polish duchy was again partitioned between Russia and Prussia. The Congress of Vienna established as a replacement for the dissolved Holy Roman Empire the German Confederation (German: Deutscher Bund), an association of 39 German-speaking states in Central Europe under the nominal leadership of the Austrian Empire. Its boundaries largely followed the ones of its predecessor, the Holy Roman Empire, defining the territory of Germany for much of the 19th century and confirming Pomerania, East Brandenburg and Silesia as its parts. On the other hand, the remaining parts of the lands ruled by the House of Hohenzollern which were not included in the Holy Roman Empire, namely the German-speaking Prussian nucleus (East Prussia), and the newly acquired predominantly Polish- or Kashubian-speaking territorial share of the collapsed and dismembered Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Grand Duchy of Posen and West Prussia), continued as external to the Confederation (a failed attempt to include these lands in the German Empire (1848–49) was undertaken by the Frankfurt Parliament), as did the Austrian-held partition of Poland (the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria), Transleithania, as well as the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland and the French region of Alsace.

North German Confederation, German Empire, and Austria-Hungary
In the following years, Prussia superseded Austria in the role of the primary driving force of the restoration of German unity and secured this position by abolishing the German Confederation in the Peace of Prague. Austria was in turn transformed into poly-ethnic Austria-Hungary, abstained from further German unification efforts and abandoned forced Germanization.

Thus, the planned German unification was to be accomplished in the Lesser German solution version. With rise of nationalism, the eastern Hohenzollern-ruled territories with a predominantly Polish population (especially the formerly Polish territories of Posen and West Prussia) increasingly became a target of aggressive Germanisation efforts, German settlement, anti-Catholic campaigns (Kulturkampf), as well as disfranchisement and expropriations of Poles, and finally annexed following the North German Confederation Treaty (1866). At the time of German Unification in 1871, the Kingdom of Prussia was the largest and dominant part of the North German Confederation, the predecessor of the newly formed German Empire.

Weimar Republic, Second Polish Republic, First Czechoslovak Republic, Free City of Danzig, and Klaipėda Region
The Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which ended the war, restored the independence of Poland, known as the Second Polish Republic, and Germany was compelled to cede territories to it, most of which were taken by Prussia in the three Partitions of Poland and had been part of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the German Empire for the 100 years of the non-existence of Polish state. The territories retroceded to Poland in 1919 were those with a Polish majority, such as Greater Poland, as well as Pomerelia, historically the part of Poland providing its access to the sea. Restoration of Pomerelia to Poland meant the loss of Germany's territorial contiguousness to East Prussia making it an exclave.

Most of the eastern territories with a predominantly or almost exclusively German population (East Brandenburg, East Prussia, Hither and Farther Pomerania, and the bulk of Silesia) remained with Germany. The historically Polish and strategically vital for Poland but predominantly German-speaking city of Danzig formed henceforth with its surrounding areas the Free City of Danzig, a self-governing territory supervised by the League of Nations, albeit bound in some aspects by an imposed union with Poland.

However, in areas such as Upper Silesia, no clear division between the mostly bilingual population was possible. After a first plebiscite, Upper Silesia was to stay part of Germany's territory. However, after the Silesian Uprisings, the area was divided in accord with the German–Polish Convention regarding Upper Silesia.

The parts of the former province of Posen and of West Prussia that were not restored as part of the Second Polish Republic were administered as Grenzmark Posen-Westpreußen (the German Province of Posen–West Prussia) until 1939.

Nazi Germany
The defeat of Germany and the imposed terms of peace left a sense of injustice among the population. The subsequent interwar economic crisis acted as a fertile ground for irredentist claims that the territory ceded to Poland, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania in 1919–1922 should be returned to Germany, which paved the way for the Nazi takeover of the government.

In October 1938 Hlučín Area (Hlučínsko in Czech, Hultschiner Ländchen in German) of Moravian-Silesian Region, which had been ceded to Czechoslovakia under the Treaty of Versailles, was annexed by the Third Reich as a part of areas lost by Czechoslovakia under the Munich agreement. However, as distinct from other lost Czechoslovakian domains, it was not attached to Sudetengau (the administrative region covering the Sudetenland) but to Prussia (Upper Silesia).

