Discuss the reasons why Germany was central to Cold War rivalry between 1945 and 1949.

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Charlie Bellm

Discuss the reasons why Germany was central to Cold War rivalry between 1945 and 1949

Germany surrendered to the allied forces in May 1945, this signalled the end of WW2 in Europe. The expected calm after the war, which may have been expected, was not to be. Trouble had already surfaced at the conferences of Tehran and Yalta conferences. The Potsdam conference in July and August of 1945 was to prove that relations between the USA and Russia were not going to run smoothly especially on decisions concerning Germany. Both camps wanted different things to come out of the post war Germany but this evidently caused problems. Not only was there a lack of decision concerning Germany but in the years that followed the implication of the Marshall Plan and other American economic initiatives in Germany proved to cause friction with Russia. The Berlin Blockade in June 1948, which lasted until May 1949, was a further reason why Germany was central to Cold War rivalry during the years in question. Other reasons such as the Czech coup in 1948 were key to Cold War rivalry but Germany was the key reason why rivalry emerged. This was because it was geographically in the centre of Europe, its economy was seen as the lynchpin of the European economy as a whole especially in the USA and it controlled the Ruhr, which was seen by George Kennan as one of the 5 key economic areas of the world. Neither the USA or Russia were willing to give up Germany due to its huge importance which is why it was a major reason why the WW2 allies ended up being rivals by 1949.

        The indecisive conferences designed to agree on post war Europe ended with no clear plan for Europe. Germany was split into 4 zones controlled by the USA, Russia, Britain and France who controlled it through the Allied Control Council. The council were at first successful in agreeing to set up ministries and initiatives such as the Ministry of Transport but the French vetoed the ideas because they were intent on not allowing Germany to rise again because as the traditionalists say they feared another invasion so they didn’t want to even allow a remote chance of it happening again occur by keeping Germany’s economy in a very weak state. Problems between the USA and Russia started to occur when British and USA officials started to see the Russian controlled zone as a lost area. The Russians who had no hesitation to use the power of the Red Army to strike fear into anybody who was perhaps going to get in the way of Russian authority quickly made the Soviet section of Germany an extension of Moscow’s power. This disheartened the West who had hoped to re-unite Germany in order for it to realise it fully economic potential in the eyes of the traditionalists. The revisionists say that the USA and her close allies wanted to re-unite the whole of Germany in order to push the Russian back towards Moscow and to spread the capitalist ideology further into the lynchpin of the European economy. Further suspicions of Russian policy in their zone arose from the USA when the political parties the SPD and the KPD were forced into union to create a party that would obey Moscow. When a poll was conducted to find out the reaction of this union, after much interrogation, imprisonment and even murder of KPD members, the result was that 82% of SPD members were opposed to the union. Stalin had also managed to close down the polling stations in Russian controlled East Berlin. The traditionalists see this as a clear sign that Stalin was tightening his grip over the area so his sphere of influence would have a solid front line to Europe and it would also put him in a good position to spread the communist ideal further into Europe or even launch an attack on western Europe and impose communist rule. Another reason Stalin may have forced this alliance is to delay the setting up of the central administration in Germany. Stalin knew that the USA and Britain wanted to end occupation due to the high cost (£80 million for the British in 1946). He felt the setting up of the central administration would lead to a new capitalist and aggressive Germany. Revisionist say this is what Russia wanted to avoid, another invasion, if Germany was to become capitalist then Russia would almost have certainly faced another invasion in the not to distant future. Traditionalists claim that Russia didn’t want to allow a central administration because they knew they would be forced out of Germany because the capitalist ideology was much more appealing to most. They say that Russia was not willing to give up her section to a central administration because they wished to keep their foothold in Germany because in Lenin’s words “Whoever has Germany had Europe”.  Another major sticking point between the two camps was the issue of reparations from Germany. Russia wanted to take as much as it could in order to help rebuild their country, which had been devastated by the war. The USA and Britain however wanted to make Germany economically strong as they saw it as a vital trading partner. The French wanted to make sure that it wasn’t strong because they were afraid of another attack on their country- although their arguments had merits they probably wanted this because of the hate of Germany in France was so great that the politicians played on it and took an ultra tough line on Germany hence the vetoes in the ACC.  By the spring of 1946 the figure of reparations, which had been agreed at Potsdam, was breaking down. The USA and Britain were meant to deliver reparation quotas from their sections to the Russians. However they argued that they needed to allow the economy to grow until there was a surplus then the reparations could be paid, otherwise the British and USA would end up paying the Russian reparations which would be difficult as they were already struggling under the financial burdens of occupation (especially Britain). The revisionists claim that the West’s failure to pay the reparation quota was a clear attempt to try and weak the Russians and was an attempt to move the Russians out of Germany so capitalism could spread into Eastern Germany. The traditionalists claim that the West was right to halt the payments because they shouldn’t be the ones paying Russia’s reparations. The reparations should come from the German economy, which was not yet strong enough to cover Russia $10 billion claim. Bizonia was then formed to try to pave the way for economic unity between the 4 sections of Germany. The indecisiveness and disagreements over reparations lead to rivalry between the 2 camps. This was a reason why the Cold War rivalry occurred.

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The USA wanted the European economy to prosper so they could trade with nations, which would lead to economic prosperity in the USA. They tried to achieve this by using the Marshall Plan and other economic initiatives such as the launch of the Deutchmark in West Germany, which was designed to restore confidence in the formal sector, which would therefore lead to increased economic growth that would benefit the USA because Germans would be buying American products. The Russians had earlier rejected currency reform at the Council of Foreign Ministers in London in 1947. However when the Deutchmark was ...

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