The results of the war for Germany. The Second World War ended tragically for Germany: the level of industrial production barely reached one third of the pre-war level; the standard of living has declined; there was a shortage of fuel; the purchasing power of money has fallen.
Germany lost its independence, its territory was divided into 4 occupation zones. To resolve general issues in Germany, a Control Council was created, consisting of the commanders-in-chief of the Allied forces. 
Following the decisions of the Crimean and Potsdam conferences, the Allies pursued a policy of three “D” towards Germany:
- demilitarization - liquidation of the armed forces of Germany and their disarmament;
- denazification - the prohibition of Nazi organizations, the abolition of Nazi laws, the punishment of war criminals;
- democratization - the transformation of Germany into a democratic, peace-loving state.
Since the Western states and the USSR had different attitudes towards the policy of the three “D” and used the occupation for their own purposes, it was impossible to pursue a single policy towards Germany.
The beginning of the Cold War, the confrontation of the former allies made the split of Germany inevitable.
The split of Germany. Fearing the strengthening of the "Soviet threat", the Western countries abandoned the plan for the economic weakening of Germany and stopped taking reparations from it. In June 1948, a monetary reform was carried out, and the Reichsmark was replaced by the Deutschmark. Inflation was stopped, the “black market” disappeared, production and construction grew, and a market economy was formed.
In response to the monetary reform in the Western sectors, the USSR blockaded West Berlin. This event hastened the decision of the European countries to create a West German state. Back in December 1946, the British and American zones of occupation merged, and in early 1947 the French zone joined them.
The constitution of the German Federal Republic came into force in May 1949. According to the Constitution, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was declared a parliamentary republic. The Bundestag, a bicameral parliament, became the supreme legislative power. Unlike the Weimar constitution, the president was not elected by popular vote, but at a meeting of the Bundestag and had limited powers. The head of government is the Federal Chancellor. His candidacy was nominated as the leader of the winning party and approved by the Bundestag.
The Constitutional Court could strike down any law that was contrary to the constitution. Bonn became the capital of Germany.
In September 1949, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union, Konrad Adenauer, became Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.
On October 7, 1949, the German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet zone of occupation. East Berlin became the capital of the GDR.
"Economic miracle" and its causes. The reasons for the “German miracle” - the accelerated development of the German economy:
a) material assistance in the amount of 3.6 billion dollars received from the United States under the "Marshall Plan";
b) the absence of military spending and the army until the mid-50s;
c) a large number of cheap labor.
Mechanical engineering, electric power, chemical and steel industries developed at a particularly rapid pace in the FRG.
In foreign policy, Germany leaned towards the United States, and this strengthened its position in the international arena. In 1951, the occupation regime was abolished on the territory of Germany. Germany joined NATO in 1955 and the EEC in 1957. The historical enmity between France and Germany has come to an end. The FRG refused to recognize the GDR and called for a boycott of it by the entire international community. In 1956, the activities of the German Communist Party were banned.
The Social Democrats are in power. In the 1960s, L. Erhard was Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. Then came to power the government of the "Grand Coalition", composed of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. In the program of the German Social Democratic Party, the ultimate goal was to build democratic socialism
In 1969, the government of the “Small Coalition” came to power, headed by the leader of the Social Democrats, W. Brandt. Wages and pensions increased, and production councils were set up at enterprises, limiting the arbitrariness of the administration.
Principles for the implementation of the "New Ostpolitik" of the Brandt government:
- Rejection of the Cold War, respect for the real balance of power;
- Normalization of relations with the countries of Eastern Europe that suffered from Hitler's aggression, primarily with the USSR and Poland;
- Recognition of the German Democratic Republic.
As a result of the "Eastern Policy" of the government:
- The post-war borders of Eastern Europe were recognized.
- Interstate relations with the GDR were established.
- An agreement was reached on the status of West Berlin.
All this meant the end of the policy called "Munich rule". The economic crisis that broke out in 1974 affected Germany much less than other countries.
It became known that one of W. Brandt's employees was an intelligence agent of the GDR, and in 1974 Chancellor Brandt resigned.
The Social Democrat G. Schmidt, who replaced him in this post, continued the political line of W. Brandt. In 1982, 13 years later, the Christian Democrats came to power again. CDU leader Helmut Kohl became Federal Chancellor. His government cut taxes and government spending, took steps to weaken the state's role in business regulation and encourage fair competition. Since 1983, the country began an economic recovery.
The path to the unity of the German people. Helmut Kohl achieved the unification of Germany. The symbol of the division of Germany - the "Berlin Wall" - was dismantled in 1989.
On September 12, 1990, negotiations took place according to the “2+4” formula (Germany, East Germany + USA, USSR, Great Britain, France). A treaty was signed on the final settlement with respect to Germany. On October 3, 1990, Germany was unified. G. Kohl became the first Federal Chancellor of the united Germany.
In 1998, the Social Democrat G. Schroeder came to power. The current chancellor of Germany is Angela Merkel. At present, the German economy is developing steadily and dynamically. Both in the West and in the East, Germany is pursuing a balanced policy.
World War I
One of the main tasks that the Allies set themselves after the defeat of Germany was the denazification of the country. The entire adult population of the country passed a questionnaire prepared by the Control Council for Germany. The Erhebungsformular MG/PS/G/9a had 131 questions. The survey was voluntary-compulsory.
Refuseniks were deprived of food cards.
Based on the survey, all Germans are divided into "not involved", "acquitted", "fellow travelers", "guilty" and "guilty in the highest degree". Citizens from the last three groups were brought before the court, which determined the measure of guilt and punishment. "Guilty" and "guilty in the highest degree" were sent to internment camps, "fellow travelers" could atone for their guilt with a fine or property.
It is clear that this method was not perfect. Mutual responsibility, corruption and insincerity of the respondents made denazification ineffective. Hundreds of thousands of Nazis managed to avoid trial using forged documents on the so-called "rat trails", and after only a few years they took prominent positions in the state apparatus of the Federal Republic of Germany. Thus, the third Federal Chancellor of Germany, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, was a member of the NSDAP since 1933.
The Allies organized a large-scale campaign in Germany to re-educate the Germans. Movies about Nazi atrocities were constantly shown in cinemas. Residents of Germany also had to go to the sessions without fail. Otherwise, they could lose all the same food cards. Also, the Germans were taken on excursions to the former concentration camps and involved in the work carried out there. For the majority of the civilian population, the information received was shocking. Goebbels' propaganda during the war years told them about a completely different image of Nazism.
