governmentfinances

Map of Europe, 1946

from The National Archives UK

• tshiverd said:

  Very cool. and right before it all came apart. Really interesting, Thanks for sharing.

• Fraser Pettigrew said:

  It's a terribly quaint and idealistic view of Europe for tender young readers, when the reality was a continent shattered by six years of war. It also strangely pays no regard to the major territorial changes which had already been settled at Yalta and Potsdam in 1945 - the absorption of the Baltic states into Soviet Russia, the redrawing of Poland and Germany's borders, the end of Gdansk as the 'Free City of Danzig' and its return to Poland. The choice of German flag is rather startling. That black, white and red tricolour was reintroduced by the Nazis and only used between 1933-35 - it was previously the Imperial flag up until 1918. There was no German flag in 1946 - the current flag (a reintroduction of the Weimar Republic flag) was not adopted until 1949. There are various other small flag anomalies that are probably just down to a lack of up-to-date knowledge - no Wikipedia in 1946! But the inclusion of Turkey in a map of Europe (even today) is interesting to say the least.

• Glyn Nelson said:

  It does point out in the top left that it is based on data from 1938. So whilst it was represented to the people of Britain in 1946, it is essentially a pre-2nd world war map of Europe.

• Fraser Pettigrew said:

  Glyn Nelson So it does - I missed that detail, thanks. Not the ideal moment in history for cartographers with product to distribute!