Federal Republic of Germany

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7

Two German States

On May 7, 1945, Germany presented its unconditional surrender. At the Yalta Conference the preceding February, the Allies had agreed to divide the soon-to-be-defeated Germany into four military occupation zones—French in the southwest, British in the northwest, American in the south, and Soviet in the east. Berlin, in the Soviet sector, was also divided into four zones. Territories east of the Oder and Neisse rivers were administered either by Poland or by the Soviet Union and were eventually absorbed by those countries. In 1947 the Saar region was put under separate French administration. In 1945 and 1946 an international tribunal was held at Nürnberg to try Nazi leaders. Almost all were executed or imprisoned for war crimes and crimes against humanity (Nürnberg Trials).

The years from 1945 to 1947 were economically desperate times for all Germans. During this period, more than 10 million refugees fled or were expelled from the Soviet zone and elsewhere in the East. These people posed a grave problem in the Western zones, where food and housing were already scarce, but once economic activity revived they provided valuable labor and skills.

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a

Economic Rivalry

Britain, the United States, and eventually France distrusted the USSR, which they saw as expansionist. To counter the USSR, they sought to rebuild Germany into a major Western European power. In 1947 the U.S. and British zones were combined into one administrative unit, called Bizonia, and the French zone was later added to form Trizonia. In the Western zone, the former German currency was abolished in 1948, and a new, stable currency, the deutsche mark, was introduced. United States aid under the Marshall Plan helped revive the private economy. This was the start of the reconstruction that eventually transformed West Germany into the most prosperous country in Europe.

In the Soviet zone, a very different economic system developed. All landholdings of more than 100 hectares (250 acres) were broken up and distributed to small farmers and landless workers. Banks were nationalized. Many factories were dismantled and shipped to the Soviet Union as partial reparation for war damages. What industry remained was mostly nationalized.

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F7

b

Political Rivalry

The Soviet Union and the United States also built rival political regimes: In the East, the Communist-dominated Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) ruled; in the Western zones, the Communist Party was banned and the dominant party was the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). In June 1948 the Soviet Union tried to force the Western powers out of Berlin by blocking all roads to the city. The United States organized an airlift that supplied West Berlin for 11 months, until the blockade was lifted in May 1949.

The practical polarization of Germany was finally legalized by the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), or West Germany, on September 21, 1949. Although Berlin was still occupied by all four allied powers, West Berlin (the American, French, and British zones) was administered as part of the republic. The Western powers granted the new state internal self-government, and it established a new provisional capital in Bonn. Konrad Adenauer, head of the CDU, was the first chancellor; Theodor Heuss was elected its first president. On October 7 the German Democratic Republic (GDR), or East Germany, was formed in the Soviet zone. For a more complete discussion of the history of that country, See East Germany.

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c

The Cold War Period

In 1952 the Western occupation powers and West Germany signed the Bonn Convention, officially ending military occupation, although Western troops remained in West Germany as allies. The Western powers also agreed to the rearmament of the country. In 1955 they granted West Germany full independence and membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defense system. However, the former occupation powers continued their presence in West Berlin and reserved the right to deal with the Soviet Union in matters concerning German reunification.

In 1956 the West German government reintroduced military conscription, which was vigorously opposed by the Social Democratic Party (SPD). In 1958 the SPD also demanded the withdrawal of all foreign troops from both Germanys and the limitation of the German military to conventional weapons. A strong CDU showing in national elections later that year encouraged proponents of a rearmed West Germany and a strong NATO nuclear force. In 1957 the Saar returned by popular referendum to West Germany, and the country joined the European Economic Community.

Under Adenauer, West Germany was stable and prosperous. From 1951 to 1957 the gross national product rose 75 percent, with annual per capita income doubling during the same period. Industrial growth was aided by tax laws favoring business owners and by large private investment. The workforce was augmented first by a large influx of highly skilled immigrants, who were among the more than 3.5 million refugees from East Germany. Later, so-called guest workers came from Italy, Spain, and Turkey. The result was a period of rapid industrial expansion and prosperity known as the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle). Funded by its growing industrial wealth, the government built an army and expanded the social welfare system.

The government continued to prosecute some Nazi war criminals and paid reparations to the new state of Israel, but by the 1950s some former Nazis began to return to high positions. Giant corporations with a Nazi past also continued to dominate the West German economy, particularly Krupps, Flicks, and I. G. Farben. By 1960 West Germany attained an export surplus of $1 billion. At the time of Adenauer’s retirement in 1963, West Germany was a leading political and economic force in Europe.