By late 1938, Lithuania had lost control over the situation in the Memel Territory, which had been annexed by Lithuania in the Klaipėda putsch. In the early hours of 23 March 1939, after a political ultimatum caused a Lithuanian delegation to travel to Berlin, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Juozas Urbšys and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signed the Treaty of the Cession of the Memel Territory to Germany in exchange for a Lithuanian Free Zone in the port of Memel that used the facilities erected in the previous years.

In the interwar period, the German administration, both Weimar and Nazi, conducted a massive campaign of renaming of thousands of placenames, to remove traces of Polish, Lithuanian and Old Prussian origin.

Second World War and the German occupation of Poland, 1939–1945

Germany invaded Poland without a declaration of war on 1 September 1939, heralding the start of the Second World War. The Third Reich annexed the Polish lands included the former Prussian Partition, comprising Pomerelia (the "Polish Corridor"), Chełmno Land, Greater Poland proper, Kuyavia, Łęczyca Land, Sieradz Land, Northern Masovia, as well as the parts of Upper Silesia located in Poland, including the former Czechoslovak part of Cieszyn Silesia annexed by Poland in 1938. The Senate of the Free City of Danzig, elected by the Volkstag already also dominated by the Nazi Party at that time, voted to become a part of Germany again, but Poles and Jews were deprived of their voting rights and all non-Nazi political parties were banned.

Two decrees by Adolf Hitler (8 and 12 October 1939) divided the annexed areas of Poland into administrative units:
 * Reichsgau Wartheland (initially Reichsgau Posen), which included the entire Poznań Voivodeship, most of the Łódź Voivodeship, five counties of the Pomeranian Voivodeship, and one county of the Warszawa Voivodeship;
 * Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia (initially Reichsgau West Prussia), which consisted of the remaining area of the Pomeranian Voivodeship and the Free City of Danzig;
 * Ciechanów District (Regierungsbezirk Zichenau), consisting of the five northern counties of Warszawa Voivodeship (Płock, Płońsk, Sierpc, Ciechanów, and Mława), which became a part of East Prussia;
 * Katowice District (Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz), or East Upper Silesia (Ost-Oberschlesien), which included Sosnowiec, Będzin, Chrzanów, and Zawiercie Counties, and parts of Olkusz and Żywiec Counties.

The territories had an area of 94,000 km2 and a population of 10,000,000. Throughout the war, the annexed Polish territories were subject to German colonisation. Because of the lack of settlers from Germany itself, the colonists were primarily ethnic Germans relocated from other parts of Eastern Europe. The ethnic Germans were then resettled in homes from which the Poles had been expelled.

The remainder of Polish territory was annexed by the Soviet Union (see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) or made into the German-controlled General Government occupation zone.

After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the district of Białystok, which included the Białystok, Bielsk Podlaski, Grajewo, Łomża, Sokółka, Volkovysk and Grodno counties, was "attached to" but not incorporated into East Prussia, and Eastern Galicia (District of Galicia), which included the cities of Lwów, Stanislawów and Tarnopol, was made part of the General Government.

Yalta Conference
The final decision to move Poland's boundary westward was made by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, shortly before the end of the war. The precise location of the border was left open, and the western Allies also accepted in general the principles of the Oder River being the future western border of Poland and of population transfer being the way to prevent future border disputes. The open questions were whether the border should follow the Eastern or Lusatian Neisse rivers and whether Stettin, the traditional seaport of Berlin, should remain in Germany or be included in Poland.

Originally, Germany was to retain Stettin, and the Poles were to annex all of East Prussia with Königsberg. Eventually, however, Stalin decided to keep Königsberg for strategic grounds (it would also be a year-round warm-water port for the Soviet Navy) and argued that the Poles should receive Stettin instead. The wartime Polish government-in-exile had little say in the decisions.

The Yalta Conference agreed to split Germany into four occupation zones after the war. The status of Poland was discussed but this was complicated by the fact that Poland was then controlled by the Red Army. The conference agreed to reorganise the Provisionary Polish Government, which had been set up by the Red Army, by the inclusion of some politicians of the Polish government-in-exile, and to transform it into the Provisional Government of National Unity, with an unfulfilled promise to hold democratic and fair elections. That effectively ended the international recognition of the Polish government-in-exile, which had been evacuated in 1939. The conference agreed that the Polish eastern border would follow the Curzon Line and that Poland would receive substantial territorial compensation in the west from Germany, but the exact border was to be determined later. A "Committee on Dismemberment of Germany" was to be set up to decide whether Germany was to be divided into six nations and, if so, what borders and interrelations the new German states would have.

