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The war had ended, but the dust hadn’t settled. In May 1946—exactly one year after Germany’s surrender—Europe was still a continent in transition. That’s what makes a particular newspaper map from that time so fascinating. Titled “One Year After”, and drawn by Edwin L. Sundberg, a newspaper cartographer known for turning complex postwar developments into accessible visuals, it captures the uncertainty of the time with remarkable clarity. Sundberg based his work on sources like military occupation records, diplomatic reports, and news coverage to reflect what was understood about Europe’s shifting political lines.
Let’s take a closer look at this carefully drawn historical artifact.
Soviet Shadows Across the East
By 1946, much of Eastern Europe had slipped behind what Winston Churchill would later call the “Iron Curtain.” On Sundberg’s map, you can clearly see how Soviet control had expanded westward.
The Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—had been absorbed into the USSR, a move most Western nations didn’t recognize officially but couldn’t stop. Finland, which fought two wars with the Soviets, kept its independence but had to give up big slices of land, including Karelia.
Poland’s fate was especially dramatic. It lost territory in the east to the Soviet Union but gained large parts of eastern Germany in return. That shift sparked mass migrations, with millions of people uprooted, sometimes by force, to align the population with the new borders.
Romania was also turning red, with Soviet influence growing stronger by the day. A few years later, it would become part of the Eastern Bloc.
Borders in Limbo
The map also marks places where nobody was quite sure who would end up in control. These “uncertain” areas were awaiting decisions from international bodies or postwar treaties that hadn’t yet been finalized. There were other long-standing border questions—like Alsace and Lorraine between France and Germany—but Sundberg, perhaps intentionally, chose not to include them. That choice hints at which disputes were drawing the most attention in 1946.
What the map does show is just how unsettled things still were. The guns had stopped firing, but the political chess game had just begun.
How the Map Reads Today
Maps like this one aren’t just about geography—they also show us how people at the time understood the world. This particular one gives us a glimpse into how Americans in 1946 might have viewed the situation in Europe. It reflects what was known, assumed, and feared during a moment of great instability.
Of course, the details would soon shift again. The Cold War hadn’t fully set in, but the contours were starting to take shape. And even now, nearly 80 years later, you can trace the roots of modern Europe in the borders Sundberg captured on that printed page.
