If it is debatable whether the years leading up to 1945 were important for the division of Germany, what is definitely clear is that the division process accountered many difficulties, especially from 1945 onwards. At Potsdam there were many disagreements including the rejection of Soviet demands for the Ruhr to be divorced from Germany and placed under a joint Allied authority. In fact the agreements made at Potsdam do not appear to have been a great success. Young explains how “essential problems remained without clear-cut solutions even after the Big Three parted at Potsdam”. As Glees says, “its writ disintegrated within two years”. Furthermore the Allied Control Authority setup to coordinate activities across the four zones and help with Germany’s division “never really succeeded in getting off the ground”. This was mainly because a unanimous decision was needed by the four countries to come to a big decision and it was rarely forthcoming. So therefore it can be argued that by 1947 Germany was far from being divided because as Young says above a number of big problems remained with regards to the division.
As the Cold War began to intensify and the ideological differences between the Soviet Union and the western occupants became more clear, the division process took a new turn with plans to found separate West German and East German states. After much negotiation, in1949 the future relationship between the three allies and the new West German government was formalised by the Occupation Statute in April. So it can be argued that it was in 1949 that Germany was finally and completely divided because the country had been split into two parts; a capitalist west with individual freedoms and free institutions, and a communist east with limited freedoms and state run institutions.
However as exemplified by Young and Urwin, even this claim can be questioned. Urwin says that it wasn’t until the Paris agreements of 1954 that ”the Federal Republic of Germany became a fully sovereign state”. Young supports Urwin’s claim, “1954 signaled the official end to western occupation”. So therefore it can be argued that it wasn’t 1949 that marked the official division of a West Germany (FDR) and East Germany (GDR).
Despite either of these possibilities being true, Bulmer questions them at both ends of the scale. First he talks of the division process in 1949 explaining how the fact west became known West Berlin and East Berlin became known as the soviet sector meant that “true division was now crystal clear”. However he then puts forward another argument saying that the fact that in 1961 the Berlin Wall was built can only mean that in 1949 the division process was “without doubt unconcluded”. So therefore, the division of Germany may have not been completed as late as 1961, a whole two decades after I started speaking about the division process beginning.
So overall the division of Germany took a long time. In my opinion there were two major parts to the division process of Germany. The first was from around 1941 to 1947 that included the discussions and agreements over the occupation of Germany and ceding of territory. During this time period all four allies appeared to co-operate with each other reasonably well. The second period was from around 1947 when as Young says, “cold war relations started to set in” up until 1961 with the building of the Berlin Wall. During this time period relations were poor between the Soviet Union, and France, the USA and the UK, and both ideologies went their separate ways including the forming of separate western and eastern states.
With regards to why Germany was divided, there are a number of reasons, all relating to different parts of the division process. The four allies also had their own specific reasons why they wanted Germany to be divided.
For example, France had been affected on many occasions in the past by the military strength of Germany and wanted to make sure there was never a chance again of a German invasion of French soil. In 1871, France lost Alsace and the eastern part of Lorraine to Germany as a result of the Franco Prussian War, which it occupied until 1918. Then from 1940-1945, the area was again taken over by Germany with the invasion and subsequent defeat of France in June 1940. As Urwin said, “France was obsessed by the need to keep Germany weak and divided”.
There was a similar view adopted by Russia for the division of Germany and weakening of the country. Like France, Russia wanted Germany never to be able to wage war again and saw its division and allied occupation as an important part of ensuring this was the case. As Urwin says, Stalin wanted to “destroy German militarism and remove it as a threat to the Soviet Union”. In France and Russia’s eyes, Germany had a long history of aggressiveness dating back to the time of Otto von Bismarck and had been largely responsible for the outbreak of the first and second world wars. However it can be argued as Glees explains that Stalin wanted Germany divided so that he could ensure communist rule on his eastern zone and hope that eventually this would “become a springboard into all of Germany”. This is highly possible and the fact that Stalin setup so many satellite states around Europe and so many countries fell to communism in the proceeding years shows that he was very serious in “expanding communism as westward as possible”. (Bulmer)
Britain and America on the other hand seemed much more concerned with the revitalizing and reconstructing of Germany as reasons for division rather than with France and Russia’s primary aim of ensuring Germany could never wage war again. Germany had suffered greatly due to the war with two-fifth’s of buildings in its 50 largest cities being destroyed of which Frankfurt and Dusseldorf were almost totally destroyed. After the war industrial production was only a third of the 1936 figure and inflation was so bad that cigarettes replaced money as currency for a while. As Young says, “there was a real fear that the 1923 depression could be repeated”.
Therefore the idea of Britain and America was that by dividing and occupying Germany, the allies could work together to restructure the country politically and economically. This can be shown in proceeding years by the setting up of the Allied Control Authority to coordinate activities across the four zones although as explained earlier this has often been described as a failure. There are strong claims to suggest that Britain saw division as a chance to put Germany’s feet back on the ground before giving it the freedom to control itself. Glees backs this up by saying, “…the British more than any other power in Germany, were content to let Germans shape their own destinies”. So again there is evidence showing that Britain did not see division as an opportunity to weaken Germany.
However there appears to be no doubt whatsoever that Britain and America, like France and Russia did see the division and occupation of Germany as very important in restructuring the country so it could never again wage an aggressive war and also so that a system of Nazism could never again be repeated. In fact the ‘JCS 1067’, of which US policy in Germany was constructed around, wrote in 1945 that the punishment of Germany was an important reason for Germany being divided. It stated that the aim of allied policy was to “prevent Germany from ever again becoming a threat to the peace of the world” and as Glees continues to explain the Germans were to be punished by “reducing drastically their standard of living and by capping their economic strength”. So therefore there is evidence to suggest that America may have seen division as a chance of punishing Germany, although this most certainly wasn’t the case after the beginning of the cold war. America’s involvement in the Nuremberg trials in which thousands of Germans were investigated and convicted for Nazi crimes could be an argument for America punishing Germany but without greater analysis it appears to be a weak one.
After 1947, when cold war relations intensified between America and the Soviet Union, the continuation of the division process seems quite easy to explain with both the Soviets and the three remaining allies setting up their own states in order to put in place their different ideologies. For example as Glees says, “By 1948, the Americans felt they could openly develop western Germany into a state which could be part of the Western community”. It can be argued that as a result a kind of power struggle developed in Germany over promoting the benefits of communism or capitalism as exemplified by the Soviet Unions involvement in the Berlin Blockade in 1948 and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
So overall there are a number of arguments that can be debated as reasons for the division of Germany including specific countries wishes for punishment and revenge such as France and Russia, the need for restructuring and reconstructing Germany and also the aim to ensure Germany could never wage another aggressive war again in the future. After 1947, the reason for the further division of Germany can be explained by the intensification of the cold war and the issues brought on by this.
Bibliography
Bulmer, S and Paterson, W (1987), The Federal Republic of Germany and the European Community, London: Allen and Unwin.
Glees, Anthony (1996), Reinventing Germany, German Political Development since 1945, Oxford: Berg.
Urwin, Derek (1997), A Political History of Western Europe, London and New York: Longman.
Young, John (1991), Cold War Europe 1945-1989: Arnold