To pressure the Western Allies regarding the verbal commitments of Tehran and Yalta, the Soviets began transferring regions east of the Oder–Neisse line to Polish control, although these areas were still officially part of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. The US government strongly protested to the unilateral implementation of a Polish government in these areas.

Potsdam Agreement, 1945

After World War II, several memoranda of the US State Department warned against awarding Poland such extensive lands, apprehensive of creation of new long-standing tension in the area. In particular, the State Department acknowledged that Polish claims to Lower Silesia had no ethnic or historic justification.

Under Stalin's pressure, the Potsdam Conference, held from 17 July until 2 August 1945, placed all of the areas east of the Oder–Neisse line, whether recognised by the international community as part of Germany until 1939 or occupied by Germany during World War II, under the jurisdiction of other countries, pending a final Peace Conference.

The Allies also agreed that: "XII. Orderly transfer of German populations.

The Three Governments [of the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain], having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner."

because in the words of Winston Churchill

"Expulsion is the method which, in so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble. A clean sweep will be made."

The problem with the status of these territories was that the Potsdam Agreement was not a legally binding treaty, but a memorandum between the USSR, the US and the UK (to which neither France, nor Germany or Poland were party). It regulated the issue of the eastern German border, which was confirmed as being along the Oder–Neisse line, but the final article of the memorandum said that the final decisions concerning Germany, and hence the detailed alignment of Germany's eastern boundaries, would be subject to a separate peace treaty; at which the three Allied signatories committed themselves to respect the terms of the Potsdam memorandum. Hence, so long as these Allied Powers remained committed to the Potsdam protocols, without German agreement to an Oder–Neisse line boundary there could be no Peace Treaty and no German Reunification. The debate affected Cold War politics and diplomacy and played an important role in the negotiations leading up to the reunification of Germany in 1990.

Expulsion of Germans and resettlement
With the rapid advance of the Red Army in the winter of 1944–1945, German authorities desperately evacuated many Germans westwards. The majority of the remaining German-speaking population in the territory of former Czechoslovakia and east of the Oder–Neisse line (roughly 10 million in the Ostgebiete alone), that had not already been evacuated, was expelled by the new Czech and Polish administrations. Although in the post-war period earlier German sources often cited the number of evacuated and expelled Germans as 16 million and the death toll as between 1.7 and 2.5 million, those numbers are today considered by some historians to be exaggerated and the death toll more likely in a range between 400,000 and 600,000. Some present-day estimates place the numbers of German refugees at 14 million, of whom about half a million died during the evacuations and expulsions.

At the same time, Poles from central Poland, expelled Poles from former eastern Poland, Polish returnees from internment and forced labour, Ukrainians forcibly resettled in Operation Vistula, and Jewish Holocaust survivors were settled in German territories gained by Poland, whereas the north of former East Prussia (Kaliningrad Oblast gained by the USSR) was turned into a military zone and subsequently settled with Russians. The first Polish settlers in contrast experienced complete alienation from their new surroundings, perceived as fully foreign and German.

However, contrary to the official declaration that the former German inhabitants of the Recovered Territories had to be removed quickly to house Poles displaced by the Soviet annexation, the new Polish lands initially faced a severe population shortage.

Polish population transfers from the Soviet Union only amounted for 1.5 million people, while more than 8 million Germans lost their homes in the German Eastern Territories.

Polonization and the Treaty of Zgorzelec
Drawing from interwar demands by Polish nationalists (albeit far more limited), Poland's sweeping territorial gains of German land were presented as inspired by the Piast vision of an ethnically homogeneous state within the borders of medieval Piast Poland. Fully German-speaking areas such as Lower Silesia and Farther Pomerania suffered expulsion of its entire indigenous population in 1945–46. Polonization proceeded rapidly, despite the still uncertain border.

Rather than taking over German place names, new Polish place names were determined by decree, reverting to a Slavic name or inventing a new name for places founded by German speakers. In order to establish the Piast vision in the consciousness of the population and to convince them of the historical justice of the annexation of the former German territories, the 'Recovered Territories' were covered with a network of designations connected with the Piast dynasty, even if the buildings themselves had no reference to the Piast rulers.

