If you are old enough to remember when Germany was divided into East and West, two distinctly different countries, you may be wondering how West Berlin, a city free from Communist control, ended up 100 miles deep into East Germany. To find the answer, we need to go all the way back to the Potsdam Conference of 1945, where the leaders of the three allied powers met to hash out the postwar occupation of Germany (France was not invited). U.S. President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin met from July 17 through August 2 in Potsdam, Germany, just outside of Berlin. The Potsdam Agreement, signed on August 1, dealt with the demilitarization, and disarmament of Nazi Germany, reparations from Germany, adjustment of borders, and bringing Nazi criminals to justice (1).The big takeaway, however, was the establishment of four occupation zones in Germany: American, British, French, and Soviet. Each zone would be managed and controlled by its governing power in the initial aftermath of WWII. The four governing powers would also be responsible for their zone's reconstruction. As in all compromises, not everyone was happy. The French wanted more industrial and coal mining mining areas, and Stalin wondered aloud why France should receive any war spoils at all, given their defeat in the war (2). The British had insisted on a French occupation zone because the Americans originally planned to pull out of Europe after two or three years, and they wanted an extra backstop against Russia (at the time of this writing, the United States still maintains thirty-six military bases in Germany). The former capital of Nazi Germany, Berlin, was also divided into four occupation zones, in a sort of microcosm of occupied Germany. Each governing power had "sectors" of the city run by their troops and administrators.
Stalin wasted no time asserting his influence in the Soviet zone, merging the Communist Party of Germany (KDP) with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in April of 1946, creating the new Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The Soviets also initiated the Berlin Blockade of 1948-1949 ( which we will explore in detail in a future installment), using their military to block all roads and railways to western sectors of Berlin through the Soviet controlled zone of Germany. In 1948, the Soviets began to transfer authority to German communist leaders, and in 1949, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) began to run as a Soviet satellite country, with the SED in power until 1989, when Germany reunified.
In the west, the United States and Britain combined their zones on January 1, 1947, calling it the Bizone, jokingly called "Bizonia" by some. The bizone was created to streamline the policies and administration of the west, and to help grow Germany's economy. France reluctantly integrated their zone in April of 1949, and six weeks later the Federal Republic of Germany was formed. The western controlled sectors of Berlin became simply West Berlin, and remained aligned with the Federal Republic of Germany.
West Berlin became a quintessential Cold War battlefield, with the United States refusing to let it fall to Soviet control, and the Soviets attempting first to expel western powers, then to hold it hostage. It became the venue for a record number of spies, daring escapes from the East, and numerous international crises. From the Berlin Airlift, to the construction of the Berlin wall, to the fall of that same wall, Berlin remained an iconic symbol of Cold War power struggles between the two superpowers. Cold War era Berlin has a history colorful enough to merit its own blog, and will be a frequently visited topic of this one.
*citations:
(1)Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (1950) "A Decade of American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1941-49, Washington, DC, printing office
(2)Victor Sebestyen, "1946: The Making of the Modern World." 2014, New York, Penguin Random House
Map image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons C C by-sa 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34913530