Postwar period , the
Saarland and the German eastern territories under foreign administration. After the unconditional surrender of the
Wehrmacht in May 1945, the
anti-Hitler coalition between the
United States and the
Soviet Union broke up, and the idea of dividing the defeated country was from then on determined by the emerging East-West conflict (
Cold War), which made the inner-German division part of the
Iron Curtain dividing the world. Important milestones of the gradual demarcation were the US-led
Marshall Plan in 1947 as well as the Western currency reform and the
Berlin blockade in 1948. The integration of the western occupation zones into the community of the Western powers and that of the eastern part into the system of the USSR finally accompanied the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany and that of the GDR in 1949.
Intensification of the Cold War The outbreak of the
Korean War in 1950 led to an intensive debate in West Germany about German rearmament as a contribution to the defense of Western Europe within the framework of a
European Defense Community (EDC). In 1955, the discussion culminated in Germany's accession to the Western
military alliance NATO and the establishment of a defensive military, the
Bundeswehr. Economically, the young Federal Republic was bound to the Western powers on the basis of the 1957
Treaty of Rome, which led to membership in the
European Economic Community (EEC) and the
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the predecessors of today's
European Union (EU). Meanwhile, the GDR was incorporated into the
Eastern Bloc: The GDR joined the
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) and, with its newly formed
National People's Army, the
Warsaw Pact. While Chancellor
Konrad Adenauer succeeded in gradually bringing the Federal Republic of Germany closer to the West, reconciling the country with its European neighbors and finding a close partner in
France, the citizens of the Federal Republic benefited from the
Wirtschaftswunder, the upswing brought about by the
market economy and integration in the
Western European economy. The GDR government, on the other hand, relied on
five-year plans and was slow to stabilize the economic situation. Due to the lack of
free elections, the ruling
Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) also lacked legitimacy, which led, among other things, to the
popular uprising on June 17, 1953, which was ended with Soviet military help. On August 13, 1961, the communist regime de facto separated Berlin into
East and
West Berlin by building the
Berlin Wall. In this way, the GDR put a temporary end to the increasing exodus of its highly educated population and to any lingering hopes of reunification in the near future. The GDR was stabilized in this way. The people who remained in the GDR no longer had the option of going to the West via West Berlin and had to come to terms with the regime.
West German policy of détente The
Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world was on the brink of
nuclear war, marked the turning point of the Cold War, towards a policy of cooperation and détente, which also affected inner German relations through a changed political climate. (left) and Chancellor
Willy Brandt in
Erfurt in 1970, the first meeting of the heads of government of the two German states Nevertheless, the last time there was an all-German team was at the
1964 Summer Olympics in
Tokyo. At the same time, the GDR began to release political prisoners from its prisons. The new
Ostpolitik of the social-liberal government under Chancellor
Willy Brandt played a decisive role in political rapprochement. Even in the period before the grand coalition that ended the Adenauer era in 1966, Brandt, together with his press spokesman
Egon Bahr, had prepared these foreign policy guiding principles of the "policy of small steps," "change through rapprochement" and "human facilitation." Within just three years, after the symbolic prelude with the
Erfurt summit in 1970, the Eastern treaties with Moscow, Warsaw and Prague, the
four-power agreement on Berlin, the declaration of renunciation of force vis-à-vis the Eastern European states and the
Basic Treaty with the GDR were concluded. For the first time, these treaties recognized that the
sovereignty of each of the two states was limited to its national territory. Moreover, the independence and autonomy of each of the two states in its internal and external affairs were respected. Strategies such as the
Hallstein Doctrine, which the GDR had responded to with the
Ulbricht Doctrine, were overcome with Article 4 of the Basic Treaty, in which both sides assumed "that neither state can represent the other internationally or act on its behalf." Nevertheless, the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR did not recognize each other as independent states in the sense of
international law. Therefore, no ambassadors were sent, but permanent representatives based with the respective governments in
Bonn and East Berlin were exchanged, to whom the
Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations applied accordingly. On March 14, 1974, the Protocol on the Establishment was signed in Bonn. The
Federal Chancellery, rather than the
Foreign Office, was responsible for the Permanent Mission of the GDR in Bonn, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the GDR was responsible for matters concerning the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany in East Berlin. On May 7, 1974, Willy Brandt resigned after the
Guillaume affair. The policy of normalization nevertheless served to defuse the international East-West conflict and set the stage for the 1975
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and the talks on troop limitations. However, the "regulated coexistence" achieved cemented the status quo to such an extent that after more than 20 years in both German states, few still believed in the feasibility of reunification. In the GDR, people reacted to the new developments in détente with a new demarcation in order to find their own state identity. With its willingness to engage in dialogue, the state had gained international recognition. In 1973, the Federal Republic and the GDR became members of the
UN. Increasing economic performance also raised the nation's self-confidence, which led the
Volkskammer in 1974 to delete the terms
German nation and reunification from the
constitution of the German Democratic Republic. The fact that too much independence could also lead to conflict with the Soviet Union had already been felt in 1971 by
Walter Ulbricht, who had been replaced in his position as first secretary of the SED by
Erich Honecker because of his refusal to reform.
