History of Germany
Provenance: Shandong Foreign Affairs Network
In the middle of the last century it was still believed that the year 9 A.D. was the beginning of German history. In this year Arminius, a chief of the Germanic tribe of Scheruske, defeated three Roman legions in the forest of Toitoburg. Arminius is considered the first national hero. More details about his life are not known, and a huge monument was built in his honor near Detmold between 1838 and 1875.
Today people no longer see things in such a simple way. The creation of the German nation was a process that lasted many centuries. The word "German" dates from around the 8th century AD, and at first denoted only a language spoken in the eastern part of the Frankish Empire. The empire, which was at its height under Karl the Great, included many tribes whose languages were either Germanic or Romance. After the death of Karl the Great (814), the empire fell apart within a few years. In the course of the distribution of the inheritance, a western and an eastern empire emerged, the political boundary between the two being roughly the same as the linguistic boundary between German and French. The inhabitants of the Eastern Empire only gradually developed a sense of solidarity. The name "Germany" was transferred from the language to the speakers of the language, and finally to the region in which they lived (the "German state").
While the western border of Germany was established long ago and has remained stable, the eastern border, on the contrary, has been changing over many centuries. Around 900 AD, it was roughly bounded by the Elbe and the Saale. In the following centuries, the German settlements expanded deeper and deeper to the east until the middle of the 14th century. The border between the German and Slavic peoples that was formed at that time remained in place until the Second World War.
The High Middle Ages: The year 911, when the Carolingian dynasty was extinguished and the Frankish duke Conrad I was elected king, is often cited as the beginning of the transition from the East Frankish Empire to the German Empire. Conrad I is regarded as the first German king (the official title at the time was "King of the Franks", later "King of the Romans"; from the 11th century onwards the title of the empire was "Roman Empire Roman Empire" from the 11th century, "Holy Roman Empire" from the 13th century; "German Nation" was added in the 15th century). The empire was an elective monarchy; the king was chosen by the high nobility, and the "law of descent" was practiced, i.e. the new king should be related to his predecessor. However, this principle was sometimes aborted; repeated elections were common. In the Middle Ages, the empire had no capital city, and the king ruled on a touring basis. The empire was not taxed, and the king's income came mainly from the "imperial property" entrusted to him. His authority was not rightfully recognized: it was only through military power and a clever policy of alliances that he was able to gain the respect of the powerful dukes of the tribes. Conrad's successor, Henrich I (919-936), Duke of Saxony, did this, and his son Otto I (936-973) was even better. Otto made himself the de facto ruler of the empire, and the fact that he was crowned emperor at Rome in 962 shows the extent of his power.
From then on, the German king was entitled to be crowned emperor. The idea of imperial power was all-encompassing, giving the possessor the power to rule the entire Western world. However, this notion never fully became a political reality. In order to receive the papal coronation, the king had to travel to Rome in person. This began the Italian policy of the German kings. They maintained their rule in northern and central Italy for 300 years, thus not being able to take matters into their own hands when it came to Germany's great plans. The reign of Otto's successors suffered serious setbacks in this respect. The succeeding Salier dynasty again prospered. Under Henrich III (1039-1056) the German crowns and emperors were at the height of their power; chiefly, their primacy over the papacy was firmly maintained. Henrich IV (1056-1106) was unable to maintain this. In the struggle for the right to appoint bishops (the Ordination Controversy), he won an apparent victory over Pope Gregory VII, but his atoning visit to Canossa (1077) was an irreparable loss of prestige for the imperial throne. Henceforth the emperor and the pope were on an equal footing.
The centennial reign of the Stauffen dynasty began in 1138. Friedrich I Barbarossa (1152-1190) reinvigorated the imperial family in his struggles with the pope, the cities of northern Italy, and with his chief rival in Germany, Henrich the Lion, Duke of Saxony. During his reign, however, the territory began to fragment and eventually weakened the central authority. This development continued despite the strength of royal power under Barbarossa's successors, Henrich VI (1190-1197) and Friedrich II (1212-1250). Religious and secular lords became semi-sovereign "kings of the state".
With the fall of the Stauffen dynasty (1268), the all-encompassing imperial power of the West came to a virtual end. The forces of internal strife in Germany prevented it from becoming a nation-state at a time when this process was taking place in other countries of Western Europe. This was one of the roots of the Germans' emergence as a "backward-looking nation".
Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period: The first of the Habsburgs to reach the throne was Rudolf I (1273-1291). The material basis of imperial power was now no longer the lost imperial possessions, but the princely possessions of the dynasties; the policy of princely territorial rights became the main interest of each emperor.
The Golden Edict of Karl IV, issued in 1356, was a kind of fundamental law of the empire, which conferred on seven marquises (electors) of great stature the privilege of electing the king, as well as a number of other preferential rights which were not accorded to the vassals of the other great states. While the minor counts, lords and knights were losing their role, the influence of the cities grew due to their economic power. Cities were further strengthened by the conclusion of city alliances. The most important of these alliances, the Hanseatic League, became a major force in the Baltic region in the 14th century.
Beginning in 1438, while the empire was still ostensibly an elective monarchy, the crown was effectively in the hands of the Habsburgs, who by then had become the most powerful regional power, and in the fifteenth century calls for reform of the empire grew louder and louder. The first emperor, Maximilian I (1493-1519), who was crowned without a papal coronation, attempted to bring about such a reform, but to no avail. The institutions he created or reorganized, such as the Reichstag, the Reichspolizei, and the Reichsgericht, existed until the end of the empire (1806), but failed to prevent its continued fragmentation. A duality of "emperor and empire" emerged: on the one hand, the head of the empire, on the other hand, the electors, the marquises of the states and the cities. The power of the emperors was limited and became more and more nominal by the "subordination" agreements they made with the Electors at the time of the elections. The Margraves, especially the Grand Margraves, made a great show of expanding their own power by weakening the power of the Empire. Yet the Empire continued to exist: the splendor of the crown had not yet faded, and the idea of empire was still alive and well. The Great Union of the Empire provided protection for the small and medium-sized states from their powerful neighbors.
Cities became centers of economic power, and they benefited above all from growing trade. In the textile and mining industries, economic forms emerged that transcended the craftsman's guild system and were as characteristic of early capitalism as long-distance trade. At the same time, there was a change in ideology marked by the Renaissance and and humanism. The critical spirit of this new awakening was directed first and foremost against the evils of the Church.
The Age of Religious Schism: Since 1517, the pent-up discontent with the Church, influenced mainly by the activities of Martin Luther, exploded in the rapidly unfolding Reformation, the consequences of which extended far beyond the religious sphere. The entire social structure was thrown into turmoil. the outbreak of the Imperial Knights' Rebellion in 1522/23 and the Peasants' War in 1525 were the first larger revolutionary movements in German history to combine political and social demands. Both revolts were defeated or bloodily suppressed. The main beneficiaries of the Reformation were the margraves of the states. After a tortuous struggle, they were granted the right to decide what religion their subjects would practice in the Religious Peace of Augsburg in 1555. Protestantism was recognized as an equal church with Catholicism. The religious division of Germany was now finalized. The reigning emperor was Karl V (1519-1556), who by succession became monarch of the largest world empire since Karl the Great. He sought the benefits of world politics, but had difficulty in realizing his ambition in Germany. After his abdication the empire was divided, and the German margravates and the nation-states of Western Europe formed the new European state system.
At the time of the Peace of Augsburg, four-fifths of Germany was Protestant, but the ecclesiastical struggle did not end there. In the following decades, the Catholic Church regained many areas (the so-called "Counter-Reformation"). Sectarian rivalries thus intensified, leading to the emergence of religious parties: the Protestant League (1608) and the Catholic League (1609). A local conflict in Bohemia led to the Thirty Years' War. This war expanded into a Europe-wide struggle in which political and religious rivalries collided head-on, and between 1618 and 1648 large areas of Germany were left barren and depopulated.
The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ceded parts of Germany to France and Sweden, and confirmed the withdrawal of Switzerland and the Netherlands from the imperial union. The treaty granted all major sovereignty to the various classes of the empire in the conduct of religious and secular affairs and allowed them to ally themselves with foreign partners.
Age of absolutism: The nearly autonomous states chose the absolutist system, following the French system of government. It gave supreme power to the monarch, adopted a strict system of administration, an organized system of finance and a standing army. Many margraves were ambitious to make their capital a cultural center. The representatives of "enlightened despotism" among them promoted science and critical thinking - within the interests of their regime, of course. The mercantilist economic policy made the autocratic states economically powerful as well, e.g. Bavaria, Brandenburg (later Prussia), Saxony and Hanover became independent centers of power. Austria rose to power by repelling Turkish attacks and acquiring Hungary and part of the hitherto Turkish Balkan states, and in the 18th century it met its match in Prussia, which had become the leading military power under Friedrich the Great (1740-1786). Both countries had parts of their territories outside the empire, and both pursued a policy of European great power.