The Polish Communists mobilized for cleansing and acculturation to de-Germanize their new home. German words were removed from buildings and even from art works, dishes, and gravesites. Meanwhile, a blatantly fraudulent referendum was held on three different questions; the third of these was whether the Polish people were in favor of the new western border. According to the official results, over 90% voted "yes" despite Poland having lost substantial territories in the east (the Kresy lands) as well.

The process was finalized in 1950 by the Treaty of Zgorzelec, an agreement signed under Soviet pressure by Otto Grotewohl, prime minister of the provisional government of the GDR (East Germany) and Polish premier Józef Cyrankiewicz. It recognized the Oder–Neisse line specified by the 1945 Potsdam Agreement as the border between the two states. The terms referred to the "defined and existing border" from the Baltic Sea west of Świnoujście – however without mentioning Szczecin – along the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers to the Czechoslovak border.

West German politics in the early post-World-War-II years
After the war, the so-called "German question" was an important factor of post-war German and European history and politics.

Between 1949 and 1970 the government of West Germany referred to these territories as "former German territories temporarily under Polish and Soviet administration". This terminology was used in relation to territories of eastern Germany within the 1937 Germany border, and was based on the terminology used in the Potsdam Agreement. It was used only by the Federal Republic of Germany; but the Polish and Soviet governments objected to the obvious implication that these territories should someday revert to Germany. The Polish government preferred to use the phrase Recovered Territories, asserting a sort of continuity because parts of these territories had centuries previously been ruled by ethnic Poles.

Until 1973, the Federal Republic took a strict line in claiming an exclusive mandate for all of Germany. Under the Hallstein Doctrine, the Federal Republic broke diplomatic relations with states that maintained diplomatic relations with the GDR, except for the Soviet Union. Therefore, the government of West Germany and the Bundestag declared in 1950 the Treaty of Zgorzelec ″null and void″.

In the early history of West Germany, refugee organizations were an important political factor, demanding that Germany never renounce the land that was deemed still part of Germany. However, contrary to the official claims, the bulk of the expelleés would likely have no real intention of returning to their homeland.

Ostpolitik and the Treaty of Warsaw
In the 1970s, West Germany adopted Ostpolitik in foreign relations, which strove to normalise relations with its neighbours by recognising the realities of the European order of the time, and abandoning elements of the Hallstein Doctrine. West Germany also abandoned for the time being its claims with respect to German reunification, recognising the existence of the German Democratic Republic (GDR); and the validity of the Oder–Neisse line in international law." As part of this new approach, West Germany concluded friendship treaties with the Soviet Union (Treaty of Moscow (1970)), Poland (Treaty of Warsaw (1970)), East Germany (Basic Treaty (1972)) and Czechoslovakia (Treaty of Prague (1973)); and participated in the Helsinki Final Act (1975). The validity of the Treaty of Zgorzelec was explicitly confirmed in a judgement of the Federal Constitutional Court of 1973 on the Basic Treaty between East and West Germany. Nevertheless, West Germany continued its long-term objective of achieving a reunification of East Germany, West Germany and Berlin; and maintained that its formal recognition of the post-war boundaries of Germany would need to be confirmed by a united Germany in the context of a Final Settlement of the Second World War. Some West German commentators continued to maintain that neither the Treaty of Zgorzelec nor the Treaty of Warsaw should be considered as binding on a future united Germany; albeit that these reservations were intended for domestic political consumption, and the arguments advanced in support of them had no substance in international law.

The Holy See immediately acknowledged the new reality following the Treaty of Warsaw, and created new Polish dioceses in the territories with the papal bulls Episcoporum Poloniae coetus and Vratislaviensis – Berolinensis et aliarium.

German reunification, German–Polish Border Treaty and present status
In 1990 Germany officially recognized its present eastern border at the time of its reunification in the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, ending any residual claims to sovereignty that Germany may have had over any territory east of the Oder–Neisse line. Over time, the "German question" has been muted by a number of related phenomena:
 * The passage of time resulted in fewer people being left who have firsthand experience of living in these regions under German jurisdiction.
 * In the Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany, Germany renounced all claims to territory east of the Oder–Neisse line. Germany's recognition of the border was repeated in the German–Polish Border Treaty on 14 November 1990. The first of those treaties was made by both German states and ratified in 1991 by a united Germany. The second was already signed by the united Germany.
 * The expansion of the European Union eastwards in 2004 enabled any German wishing to live and work in Poland, and thus east of the Oder–Neisse line, to do so without requiring a permit. German expellees and refugees became free to visit their former homes and set up residence, though some restrictions remained on the purchase of land and buildings.
 * Poland entered the Schengen Area on 21 December 2007, removing all border controls on its border with Germany.