1970 to 1988 Meanwhile, the two
oil crises in the 1970s had a devastating effect on the GDR's economic development and led to discontent among the population, but not to structural reforms. Emerging opposition groups were repressed by the
state security's tightly meshed network of informers in order to maintain political stability in the country. A disruption of Inner German relations followed the
Spiegel publication of the manifesto of the League of
Democratic Communists of Germany (an alleged opposition group within the East German state party SED) in January 1978. In the meantime, Inner German relations were strained by a new wave of international rearmament, culminating in the
NATO Double-Track Decision and the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. Domestically, the government under Chancellor
Helmut Schmidt was no longer able to cope with these pressures and eventually paved the way for a
CDU/CSU-
FDP coalition under Chancellor
Helmut Kohl. This coalition tried to maintain contact with the neighboring German state, which had been strengthened by Schmidt's visit to the GDR in 1981. It was also only possible to save the GDR from financial ruin solely through billions in loans from West Germany. The SED's refusal to apply to the GDR the reforms introduced by Soviet state and party leader
Mikhail Gorbachev isolated the SED dictatorship to some extent even within the communist camp. In 1986,
Eisenhüttenstadt and
Saarlouis established the first German-German
town twinning.
Erich Honecker's visit to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1987, which had been planned for years, was seen by both states as an important step in the development of German-German relations. The GDR leadership saw the event as the culmination of (de facto) recognition.
1989–90 in
Leipzig on October 16, 1989 Gorbachev's reform policy of
Perestroika and
Glasnost, along with the noticeable defusing of the international East-West conflict through binding disarmament agreements between the USSR and the USA, ultimately led to the revolutions in 1989 in the individual states of the
Eastern Bloc as well. Under Gorbachev's
Sinatra Doctrine, Moscow no longer stood in the way of gradual
democratization. Thus,
Hungary was able to open its border with
Austria in August 1989. With the onset of mass exodus, opposition movements within the GDR also gained new momentum, resulting in nationwide
Monday demonstrations. On November 9, 1989,
Günter Schabowski, a member of the
Politburo of the SED, declared at a press conference that East German citizens were free to travel, whereupon all inner-German border crossings were opened. The
fall of the Berlin Wall represented a high point in the course of the peaceful revolution. The "window of history" that was now open for reunification moved all parties to act quickly: The SED offered the opposition roundtable talks, and Helmut Kohl single-handedly presented his ten-point program for overcoming the division of Germany. On May 18, 1990, the East German government under
Lothar de Maizière, which had emerged from the
People's Chamber elections on March 18, 1990, concluded the Treaty on the Creation of a Monetary, Economic and Social Union. Taking into account the agreements and decisions of the victorious powers from the wartime and postwar periods, the
Two-plus-Four Treaty of September 12, 1990, made final arrangements with regard to Germany. Accordingly, the united Germany comprises the territories of the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic and the whole of Berlin. It does not make any territorial claims over and above these against other states. Since then, the
German question has been regarded as settled in political terms and under international law. On August 23, 1990, the People's Chamber decided on the East German's accession to the Federal Republic of Germany in accordance with Article 23 of the Basic Law. On September 20, 1990, the German
Bundestag and the Volkskammer (People's Chamber) approved the
Unification Treaty with the required two-thirds majority. Effective October 3, 1990, the states of
Brandenburg,
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania,
Saxony,
Saxony-Anhalt and
Thuringia became states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Since then, this day has been a public holiday in place of June 17 as
German Unity Day. On the night of October 2 to 3, 1990, the
German federal flag was hoisted at the
Reichstag building in Berlin. The
Federal Ministry for Internal German Relations was dissolved on January 1, 1991. By organizational decree of the Federal Chancellor of October 27, 1998, a Federal Government Commissioner for the
New States of Germany was appointed. Even 30 years after the establishment of German unity, there are
significant differences in the living conditions of the western and eastern states of Germany. == Treaties between West Germany and East Germany ==