Why did Britain give Heligoland to Germany? (Short Animated Documentary)

Heligoland is a tiny island off the coast of Germany that belonged to Britain between 1814 and 1890 when it opted to hand it over to Germany. But given that Britain was a naval power and having a naval base a short distance from Germany, why didn't Britain keep it?

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[HoennMaster]

One thing I've learned about history recently, small islands tend to cause big tension.

[jabber]

Germany: "we want it"
Britain: "but you can't have it"
Germany: "we don't want France to have it"
Britain: "yours"

[alexanderzippel]

Funfact, because Helgoland is part of the Kreis Pinneberg, Pinneberg is the largest Subdivision in Germany based on the distance between the furthest 2 points from eachother within a Kreis

[wambugugichuki]

As an east african we actually do learn about the heligoland land swap deal that happened in history class

[ronaldderooij]

Fun fact, on behalf of the British the "governor" after WW2 was a Dutch man, later famous in the Netherlands as a comic performer on TV (Rijk de Gooijer). He told in an interview that the plan was not to blow up Helgoland, but to bomb it into oblivion after evacuating all inhabitants. He opposed the idea and he implied that he had some influence in keeping the British executing this plan.

[E_T_]

1:31 In German that deal is commonly known as *"Helgoland-Sansibar-Vertrag" (Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty)* which sounds like they swapped these two islands, even though Germany _didn't actually own Zanzibar._
The latter being far bigger explains the "Trousers for a Button" misconception that sprang from that.

[PankoBreadcrumbs]

It's actually a misconception that the island was too difficult to blow up, it was more so that it was too expensive. The British government had reached out to James Bisonette for funding of the destruction of Heligoland but he was on holiday at the time and Heligoland continued on.

[DanS]

Sorry… what?! They were going to BLOW UP the Island?!

I know you’re channel is about short concise historical questions. But I need more on this.

[mountaineernews]

I had no clue that the UK had that island I guess I do learn something new every day thank you as a history nerd my self

[euanduthie]

Heligoland also plays a part in Scientific history as well. Heisenberg went on holiday there to escape a severe bout of hay fever, and managed to make a key breakthrough in quantum theory while staying there.

[Elerad]

I'd never even heard of Heligoland. This was really interesting.

[frisianwarrior]

Heligoland is a holy island for the Frisian people, Frisian is still spoken there today and there is an inter-Frisian festival there every 3 years. I have been to it. Pretty fun to land on the island because the ship can't dock there, small boats come pick you up from the ship. in 1401 there was a huge pirate sea battle there with the hansa because the island was a safe haven for pirates! So many cool things about that island. One is a huge red rock, very different from the entire coastline surrounding it, and the other is just sand dune for seals to chill on.

[StevenEveral]

The British gave the Caprivi Strip to Germany to give them access to the Zambezi river. What the British didn't tell Germany was that the Zambezi river was only navigable to Victoria Falls. Because of that, Namibia has a weird strip that gives them an almost quadripoint with Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Zambia.

[savannahvarns]

I love how the most insignificant little islands can have the craziest backstory

[akend]

2:14 “Dodo may not be coming back. Experts will now start looking in people’s attics.”
Tiny details like this are one of many reasons why I love this channel!

[mrgopnik]

We actually did discuss the deal in our history class (Germany) and my teacher basically said "while it was a trouser for a button, we actually kept the button in the end" XD

[jako]

0:49 Here, we witness one of the rare sound effects of the majestic History Matters channel. Love the content, keep up the great work!

[tahamuhammad]

Did anybody else notice the "more on page 1871" on the newspaper
I honestly recommend always reading the entire thing they are filled with humor, information about what events were at that time and how people were feeling about them occurring at that time

[Dalynx]

Explorers were so close to actually naming a place "Legoland" and I'm so mad that they didn't end Up giving that name to the island lmfao

[DotRD]

As of today, I can proudly say that I’ve watched every single History Matters video there is.

Love your work, man. Keep it up!