For what reasons, and with what results, was Germany a centre of Cold War tension between 1945-1961?

by anvitaa (student)

Anvitaa Rastogi

HISTORY ASSIGNMENT

For what reasons, and with what results, was Germany a centre of Cold War tension between 1945-1961?

The cold war was an ideological war between the two superpowers of the world-Soviet Russia and United States of America. After the end of the world war II there was a vacuum of a supreme power, it was during such a situation when USA headed by President Roosevelt and Russia under the leadership of Stalin rose to superpower status. Germany was left defeated after the war, and Britain and France were drained and exhausted. The United States and the Soviet Union, though also drained, held considerable power. The two became rivals through ‘conflicting ideologies and mutual distrust’, and constantly competed for power. The aftermath of the World War II was what created a ‘cold war’ situation in Germany. The post war problems that persisted in Germany were central to the outbreak of the Cold War, central to its continuation and central to its decline.

The post-war state of Germany was grim: about one fourth of housing had been destroyed, the economic infrastructure had largely collapsed, inflation was rampant, there was a shortage of food, and millions of homeless Germans from the east were returning. These conditions forced the ‘Big Three’ (USA, Russia and Great Britain) to meet at the Yalta Conference to decide the fate of Germany. Along with several agreements made at the conference, a major decision was the de militarization and division of Germany. After its unconditional surrender, Germany was divided into four zones of Allied military occupation: American, French, British, and Soviet. The old capital of Berlin was also divided into four zones, but Berlin itself remained inside of the Soviet zone. The Soviets wanted their zone to be suppressed so that they wouldn’t get attacked again, while the Allies wanted their zones to have a high standard of living so that Germany wouldn’t be resentful like they had been prior to the World War II. In 1949, the French, British, and American zones merged and formed the ‘Federal Republic of Germany’, with its capital city Bonn. Following this in 1949, the Soviet zone renamed their bloc to the ‘German Democratic Republic’ with the Soviet sector of Berlin as the capital. Soon after this unification, Western Germany became a stable state with a good economic and social back up. This was due to the heavy influence of USA and Great Britain.

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In June 1947, the Marshall Plan was put into effect in order to stop the Russians from influencing any of the weakened western powers. It was officially the European Recovery Program, ERP which was the large-scale American program to aid where the gave monetary support to help rebuild West Germany and other European economies after the end of in order to restrict the spread of Soviet . Billions of dollars were spent to help countries recover quickly and to reduce the influence of Communism. This plan helped to restore West Germany and rebuild it as a new ally in America's fight against Russia. Russia refused the aid of the Marshall Plan and, as a result, East Germany was not completely rebuilt. East Germany was established as a Stalin-style Socialist state. This lack of reconstruction showed through even after the reunification. Belgian economic historian Herman Van der Wee concludes the Marshall Plan was a great success. He said, "It gave a new impetus to reconstruction in Western Europe and made a decisive contribution to the renewal of the transport system, the modernization of industrial and agricultural equipment, the raising of productivity, and the facilitating of intra-European trade.’ After that, the Truman Doctrine, a plan to help states going through a struggle for freedom against their oppressors, was instituted in 1948. It was a successor of the Marshall Plan. President Truman said, "I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." The Truman Doctrine instituted a policy of containment which limited communism to only the areas which were under the soviet control. Elsewhere, the United States would be given the freedom to resist the expansion. Following the agreements made under the doctrine, Germany split up into Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic.

West Germany under the guidance and support of USA became a stable economy. However the conditions in East Germany were deplorable. Due to horrible conditions in East Germany, its citizens had begun to cross over to West Germany and proclaimed themselves to be refugees. This migration of people caused labor shortages in East Germany and also the further degradation of an already failing East German economy. Seeing the degrading condition, Russia became willing to take offensive measures to reclaim West Berlin. The problems worsened when the Russians decided that they wanted all of Berlin under their control. There had been no previous treaties giving the Allies access to West Berlin through Russian territory, so Russia exploited this situation and isolated Berlin from American soldiers and supplies. This led to a major event-The Berlin Blockade. It began in mid 1948 as Russian forces surrounded West Berlin in an effort to make the Allied soldiers surrender. The Soviets sealed off railroads and highways to the Western bloc of Berlin, effectively cutting it off from the Western Allied sector of Germany. Thus West Berlin was deprived from all the facilities and benefits received by other areas of West Germany. It cut off the basic food supplies and the people there had to face starvation. In response to this, the Allies instituted the Berlin Airlift on June 21, 1948, in order to provide West Berlin with food and fuel. Cargo planes dropped food, fuel, and other supplies into West Germany all day long. This air left made the people of Berlin realize that USA was interested in the welfare of the people unlike the soviet government. It continued successfully for almost a year. It was lifted in 1949 after Stalin gave up. This attack on West Germany, forced the allies to take action in order to prevent West Germany from further Soviet invasions. Thus the allies signed the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) which stated that incase any nation is attacked by Soviet Union the allied nations would join forces to fight against them. This led to more tensions between USA and Russia thus intensifying the cold war.

During the Cold War, Germany thus became the center for the conflict between Communism and Democracy. Germany was the place where all the tensions between the two separate ideologies were played out. Due to its location, Berlin was torn in half by the struggling parties. The neglect that East Germany suffered through at the hands of the Communists caused not only economic problems but also social problems as the Western and Eastern Germans grew apart as society. The scars that the Communist Party left on the East Germans are still being repaired as this reconstruction had heavy financial impacts on the west. Not only had much of East Germany not been rebuilt, most of what was produced had been shipped back to the Soviet Union as "war reparations". Divided Germany had also caused a social split to occur between the Eastern and Western Germans. The Western German's lives had greatly improved since the end of World War II but the Eastern German's lives were still hindered by the destruction created by the war that could not be fixed under the Communist regime. These social and economic were the main reason why Germany was indeed at the centre of Cold War tension.