Demilitarization
By decision of the Potsdam Conference, Germany was to undergo demilitarization, which included the dismantling of military factories. The Western Allies accepted the principles of demilitarization in their own way: not only were they in no hurry to dismantle factories in their zones of occupation, but they were actively restoring them, while trying to increase the quota of metal smelting and wanting to preserve the military potential of Western Germany for a future war with the USSR.
By 1947, more than 450 military factories were hidden from accounting in the British and American zones.
The Soviet Union was more honest in this regard. According to the historian Mikhail Semiryaga, in one year after March 1945, the highest authorities of the Soviet Union made about a thousand decisions related to the dismantling of 4389 enterprises from Germany, Austria, Hungary and other European countries. However, this number cannot be compared with the number of facilities destroyed by the war in the USSR. The number of dismantled German enterprises amounted to less than 14% of the pre-war number of Soviet factories. According to Nikolai Voznesensky, then chairman of the State Planning Committee of the USSR, only 0.6% of the direct damage to the USSR was covered by the supply of captured equipment from Germany.
Marauding
The topic of looting and violence against the civilian population in post-war Germany is still debatable. A lot of documents have been preserved, indicating that the Western allies took out the valuable property of the citizens of defeated Germany literally by ships.
"Distinguished" in the collection of trophies and some Soviet officers. So, when Marshal Zhukov fell into disgrace in 1948, 194 pieces of furniture, 44 carpets and tapestries, 7 boxes of crystal, 55 museum paintings and other luxury items were found and confiscated. All this was taken out of Germany.
As for the soldiers and officers of the Red Army, there were not so many cases of looting according to the available documents. The victorious Soviet soldiers were more likely to be engaged in applied "junk work", that is, they were engaged in collecting ownerless property. When the Soviet command allowed sending parcels home, boxes with sewing needles, fabric trimmings, and working tools went to the Union. At the same time, our soldiers had a rather squeamish attitude to all these things. In letters to their relatives, they justified themselves for all this “junk”.
strange counts
The most problematic topic is the topic of violence against civilians, especially against German women. Until the time of perestroika, the topic of mass rape of German women was not raised either in the USSR or by the Germans themselves.
In 1992, a book by two feminists, Helke Zander and Barbara Yohr, Liberators and Liberated, was published in Germany, where a shocking figure appeared: 2 million.
The justification for this figure left a lot of room for criticism: the data was based on records in a German clinic alone, and then multiplied by the total number of women. In 2002, Anthony Beevor's book "The Fall of Berlin" was published, in which the author gave this figure without paying attention to its criticism, and the data sources were described with the phrases "one doctor concluded", "apparently", "if" and "it seems".
According to the estimates of the two main Berlin hospitals, the number of victims raped by Soviet soldiers ranges from ninety-five to one hundred and thirty thousand people. One doctor concluded that approximately one hundred thousand women had been raped in Berlin alone. And about ten thousand of them died mainly as a result of suicide. The number of deaths throughout East Germany must be much higher if one takes into account the 1400,000 rapes in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia. It appears that in total about two million German women were raped, many of whom (if not most) suffered this humiliation several times.
In 2004, this book was published in Russia, picked up as an "argument" by anti-Soviet people, who spread the myth about the unprecedented cruelty of Soviet soldiers in occupied Germany.
In fact, according to the documents, such facts were considered “extraordinary incidents and an immoral phenomenon,” which was followed by punishment. Violence against the civilian population of Germany was fought at all levels, and marauders and rapists fell under the tribunal. So, in the report of the military prosecutor of the 1st Belorussian Front on illegal actions against the civilian population for the period from April 22 to May 5, 1945, there are such figures: 124 crimes were recorded in seven armies of the front for 908.5 thousand people, of which 72 were rapes . 72 cases per 908.5 thousand. What two million can we talk about?
There was also looting and violence against the civilian population in the western occupation zones. Naum Orlov wrote in his memoirs: “The British guarding us rolled chewing gum between their teeth - which was new for us - and boasted to each other about their trophies, throwing up their hands high, humbled by wristwatches ... ".
Osmar Whyatt, an Australian war correspondent who can hardly be suspected of partiality to Soviet soldiers, wrote in 1945: “Severe discipline reigns in the Red Army. There are no more robberies, rapes and bullying here than in any other zone of occupation. Wild stories of atrocities emerge from exaggerations and distortions of individual cases under the influence of nervousness caused by the immoderation of Russian soldiers' manners and their love of vodka. One woman who told me most of the hair-raising tales of Russian brutality was eventually forced to admit that the only evidence she had seen with her own eyes was drunken Russian officers firing their pistols into the air and at bottles..."
Germany in 1945
At the last stage of the Second World War, the territory of fascist Germany was liberated by all progressive forces. A special role belonged to the Soviet Union, the USA, Great Britain and France. After signing the surrender in May 1945, the Nazi government was dismissed. The administration of the country was transferred to the Inter-Allied Control Council.
For joint control over Germany, the allied countries divided its territory into four occupation zones for transfer to the rails of peaceful life. The division looked like this:
- The Soviet zone included Thuringia, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg;
- The American zone consisted of Bavaria, Bremen, Hesse and Württemberg-Hohenzollern;
- The British zone covered Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia;
- The French zone was formed from Baden, Württemberg-Baden and Rhineland-Palatinate.
Remark 1
The capital of Germany, the city of Berlin, stood out in a special zone. Although it was located on the lands that had gone to the Soviet occupation zone, its management was transferred to the Inter-Allied Commandant's Office. It also houses the main governing body of the country - the Allied Control Council.
The occupation zones were managed by zonal military administrations. They exercised power until the election of a provisional government and the holding of all-German parliamentary elections.
Education Germany
In the next three years, there is a convergence of the western zones of occupation (American, British and French). Military administrations are gradually restoring representative bodies (Landtags), carrying out reforms and restoring the historical territorial division of German lands. In December 1946, the British and American zones merge to form Bizonia. Unified governing bodies and a united body of supreme power were created. Its functions began to be performed by the Economic Council, elected by the Landtags in May 1947. he was empowered to make financial and economic decisions common to all lands of Bizonia.
In the territories under the control of the Western powers, the "Marshall Plan" began to be implemented.
Definition 1
The Marshall Plan is a program of US assistance to European countries for post-war economic recovery. It was named after the initiator - US Secretary of State George Marshall.
