The Oder-Neisse line (named after the Oder and Neisse rivers) is the border between Germany and Poland since the end of the Second World War. As a result of the defeat Germany lost a part of its territory to Poland. Previously, the German Empire had to cede the former Prussian provinces of Posen and Westpreußen, as well as parts of upper Silesia, to the newly founded Polish state after the First World War in 1919. In earlier centuries these territories were part of the . They were annexed to the Kingdom of Prussia, as a result of the of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by the , the Holy Roman Empire and the Russian Empire. 