In East Germany the SED was in firm control, aided by the State Security Police, or Stasi. East Germany pursued a much more rigorous process of denazification than West Germany, prohibiting former Nazis from working in education, law, or the armed forces. High production quotas and food shortages led to worker revolts that were suppressed. Many dissatisfied East Germans, especially skilled workers, continued to flee to the West. In August 1961 East German authorities constructed a barrier around West Berlin, which they called an “anti-Fascist protection wall.” Within a year, barbed wire fences and ditches were replaced with the monumental stone cordon known as the Berlin Wall.

Adenauer was succeeded as West German chancellor by two other CDU leaders, Ludwig Erhard from 1963 to 1966 and Kurt Georg Kiesinger, who was supported by a CDU-SPD coalition, until October 1969. During this period, the West German government pursued a policy of constructive engagement with East Germany and the Soviet bloc known as Ostpolitik (eastern policies), aimed at improving political and trade relations. In 1968, though, a new East German constitution proclaimed the Democratic Republic a separate “socialist state of German nationality” and declared unification impossible until West Germany also became socialist. Ostpolitik was partly abandoned after East German and other Warsaw Pact forces overthrew the newly progressive government of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. The government had been moving away from the Communist system and had loosened its ties with the USSR.

In 1969 the SPD won enough votes to form a ruling coalition with the small Free Democratic Party (FDP). The new chancellor, Willy Brandt, a former mayor of Berlin, revived Ostpolitik. In 1970 he concluded a treaty with the USSR recognizing Europe’s postwar boundaries. A four-power accord on Berlin was then signed, and in 1972 East and West Germany recognized each other’s sovereignty. The next year both countries were admitted to the United Nations. In 1974 Brandt resigned when it was discovered that a member of his personal staff was an East German spy.

By the early 1980s the ruling SPD-FDP coalition—in power since Brandt’s resignation under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt—was weakened by inflation and unemployment. In 1982 the FDP decided to switch its support to the CDU. As a result, Schmidt resigned and a new chancellor, Helmut Kohl, was elected. About this time, a new fourth party, the Greens, came to prominence in the Bundestag (the lower house of parliament) on an environmental and pacifist platform. However, the ruling coalition of the CDU, the FDP, and the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) continued to hold power.

In the 1980s West Germany emerged as a leading economic power, along with Japan and the United States. West German leadership in the international arena became more prominent in the late 1980s, as it supported the birth of new democracies in Eastern Europe. Kohl’s political coalition was confirmed in elections in 1983 and 1987. The two German republics achieved better relations with new financial and travel accords in 1984, and East German president Erich Honecker paid his first official visit to West Germany in 1987.

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8

Reunified Germany

In the late 1980s the Communist regimes and economies of Eastern Europe showed increasing signs of strain, and wide-ranging democratic reforms were instituted in many of these countries. Hungary and other Soviet-bloc countries began to ease travel restrictions to the West, prompting several thousand East Germans to emigrate to West Germany via these socialist nations. By October 1989 the East German government was in crisis; President Honecker resigned and his successor, Egon Krenz, promised reform. Finally, on November 9, the government wearily admitted that the Berlin Wall no longer served any function.

Jubilant East and West Germans attacked the wall, tearing much of it down, and more than 200,000 East Germans streamed into West Germany. The West German government provided aid to the new immigrants and a massive infusion of capital to the ailing East German economy. Interim governments in East Germany pressed for union with West Germany as a means of stabilizing the country’s disintegrating social and economic structures. In July 1990 West Germany and East Germany merged their financial systems.

In many ways, this introduction of the West German mark into East Germany was a prime example of the somewhat unbalanced relationship between the two Germanys during the course of unification. In every case where a decision was made on whether to follow the way of the East or the way of the West, the West was chosen. It came to seem as if East Germany had been defeated by its sister nation and was being systematically dismantled. This situation caused growing friction between East and West, both during and after the reunification process.

Actual reunification was achieved on October 3, 1990. East Germany officially dissolved, and all of its citizens became citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany. The first all-German elections were held in December, with the coalition led by Helmut Kohl scoring a decisive victory. On June 20, 1991, the newly elected Bundestag, representing both East and West, named Berlin the new capital of Germany. The transfer of administration from Bonn was largely completed by the end of 1999, although some government offices remained in Bonn.

In October 1993 a unified Germany became the 12th and final nation to ratify the Treaty on European Union, also known as the Maastricht Treaty. This treaty created the European Union (EU) from what had been the European Community. The members of the EU were committed to a common economic and foreign policy. In 1993 Germany also renewed its bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. A major roadblock to achieving this status was removed in July 1994, when a German constitutional court decided that the German military could participate in UN peacekeeping operations outside of NATO.

A historic moment occurred in August 1994 as the last Russian troops left Berlin, signaling the conclusion of a complete pullout from Eastern Europe by the former Soviet Union after almost 50 years of occupation. Eight days later, the final 200 Allied troops also left Berlin, marking the first time since World War II that the city had not been host to foreign troops.

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Adaptations to Reunification