He served as a unifying factor. New authorities were created in Bizonia: the Supreme Court and the Council of the Lands (government chamber). Central authority was transferred to the Administrative Council, which reported on its actions to the Economic Council. In 1948, the French occupation zone joined Bisonia to form Trizonia.
The London meeting of the six victorious countries (USA, Great Britain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and France) in the summer of 1948 ended with a decision to create a separate West German state. In June of the same year, a monetary reform was carried out on the territory of Trizonia and the drafting of a constitution began. In May 1949, the West German constitution was approved, which fixed the federal structure of the state. At the next session of the victorious states in June 1949, the split of Germany was officially recognized. The new state was named the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). The FRG included three-quarters of all German territories.
Formation of the GDR
In parallel, the formation of the state in the Soviet occupation zone took place. The Soviet military administration (SVAG) announced the liquidation of the Prussian state and restored the Landtags. Gradually, all power was transferred to the German People's Congress. The SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) initiated in May 1949 the adoption of a Soviet-style constitution. A cross-party National Front of Democratic Germany was formed. This served as the basis for the proclamation on October 7, 1949 of the East German state of the GDR (German Democratic Republic).
It is quite understandable that during the war, any country that participates in it hopes to win it.
But not in every war throughout the history of Modern and Contemporary times
it was about the destruction of the defeated state. Most often, peace treaties provided for some annexation
parts of the territory of the defeated in favor of the winner, as well as indemnity
, which the winner could count on receiving only on the condition that it would be paid to someone.
Although, of course, there were exceptions. For example, sections of the Commonwealth in the 18th century
, as a result of which this Polish-Lithuanian state, formed by the Union of Lublin in 1569 by the union of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, was gradually liquidated by its neighbors Prussia, Austria and Russia.
Another thing, 20th century wars .
According to the results World War I the political map of the world (and especially Europe) has become completely different from the one on which the state borders were marked as of June 28, 1914. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires were destroyed, the German Empire lost significant parts of its territory (about 20%, not counting the colonies). Russia, most likely, was expected by the fate of Turkey or Austria-Hungary, but it quickly managed to recover, albeit under a different name - the USSR.
The Second World War was a logical continuation of the world massacre that preceded it at the beginning of the 20th century, but only more cruel and aimed at the partial or complete destruction of the states that converged in it. It does not make much sense to talk about Hitler's plans for the global redistribution of Europe and the whole world, they are widely known. In addition, in the period 1938 - 1941. they were quite successfully implemented: the sovereign statehood of all countries subjected to German occupation was completely liquidated, and the satellites of the Third Reich can hardly be called completely sovereign.
well and Germany's war with the Soviet Union , which began on June 22, 1941, was carried out for the complete destruction of its statehood and the dismemberment of its territory without any potential granting of independence to any of its parts (See: plan "Ost").
Of course, during the Second World War, the countries Anti-Hitler coalition who became allies contrary to their political aspirations, due to the current political situation (which became such largely through their fault (not forgetting the notorious "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" of 1939, it is worth recalling the Munich Agreement of 1938, which unleashed Hitler hands), even in the most difficult years of the war, they had to think about how to protect the world from the possibility of a repetition of aggression from the main enemy - Germany.
And, of course, first of all, these thoughts were aimed at destroying Germany as a single state and preventing her from starting a new war.
Plans for the division of Germany allies in the Anti-Hitler coalition began to develop more spring 1942 when the Victory was still very far away.
But before considering these projects, I propose to recall how the defeated Germany was divided in 1945 according to the decisions Yalta Conference (February 1945) , at which the final decision was made on the occupation of Germany and the delimitation of the occupation zones, which ultimately led to its division in 1949 into the FRG and the GDR (as well as West Berlin).
Partition of Germany in 1945:
(An incomprehensible flag on this map indicates the Saar region of Germany,
It was a protectorate of France from 1947 to 1956).
If it seems to you that Germany was treated too harshly in 1945, then I advise you to go under the cut and read what were the plans proposed and considered by the allies in the Anti-Hitler coalition, preceding the final plan adopted at the Yalta Conference and finally approved in Potsdam.
The first (or at least one of the first) plan for the dismemberment of Germany after the war was developed and proposed by the US Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles
in the spring of 1942, after the United States became involved in the Second World War, they became allies of the USSR, and also after it became clear that Hitler's plan for the rapid conquest of the USSR ("Barbarossa") failed, which became apparent during the counteroffensive of the Red Army under Moscow in December 1941 - February 1942, and that without the USSR, the Americans would not be able to win the war with Germany's ally Japan.
Sumner Welles
Sumner Welles plan provided for the division of Germany into three states in accordance with historical and religious borders: Southwestern Germany (Bavaria and Hesse) with a predominance of the Catholic population, Northern Germany (Hanover and Westphalia) and East Germany (Prussia and Saxony), in which Catholics predominate.
At the same time, the entire territory of East Prussia was to pass to Poland.
On the Tehran Conference On December 1, 1943, two completely different plans for the division of Germany were proposed U.S. President F. D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister W. Churchill.
Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill at the Tehran Conference
Roosevelt's plan Germany was to be divided into five states: the Republic of Hanover, the Republic of Hesse, the Republic of Bavaria, the Republic of Saxony and the Republic of Prussia. East Prussia, again, was to go completely to Poland.
Churchill suggested transfer to Poland not only all of East Prussia, but also a significant part of Silesia, dividing Germany into Northern (of course, under the control of England), Western (Westphalia), which was also supposed to be under vigilant control from London. And most of southern Germany (Bavaria and Hesse) should be united with Austria and Hungary into a kind of "Danube Confederation".
At the Tehran conference Stalin
categorically opposed the plans of his allies, especially about the idea of Churchill to form a confederation of the Danube states. But at the same time, he agreed with the need to separate East Prussia from Germany, however, dividing it between Poland and the USSR.
Stalin also made a proposal regarding the post-war borders of Poland, which provided for compensating Poland for the loss of its eastern provinces that became part of the USSR (Ukrainian SSR and BSSR) in 1939 at the expense of Germany defeated in the future. This proposal by Stalin, like his idea of a border between Poland and the USSR in accordance with the so-called "Curzon line"
, was taken.
Stalin's position was so weighty that even in G. Morgenthau's plan, the transfer of the northern part of East Prussia to the Soviet Union was taken into account. However, about U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau's plan to partition Germany worth a little more detail.