Under Article 1 of the Treaty on Final Settlement, the new united Germany committed itself to renouncing any further territorial claims beyond the boundaries of East Germany, West Germany and Berlin; "The united Germany has no territorial claims whatsoever against other states and shall not assert any in the future." Furthermore, the Basic Law of the Federal Republic was required to be amended to state explicitly that full German unification had now been achieved, such that the new German state comprised the entirety of Germany, and that all constitutional mechanisms should be removed by which any territories outside those boundaries could otherwise subsequently be admitted; these new constitutional articles being bound by treaty not to be revoked. Article 23 of the Basic Law was repealed, closing off the possibility for any further states to apply for membership of the Federal Republic; while Article 146 was amended to state explicitly that the territory of the newly unified republic comprised the entirety of the German people; "This Basic Law, which since the achievement of the unity and freedom of Germany applies to the entire German people, shall cease to apply on the day on which a constitution freely adopted by the German people takes effect". This was confirmed in the 1990 rewording of the preamble; "Germans ... have achieved the unity and freedom of Germany in free self-determination. This Basic Law thus applies to the entire German people."

In the course of the German reunification, Chancellor Helmut Kohl initially caused international outcry by making no reference in his 10 Points to the acceptance of the border as definitive, but later reaffirmed reluctantly the acceptance of the territorial changes made after World War II, creating some outrage among the Federation of Expellees, while some Poles were concerned about a possible revival of their 1939 trauma through a "second German invasion", this time with the Germans buying back their land, which was cheaply available at the time. This happened on a smaller scale than many Poles expected, and the Baltic Sea coast of Poland has become a popular German tourist destination. The so-called "homesickness-tourism" which was often perceived as quite aggressive well into the 1990s now tends to be viewed as a good-natured nostalgia tour rather than an expression of anger and desire for the return of the lost territories.

Some organisations in Germany continue to claim the territories for Germany or property there for German citizens. The Prussian Trust (or the Prussian Claims Society), that probably has less than a hundred members, re-opened the old dispute when in December 2006 it submitted 23 individual claims against the Polish government to the European Court of Human Rights asking for compensation or return of property appropriated from its members at the end of World War II. An expert report jointly commissioned by the German and Polish governments from specialists in international law have confirmed that the proposed complaints by the Prussian Trust had little hope of success. But the German government cannot prevent such requests being made and the Polish government has felt that the submissions warranted a comment by Anna Fotyga, the Polish Minister of the Foreign Affairs to "express [her] deepest concern upon receiving the information about a claim against Poland submitted by the Prussian Trust to the European Court of Human Rights". On 9 October 2008 the European Court of Human Rights declared the case of Preussische Treuhand v. Poland inadmissible, because the European Convention on Human Rights does not impose any obligations on the Contracting States to return property which was transferred to them before they ratified the convention.

After the National Democratic Party of Germany, described as a neo-Nazi organisation, won six seats in the parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in September 2006, the leader of the party, Udo Voigt, declared that his party demands Germany in "historical borders" and questioned the current border treaties.

title: Former eastern territories of Germany


text:
Hundvåg, Stavanger

Hundvåg is a borough of the city of Stavanger which lies in the southwestern part of the large municipality of Stavanger in Rogaland county, Norway. The borough includes a number of islands lying to the north of the main city centre of Stavanger. It includes the islands of Hundvåg, Sølyst, Grasholmen, Engøy, Buøy, Bjørnøy, Roaldsøy, and Ormøy. These islands are all connected together by bridges and they are connected to mainland Stavanger by the Stavanger City Bridge.

The 6.41 km2 borough has a population (2015) of 13,217. This gives the borough a population density of 2062 PD/km2.

Neighbourhoods
Although the borders of city's "neighbourhoods" (delområder) do not correspond exactly to the borough borders, Hundvåg roughly consists of the neighbourhoods of Buøy and Hundvåg.

Politics
Hundvåg borough is led by a municipal borough council (kommunedelsutvalg). The council consists of 11 members, with the following party allegiances:

title: Hundvåg, Stavanger