German Border Question and Reunification

Report Outline
Partitioning of Germany After the War
Renewal of Discussion of Reunification
Territorial Losses and Border Problems
Pressures for Reunification of Germany

Partitioning of Germany After the War

More than two decades have passed since the German Third Reich was defeated in World War II, but the question of the boundaries of a unified German nation still awaits final disposition at a peace conference. The division of Germany, and of its former capital Berlin, into free and Communist areas and the de facto rule by Russia and Poland over large parts of prewar Germany remain the outstanding unsettled problems in Europe left over from the war.

After Hitler's armies were defeated in May 1945, the major victors assumed responsibility for the various zones of occupation which had been agreed upon at Allied conferences. The principal Western allies —the United States, Great Britain and France —assumed administrative power over zones covering 52 per cent of the Reich as it was constituted in 1937. The Red Army occupied the central part of the country, an area that accounted for 23 per cent of the prewar Reich. Berlin was placed under joint four-power occupation. The eastern part of Germany, 24.3 per cent of the Reich, was placed under the administration of Poland and Russia; of this area, Russia controlled the northern part of East Prussia, including that province's capital, Koenigsberg, and most of its seacoast along the Baltic.

The postwar partition of Germany is still in effect, although the three Western zones became in 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany. So-called West Germany, with its capital in Bonn, is no longer subject to rule by Allied occupation authorities. The Communist government in the east of Germany became the German Democratic Republic (G.D.R.) in 1949, with its capital in East Berlin. In Cold War terminology, West German officials call the G.D.R. the “Soviet-occupied zone.”