Henry Morgenthau
This plan was approved in September 1944 at the 2nd Anglo-American Conference (without the participation of the USSR) in Quebec, Canada.
According to him, Germany was to be destroyed almost completely. In its place, two Germanys were formed: North (Hanover, Mecklenburg, Saxony and Thuringia) and South (Bavaria and Württemberg). The entire western part of Germany (Oldenburg, Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein) was transferred under international control (as was the case after the First World War, when the Rhine demilitarized zone was formed by the decisions of the Versailles Conference), the Saar passed to France, and all of Upper Silesia and most of Eastern Prussia - Poland.
But besides this, according to the Morgenthau plan, it was supposed to deprive even dismembered Germany of all heavy industry and turn it into an agrarian country.
Despite the fact that the Morgenthau Plan was ultimately rejected, the actions of the British and American administrations in the occupation zones after 1945 are quite consistent with its most important points (except for territorial ones).
Thus, we can conclude that the decisions of the Yalta Conference, which decided the fate of post-war Germany, were the most lenient in relation to the defeated enemy, when compared with those proposed by Welles in 1942, Roosevelt and Churchill in 1943 and Morgenthau in 1944
Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta (January 1945)
Of course, for 45 years Germany was divided: first into four occupation zones (by the way, I still don’t understand for what such merits France received its own zone and an increase in territory at the expense of Germany? However, this is a separate issue), and then - from 1949 to 1990 - into two (and if we count West Berlin, then three) separate states.
The question of whether the unification of Germany in 1990 would have been possible without the good will of the USSR is, although debatable, but very interesting, especially if we recall that the very same England opposed this unification.
But what is undoubted, in my opinion, is that if in 1945 not the plan adopted in Yalta, but any of those projects that were proposed by the USA and England in 1942 - 1944, were implemented, modern united Germany would not exist. still.
And finally, let me explain why I am interested in this topic
.
The fact is that, taking into account mutually beneficial geopolitical interests, I consider Russia and Germany natural allies
in modern world. They have been such since the middle of the 19th century (especially after the unified German Empire was formed). And the roots of two global catastrophes - the world wars of 1914 - 1918. and 1939 - 1945 should be sought in the causes of the collapse "Union of the Three Emperors"
, after which the formation of two opposing military-political blocs began - the Triple Alliance and the Entente. Well, then followed what is quite appropriate to call a chain reaction.
I would very much like to hope that the need for an alliance between Russia and Germany will be recognized by both countries in the very near future.
Thank you for attention.
Sergei Vorobyov.
Germany after World War II. Formation of two German states
Plan
1. Post-war settlement of the German question
2. Period of occupation
3. The Berlin crisis of 1948 and the split of Germany
1. Post-war settlement of the German question
The question of the fate of Germany WAS one of the central questions in the discussions by the heads of state of the anti-Hitler coalition on the ways of a post-war settlement. The leitmotif of these negotiations was the ideas of just retribution for the perpetrators of the war and the protection of the world community from the new threat from Germany. Already at the Soviet-British negotiations in Moscow in December 1941, both sides announced the need to reject part of the territory of the Reich: the restoration of sovereign Austria, the return of East Prussia to Poland and the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, and possibly the creation of independent states in the Rhineland and Bavaria. In the American administration, the idea of dismembering Germany had both supporters and opponents. In October 1943, at the Moscow Conference, the United States presented the document "Basic Principles for the Surrender of Germany", which dealt only with the "decentralization" of Germany, aimed at "reducing Prussian influence on the Reich."
In November 1943, the American and British delegations spoke at the Tehran Conference in support of the toughest solution to the German question. The formation of five autonomous states on the territory of Germany or the rejection of the South German lands for the formation of the Danube Federation together with Austria and Hungary was supposed. Stalin took a different position, believing that the radical dismemberment of Germany could only become the basis for a new outbreak of German nationalism and revanchism, while the eradication of militarism and Nazism in Germany would be more facilitated by the post-war cooperation of the coalition countries. On January 15, 1944, the British government submitted a plan for the division of Germany into occupation zones for consideration by the Allies. For the first time, the line was marked in it, which later became the border between the FRG and the GDR. At the Quebec Conference in September 1944, Churchill also agreed with the plan for post-war policy towards Germany, developed by the US Secretary of the Treasury under Morgenthau. This project involved the territorial division of Ternia, the reduction of its industrial potential and the stimulation of agricultural production under strict international control. Only as the end of the war approached did the position of the United States and Great Britain soften significantly.
At the Yalta Conference in 1945, the question of the territorial division of Germany was no longer directly raised. The project for the formation of zones of occupation was only confirmed, and the territory was allocated from the American and British zones to form the zone of occupation of France. In the Yalta communiqué, for the first time, the general formula for the post-war settlement of Germany was promulgated - “demilitarization and democratization of the country.” The fulfillment of these tasks required the denazification of the political system of Germany, with the Germans being given the right to subsequently decide on the state structure and decentralization (demonopolization) of the German economy as the basis for the destruction of its military-industrial potential. The question raised by the Soviet side about collecting reparations from Germany was not resolved, although the validity of such compensation for material damage was recognized by all delegations.
The German question was finally resolved at the Potsdam Conference, which took place from July 17 to August 2, 1945. The Conference approved the Declaration on the Defeat of Germany and a communiqué confirming the principles of policy towards Germany formulated in Yalta. The territory of Germany, including the territory of Berlin, was divided into four zones of occupation. At the same time, the Soviet zone included 40% of the territory, 30% of the population and 33% of the production potential. For coordination, the Council of Foreign Ministers of the five powers (USSR, USA, France, Great Britain, China), as well as the Control Council of Commanders-in-Chief, and joint commandant's offices in Berlin were created. The principle of preserving the economic unity of Germany and the right of the German people to create a single democratic state was consolidated. But it is characteristic that the concept of "Western zones" was already introduced into the text of the Potsdam Agreement.
The Potsdam Conference established new German borders: East Prussia was given to the Soviet Union, the territory up to the Oder and Western Neisse - to Poland, the Sudetenland was returned to Czechoslovakia, the sovereignty of Austria was restored. Germans living in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were subject to deportation to Germany.
The question of the amounts and sources of reparation payments caused a discussion. As a result, the proposal of the American delegation was accepted, according to which reparations were to be collected by each government in its zone of occupation, as well as from German assets abroad (in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Finland and Austria). The USSR abandoned the gold seized in Germany in favor of the Western powers, but received the right to 10% of industrial equipment from the western zones of occupation. The German fleet was divided equally between the USSR, Great Britain and the USA. The final amount of reparations was not determined, since the British and American delegations expressed doubt about the ability of Germany to meet the demands of the SSSK
The Allied Control Council (SCS), consisting of the commanders-in-chief of the occupying forces of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France, was created in June 1945. In the first months of its work, the SCS adopted directives "On the liquidation of the Wehrmacht", military construction in Germany”, specifying the communiqué of the Potsdam Conference. SCS received full power in Germany. Its decisions were taken by consensus with the possibility of any party to use the right of veto. But administrative rule was carried out autonomously in the occupation zones. Under the control of the occupation authorities, local self-government and German political parties were recreated. As a preliminary step towards the formation of a unified German government, it was supposed to create central departments (finance, transport, foreign trade and industry) operating under the control of the SCS.
2. Period of occupation
german war occupation crisis
The crushing defeat in the war brought Germany to the brink of an economic and socio-psychological circle. Only the losses of the Wehrmacht amounted to 13.5 million people. In total, Germany lost about a tenth of its population during the war years. Many cities, especially in the eastern part of the country, lay in ruins. Much of the industrial equipment was destroyed by bombardment or dismantled by the victors. In 1946, industrial production was about 1/3 of the pre-war level, and agriculture was thrown back for three decades. The economy experienced an acute shortage of workers. The transport infrastructure and energy system were completely destroyed, interregional trade links were broken. General speculation, the dominance of the "black market" and empty store shelves have become commonplace. Due to the destruction of the war and the displacement of the population, the housing problem has worsened. In 1945, the level of provision of the population with basic necessities per capita was as follows: a pair of shoes for twelve years, a suit for fifty years, a plate for five years, one diaper for five years. Most of the Germans were starving.
Material losses were supplemented by the complete disorganization of the financial system. The amount of money in circulation was many times greater than the cash commodity reserves, and the public debt from 27.2 billion marks at the end of 1938 increased by May 1945 to 377.3 billion. Inflation reached 600% in relation to the pre-war level . The working day was 16 hours or more, and wages remained at the 1940 level.
The psychological shock that engulfed German society had no less devastating consequences. Inner emptiness, apathy, embittered aversion to politics, and fear of the future have become characteristic features of the mindset. The most difficult problem was the revival of national self-consciousness, a new understanding of one's place in the world, and the solution of the question of guilt in the war. The formation of civil authorities was extremely complicated. The political activity of the masses remained minimal. Most of the former bureaucratic and political elite were accused of links with the Nazis and removed from public positions. There was no mass resistance movement, which, in a similar situation in France and Italy, provided personnel for the new administrative apparatus. Failed to reach agreement on the formation of the German government and the allies.
Already in October 1945, the American administration raised the question of creating central German departments in accordance with the decisions of the Potsdam Conference. But these proposals caused a strong protest from France, which sought the maximum decentralization of the German state. Unable to overcome the French veto, the United States submitted to the SCS in November 1945 a proposal to create central departments for three or two zones. The Soviet administration, striving to maintain friendly relations with France and distrusting the Americans, declared this a violation of the principle of four-sided control of Germany and a step towards its split. The management of the reconstruction process remained entirely under the control of the occupying authorities.
The activity of the Soviet Military Administration of Germany (SVAG) was complicated by the need to combine steps to normalize the material security of the population and the seizure of industrial equipment, consumer goods, transport and raw materials as reparations. Nearly 22,000 wagons of “convoy and household property” and more than 73,000 wagons of “apartment property” were taken out of Germany, including 154 wagons of fabrics and furs and even 24 wagons of musical instruments. More than 2 million heads of cattle were sent to the USSR. The dismantling of industrial equipment took place at 3474 industrial and economic facilities. It was only in January 1947 that it was decided to stop dismantling and create Soviet joint-stock companies on the basis of large enterprises, the products of which came to the USSR as reparations.
The officers of the SVAG had no experience in administrative work and were guided by strict methods of management, the formation of an orderly economic system. A special place in the structure of the SVAG was occupied by the Security Service and the Department of Propaganda and Censorship. The NKVD and SMERSH services were also very active in East Germany. In contrast to the western zones, German administrative bodies were soon created in the east of Germany. But their actions were entirely determined by the Soviet administration.
Already from the end of 1945, active steps were taken in the Soviet zone of occupation to carry out economic reform. The confiscation of industrial enterprises from persons recognized as military and Nazi criminals has acquired an exceptionally wide character. The SVAG organized a referendum on the fate of the confiscated enterprises, as a result of which they were declared people's property. Thus, about 60% of East German industry passed into the state sector of the economy. The functioning of this sector began to be carried out on the principles of planning, with the provision of broad rights for self-management to factory councils and trade unions.
During 1945-1946. agrarian reform was carried out. 3.3 million hectares of land confiscated from the junkers and bauers, together with outbuildings, livestock and 6,000 tractors, were transferred to 560,000 landless and land-poor peasants. These lands accounted for 33% of the agricultural area of the eastern zone. Communal associations of peasant mutual assistance began to be created on them, and in 1949 all plots transferred to peasants during the reform were declared people's property and became the basis for the formation of collective farms (“people's estates”).
Economic transformations in the western zones initially took on a different direction. Despite the smaller scale of destruction, the situation of the population here was more difficult than in the east. Even in the last period of the war, masses of refugees began to accumulate in southern Germany. Emigrants from the Soviet zone, as well as most of the settlers from Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, also rushed here. If in East Germany in 1945 the population was 17 million Germans, then in the western lands - 44 million. Subsequently, this difference increased even more.
The plight of the German population forced the Western administration to refrain from large-scale seizure of goods and dismantling of equipment in the form of reparations, and to ensure that German workers receive wages, regardless of the stoppage of production. An important circumstance was the fact that the influx of free German industrial goods was actually dumping for the "overheated" American economy. That is why it was exported mainly from the western zones of ChlPie, as well as special equipment of scientific laboratories of technical centers.
The occupying authorities of the western zones initially did not have a clear plan of economic measures. In all three zones, measures were taken to confiscate the property of military and Nazi criminals. But the prepared projects of nationalization or the formation of any centralized administrative structures within a particular zone were never implemented. In addition, the preservation of the "black market" was beneficial for the well-supplied soldiers and officers of the American contingent.
The different approaches of the occupation authorities to the implementation of stabilization measures were manifested during the Paris session of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in May 1946, where neither general principles for concluding a peace treaty with Germany nor unified plans for economic reforms were developed. Soon the first steps were taken towards the split of the occupied country. The reason was the intensification of speculative barter between the zones, during which the inhabitants of the western lands, who received stable wages and benefits, bought cheaper goods and food in the Soviet zone. With the consent of the administration of all four zones, on June 30, 1946, a regime of strict control over the movement of people and goods was introduced on the border between the Soviet and Western zones.
From the summer of 1946, the situation in Germany began to deteriorate rapidly. In July, the US State Department announced its intention to merge the American and British occupation zones to ensure effective administration. The agreement on the formation of an "economic united region" (Bisony) was signed in December 1946. Within the framework of the united occupation zones, a more coordinated policy began to be pursued aimed at restoring the economic infrastructure, the consumer market, and a balanced labor market. A significant role in this process was already played by the German administrative bodies, including the Economic Council, and in its composition - the Management of the Economy under the leadership of L. Erhard. All these measures were taken without coordination with the SVAG.
Political changes in the eastern and western lands of Germany also took on a different direction. Initially, this process took place in line with the Potsdam agreements. The liquidation of the NSDAP and its "subsidiaries" organizations, the German armed forces, the officer corps, and paramilitary organizations followed. To participate in political activities and to fill civil positions, only persons "capable of their political and moral qualities to help the development of democratic institutions in Germany" were allowed. In accordance with the principles of civil, racial, national equality, the judicial system was reorganized. In November 1945 - October 1946, the work of the International Tribunal in Nuremberg took place, during which Nazi and war criminals were brought to justice. A system of local German denazification commissions (spruhkammer) was created, which, together with the Allied tribunals, determined the degree of guilt of suspects. In total, five categories of such cases were identified (“primary perpetrators”, “burdened with guilt”, “less burdened”, “fellow travelers” and “unaffected”). Criminal punishment was supposed mainly for the first category, so 95% of the accused were acquitted or only partially deprived of their rights.
The process of denazification and democratization was combined with the formation of a renewed German political elite. In the eastern and western zones, party building has acquired significant specifics. In 1945, the Soviet administration permitted the activities of four parties in the East German lands - the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD). Already in 1948, with the support of the SVAG, the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Democratic Peasant Party (DKP) were created, designed to expand the social base of the left bloc. Under the influence of the SVAG, the communists gained an advantage in the selection of personnel for the new police and judicial and prosecutorial bodies in the Soviet zone. The KKE had a decisive influence on the course of the radical reform of the education system, the regulation of the activities of the creative intelligentsia, and came up with the initiative of agrarian reform. In the leadership of the KKE there was a strong left-wing wing under the leadership of Walter Ulbricht, who defended orthodox ideological principles and the need for socialist construction in Germany. The leader of the KPD, Wilhelm Pieck, took a more moderate position, declaring in 1945-1946. about the orientation of the party towards the creation of a parliamentary democratic republic on the scale of the entire German state.
Even tougher was the struggle between the radical left and the moderate currents in the SPD. The first of them was headed by the Berlin Central Committee headed by O. Grotewohl, the second - by the Hanoverian party bureau under the leadership of K. Schumacher, supported by the administration of the British zone. The leadership of the SPD advocated unification with the communists and the formation of a single all-German leftist party. This course triumphed at the Unity Congress of the KPD and the SPD in April 1946. The new party was called the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Its program was focused on solving pressing economic problems, "liberation from exploitation and oppression, poverty, unemployment and the imperialist military threat", in the long term - socialist construction. W. Pick and O. Grotewohl became two equal chairmen of the SED. Members of the SPD who did not support the program guidelines of a single workers' party were expelled from its ranks.
The Schumacher group did not recognize the results of the unification congress. The right-wing Social Democrats re-established the SPD in May 1946 at a congress in Hannover. Schumacher took an exceptionally tough stance towards the Communists and the Social Democrats who united with them, considering the former to be the "Soviet Party", and the latter to be traitors to German national interests. Refusing to operate in the eastern lands, the SPD nevertheless advocated a revision of the Oder-Neisse border and the termination of reparation payments within all zones of occupation. Schumacher was an ardent opponent of separatism and a supporter of the idea of a single, independent German state. But in the post-war conditions, he was ready to put up with even a split in the country in order to avoid the threat of a Soviet military-political presence. In the field of domestic politics, the SPD took a very radical position, seeking the immediate "introduction of socialism" through the complete expropriation of the entire bourgeoisie. K. Schumacher himself enjoyed great personal popularity as an uncompromising anti-fascist who spent ten years in Nazi camps. His leadership in Western social democracy was undeniable.
The creation of the SED, accompanied by a split in the German social democratic movement, led to the isolation of the West German communist movement. The Western occupation authorities banned the creation of unified communist and social democratic organizations under the auspices of the SED. In April 1948 a conference of West German communist organizations elected their own board under the leadership of Max Reimann. The final separation of the KKE from the SED took place on January 3, 1949. An important place in the post-war political elite of Germany was occupied by the Christian Democrats. Germany had a fairly long tradition of Christian political movement. But in the Weimar Republic, neither the Catholic Center Party nor the Protestant German People's Party held a leading position. The situation began to change in the 1930s, when the church became one of the leading opposition forces in Nazi Germany. At the end of World War II, the Christian Democratic movement consolidated not only in Germany, but also in Italy, Austria, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Christian democracy began to develop on the basis of an ideological synthesis - the liberal-democratic vision of the ways of state building was combined with the traditions of social Catholicism, the ideology of the "third way of development". Christian democracy, which abandoned the corporate ideas of social Catholicism, retained its focus on the values of social solidarity, the idea of society as a single interconnected organism, of man as God's creation, his responsibility to his conscience and God. The Christian Democratic parties abandoned clericalism, considering Christianity only as the moral and ethical basis of politics and building their program guidelines on the principles of pragmatism, advocating the humanization and modernization of society. Conservative values (order, stability, state, family, nation) in their programs turned out to be organically linked with neoliberal attitudes towards stimulating the free market, ensuring the individual's right to freedom of self-realization.
For Germany, the renaissance of Christian democracy was especially important. Christian democracy has managed to organically fill the spiritual vacuum that has formed in a country that has been destroyed, disillusioned with its past and doubting its future, to preserve the continuity of the national idea, and to formulate new positive values.
The all-German organization of the CDU was formed in Berlin in June 1945. Its leader, Andras Hermes, was soon forced to resign under severe pressure from the Soviet administration. He was replaced by trade union leader Jacob Kaiser. The CDU became an active opponent of left-wing parties on the issues of economic reforms in the Soviet zone. After the formation of the SED, the Christian Democrats took a particularly radical stance. At the second congress of the CDU in Berlin in October 1947, Kaiser declared the need to turn the party into "a breakwater against dogmatic Marxism and its totalitarian tendencies." The SVAG took active steps to discredit the CDU and restrict its activities in the East German lands. The Kaiser was accused of espionage. Persecution forced Kaiser and a number of his colleagues to leave for West Germany, O. Nushke became the leader of the party, which finally turned into East German.
The leader of the West German Christian Democracy was Konrad Adenauer, the former mayor of Cologne, dismissed in 1933 by the Nazis and appointed to this post by the Americans when the city was liberated. When Cologne passed into the British zone of occupation, Adenauer was fired again. The British authorities sympathized with Schumacher and did not trust the experienced and ambitious Adenauer, known for his conservative views, commitment to the idea of reviving Germany. Adenauer headed the Christian Democratic Union of the Western Lands, created on September 2, 1945 at a congress in Cologne. With the support of the American authorities, he began active work to form the core of his party from authoritative public figures and representatives of influential political groups. Adenauer abandoned the "activist" model of party building. The tactics of the CDU assumed the support of the widest possible range of voters and the formation on this basis of the social base of a new democratic statehood. The CDU was seen as an association of "all Christians" and "all estates", that is, a party that reflects the interests of all social groups and both Christian denominations. At the same time, Adenauer insisted on the hard anti-communist course of the CDU, equally denying both Nazi and Marxist ideological extremism.
Support for the CDU on the part of the occupying authorities in the western zones especially increased from the end of 1946, when alienation began to grow rapidly in relations between the allies, and a split in Germany became more and more likely. Adenauer was one of those German politicians who openly supported the idea of forming a West German state. Adenauer did not believe in the German spirit, hated Prussian traditions and dreamed of reviving the greatness of Germany in the bosom of Western civilization. From a Rhenish separatist, Adenauer made his way to an active defender of the idea of German and, later, European federalism. A reliable ally of the CDU in pursuing such a political course was the Christian Social Union, which arose in 1946 in Bavaria as a Catholic Christian party (later - inter-confessional). Franz Josef Strauss became the leader of the CSU. Sharing the general principles of Christian democracy, supporting the political program of Adenauer, the leadership of the CSU sought to preserve the autonomy of its movement. In the rest of the West German states, the consolidation of the Christian Democratic movement took place in 1947. The Alen program of the CDU of the British zone, adopted in February of the same year, became the general party program.
Political parties of a liberal orientation failed to acquire as strong a position in post-war Germany as the Left and the Christian Democrats. The Liberal Democratic Party arose in the eastern zone of occupation already in 1945, but it failed to spread its influence over the entire territory of Germany, being under severe pressure from the Soviet administration. From the beginning of 1946, the formation of an autonomous political movement of liberals in the western zones began. On its basis, in December 1948, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) was formed. Its leader was Theodor Hayes. The program settings of the FDP were initially very eclectic. They combined national liberal ideas and classical liberal democratic values. The FDP became an opponent of the Christian Democratic bloc and the SPD, opposing both the confessionalization and the etatization of politics.
The elections to the land representations (landtags) held in 1946 demonstrated the approximate equality of the leading political forces in Germany. Even in the Soviet zone of occupation, elections took place in a relatively democratic atmosphere. The SED managed to win about as many seats in Landtags and land governments as the LDPG and CDU combined. In the western zones, the Christian Democrats managed to head 6 land governments, the Social Democrats - 5. But soon the specifics of the East German and West German political elites also began to appear. In addition to the direct intervention of the occupation authorities, the regional characteristics of German society itself had an effect.
For several decades, North and East Germany have been distinguished by the organization of the labor movement, the greatest influence of the Communists on the scale of Germany. Historically, the Lutheran political culture prevailed here, focused on the high importance of the state principle in public life, the “Prussian psychological complex” - a penchant for centralized forms of political and social activity, respect for military and public service. It was this region that became the most natural stronghold for the development of the socialist system on German soil. Western and Southern Germany have historically been a zone of separatist movements, a significant influence of Catholicism. The Rhine and Bavarian Germans possessed ethno-psychological characteristics that significantly distinguished them from the ethnic core of the German nation. The massive movement of refugees and immigrants in the early post-war years also contributed to the polarization of German society and its political elite. Many Germans, unwilling to put up with the communist threat, fled to the western lands. Communists and left-wing socialists returning from concentration camps and emigration, as a rule, ended up in the east of the country.
3. The Berlin crisis of 1948 and the split of Germany
Already at the beginning of 1947, it became obvious that the political dialogue of the Allies on the ways of Germany's development had finally reached a dead end. During the Moscow session of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, held in March-April 1947, the Soviet delegation renewed its demands for organizing the supply of current products as reparations. Her opponents insisted on stopping the reparation seizures and giving the Germans the opportunity to restore the economic system.
The discussion did not lead to any concrete result. An attempt to hold a meeting of representatives of all German lands, dedicated to the development of a unified strategy for restoration measures, also failed. The next London session of the Ministerial Council, held in November-December 1947, also ended without results, even without agreeing on the place and time of the next meeting.
In addition to the rigid position of the USSR in the payment of reparations, the aggravation of the German issue was associated with a change in the US foreign policy. The adoption of the "Truman Doctrine" and the beginning of an open confrontation between the two "superpowers" primarily affected the fate of European countries. The US began to view Europe in the context of a bloc strategy. One of the first steps along this path was the development of a program for the "restoration and development of Europe" (Marshall Plan). Adopted in June 1947 and considered at the Paris Conference in July 1947, this plan was approved as US law in April 1948. Initially, neither Germany as a whole nor its western zones were considered as a participant in the economic aid program. The situation changed in 1948.
In January 1948, at a meeting of Bison ministers, it was decided to carry out a set of measures to prepare for economic reform in these lands. The Supreme Court and the Central Bank were created, the functions of the Economic Council and the central departments united in the directorate were expanded. A compromise was reached with the French government. After the Saar region was transferred under French control as a pledge of reparation payments, France agreed to annex its occupation zone to the Anglo-American one. In February 1948, Trizonia was formed. The Saarland was under the control of France until it returned to the FRG in 1957 following a referendum in 1955.
In February-June 1948, two rounds of the London Conference on the German Question took place, at which for the first time there was no Soviet delegation, but representatives of Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg took part. The conference decided to convene a Constituent Assembly to draw up a constitution for the new German state. In the same period, the American administration decided to extend the Marshall Plan to the western occupation zones of Germany. The agreement on this matter stipulated that the revival of the West German economy was part of a plan for European development based on the principles of individual freedom, free institutions, building "healthy economic conditions", strong international ties, and ensuring financial stability. Conditions were provided for the control of American special bodies over the course of economic reform, the removal of customs restrictions on the German market, and the continuation of the policy of demonopolization. In the first year of the Marshall Plan, West Germany received $2,422 billion from the United States (almost as much as Britain and France combined, and nearly three and a half times as much as Italy). But since some of the German products immediately began to go to the United States to pay off the debt, in the end, Germany did not receive the largest part of American aid - a total of about 10% (6.7 billion marks).
The key problem for the deployment of economic reform in Germany was the creation of "hard money", the elimination of the disastrous consequences of hyperinflation. In the Economic Council since 1947, an active discussion of supporters of the creation of a centrally planned economy and monetarists continued. A group of experts led by Ludwig Erhard prepared a draft financial reform designed to get rid of a huge amount of depreciated money. Erhard himself believed that such a reform should be combined with measures to actively stimulate production and protect the most vulnerable consumer groups, a number of additional measures to stabilize the consumer market and enhance consumer and production motivation. The initial proposals of the American administration to carry out reform in all four zones of occupation by 1948 turned out to be unrealistic, and the proposed measures were being prepared only within Trizonia.
Monetary reform in the western zones began on June 20, 1948. The official exchange ratio was set at 10 Reichsmarks for one new German mark (in addition, each person could exchange 40 marks at a 1:1 rate). At first, only 5% of the exchanged amount could be received in hand. After checking the legitimacy of income, the tax authorities issued another 20%, then 10%. The remaining 65% were liquidated. The final exchange quota was 100 Reichsmarks for 6.5 DM. Pensions, wages, benefits were recalculated at a ratio of 1:1. All old state obligations were annulled. Thus, a huge money supply was eliminated. The emergence of "hard money" destroyed the "black market" and undermined the system of barter transactions.
Two days after the start of the reform, a package of legislative acts was enacted that abolished central planning and freed up pricing. But at the same time, restrictive controls were maintained over the prices of transport and postal services, basic foodstuffs, and housing. Catalogs of so-called "relevant prices" were published regularly, taking into account real production costs and "reasonable profits". A special program "To each person" was adopted to provide the population with a narrow range of the most necessary goods at reduced prices. Erhard continued to insist on maintaining a policy of curbing extreme forms of monopoly, developing a system of "state entrepreneurship" (direct participation of the state in the production of goods and services of public importance, in the development of transport, energy, and information infrastructure). Such an economic mechanism was considered by Erhard as a "social market economy" that equally meets the interests of society and the individual.
The successful economic reform of 1948 was accompanied by an aggravation of the political situation in Germany. Despite the availability of information about the preparations for the exchange of banknotes in the western zones (the western governors officially informed the Soviet side about the upcoming reform only two days before its implementation, but operational data made it possible to trace the entire course of preparation), the SVAG did not take any measures to prevent the emergence of East Germany masses of depreciated old stamps, capable of undermining the consumer market. True, the interzonal border, which had been closed since June 30, 1946, created a certain barrier, but Berlin, divided into four sectors, remained an exception. On June 24, Soviet troops blocked West Berlin, cutting off all communication with the western zones. This action was mostly political in nature. It was on June 24 that the Soviet zone carried out its own reform, during which special coupons were pasted on old stamps. The economic danger of an influx of money from the West was thus largely removed. The blockade of West Berlin was a means of putting pressure on the Western powers in order to force them to make concessions in the negotiations. The result of the action turned out to be the opposite.
To save the population of West Berlin, the United States organized an air bridge. 13,000 tons of food were delivered to the city every day, which was three times the level of deliveries in previous months. In response, the Western powers imposed an embargo on the supply of goods to the Soviet zone. After difficult negotiations, on August 30, 1948, a four-party agreement was reached to remove the western mark from Berlin. But its implementation was delayed for technical reasons, and as the West German statehood was formalized, it turned out to be impossible.
In the midst of the Berlin crisis, from July 15 to July 22, 1948, a meeting of ministers-presidents of the Western states was held in Rüdesheim, during which the Berlin mayor Ernst Reuter called for the speedy creation of a West German “core” state with the inclusion of West Berlin in it. The meeting participants confirmed the decision to convene the Constituent Assembly by September 1, 1948. But then the terms "Constituent Assembly" and "constitution" were removed in order to avoid discussions about separatism. The Parliamentary Council was formed from representatives of the Landtags, which received the authority to develop the Basic Law of the West German state as a temporary constitution, designed to operate until the final decision on the issue of German reunification.
In April 1949, the "Statute of Occupation" sent out by the three powers was handed over to the Parliamentary Council. On May 8, 1949, the Parliamentary Council adopted the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, approved by the military governors on May 12 (coincidentally, on the same day, the inter-allied agreement to end the "blockade" of Berlin and the Western "counter-blockade" came into force). The solemn act of promulgation of the Basic Law on May 23 became the day of the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany. The transformation of the institution of military governors into the institution of the High Commissioners of the Western Powers in Germany on June 20 secured the granting of limited sovereignty to West Germany.
At the same time, the formation of the East German state was also taking place. Back in 1947, the German People's Congress (NNK) began to function in the Soviet zone. During its first meeting in December 1947, the task was set to develop a broad popular movement for a united Germany. The second HNK in March 1948 put forward the initiative to hold a referendum in all German states on the adoption of a law on the unity of Germany. But at the same time, the German People's Council was formed, which received the authority to prepare a draft constitution for the East German state. Such a draft was prepared by representatives of the SED and adopted at a meeting of the German People's Council on March 19, 1949. The third NNK, held on May 29-30, 1949, approved the constitution of the German Democratic Republic and proclaimed the inter-party National Front of Democratic Germany as the leading political force. October 7, 1949, when the provisional People's Chamber was formed, became the official day of the formation of the GDR. The division of Germany is over. The last Paris session of the Ministerial Council, which worked in May-June 1949, did not prevent this process. The German question has become one of the most complex international problems of post-war history.