The era of the French Revolution: the force that brought down the building of the German Empire came from the West. 1789 saw the outbreak of revolution in France. Under the pressure of the bourgeoisie, the feudal social system, which had survived from the early Middle Ages, was swept away. The separation of powers and human rights guaranteed freedom and equality to all citizens. Attempts by Prussia and Austria to intervene by force in the affairs of this neighboring country failed miserably, giving rise to a counter-offensive by the revolutionary armies. The German Empire eventually collapsed under the onslaught of Napoleon's army, which had inherited the legacy of the French Revolution. France occupied the left bank of the Rhine. In order to compensate for the losses of the former owners of these territories, a massive "redistribution of lands" was carried out at the expense of the smaller, especially religious, margravities: according to the decision of the "Joint Council of the Imperial Representatives" of 1803, some 4 million subjects were exchanged for monarchs. The middle states enjoyed the benefits. Most of them formed the "Confederation of the Rhine" in 1806 under the patronage of France. In the same year, Emperor Franz II abdicated and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation came to an end.
The French Revolution did not spread to Germany. Though there had been repeated attempts over the years by individuals to bridge the gap between the aristocracy and the civic classes, and important figures welcomed the changes in the West as the beginning of a new era, the spark of the revolution could not reach Germany because, in contrast to centralized France, the federal structure of the empire prevented the spread of new ideas. Besides, France, the birthplace of the revolution, was for the Germans an enemy and an occupying power. The struggle against Napoleon became in fact a new national movement, which eventually rose to become a war of liberation. The forces of social change did not fail to affect Germany. Reforms began to be carried out, first in the Confederate States of the Rhine and then in Prussia (names associated with Stein, Hardenberg, Scharnhorst, Wilhelm von Humboldt, etc.), with a view to the final dismantling of feudal barriers and to the establishment of a free and responsible bourgeois society: the abolition of serfdom, the realization of freedom of establishment, the self-government of the cities, the equality of all before the law and the universal obligation of military service. However, many of these reforms were abandoned before they had a chance to take hold. Citizens were for the most part still not allowed to participate in legislation; only a few states, mainly in southern Germany, hesitated to enact constitutions.
German Confederation: After winning the war against Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15 established a new order in Europe. The hopes of many Germans for a free and united nation-state were dashed. In place of the old empire there was a loose association of sovereign states. The Confederation Parliament in Frankfurt was the only institution, but it was not an elected assembly, but a council of messengers. The Confederation could only act when the two great powers, Prussia and Austria, were in agreement. In later decades, the Confederation saw its main task as suppressing all efforts for unity and freedom. The press and publishing were heavily censored, the universities were watched, and political activity was virtually impossible.
During this period, a modernized economy began to develop in opposition to this reactionary tendency. 1834 saw the formation of the German Customs Union, which created a unified internal market. 1835 saw the opening of Germany's first railroad. Industrialization began. With the emergence of factories, a new industrial working class arose. At first they were better off economically in the factories, but the rapid growth of the population soon led to a surplus of labor. In addition, in the absence of any welfare legislation, the masses of industrial workers were starving. Social tensions gave rise to violent actions, such as the Silesian weavers' revolt of 1844, which was suppressed by the Prussian army. The initial workers' movement could only take shape slowly.
Revolution of 1848: Unlike the revolution of 1789, the revolution of February 1848 in France had immediate repercussions in Germany. in March, popular uprisings took place in all the countries of the Confederation and forced some concessions from the panicked Confederate monarchs. in May, a National Convention was held in the Church of Paul in Frankfurt. It elected Duke John of Austria as Imperial Regent, and established a Reich Ministry which had neither power nor authority. The decisive role in the National Convention was played by the Free Centrists, who fought for the realization of a constitutional monarchy with limited suffrage. The fragmentation of the National Convention from conservatives to radical democrats, which had already slightly taken the shape of the later partisan strife, created difficulties for constitutionalism. Even the liberal centrists were unable to resolve the all-party conflict between the advocates of the "Greater German" and "Lesser German" programs, i.e., those who were for or against the German Empire, including Austria. A democratic constitution was drawn up as a result of the tenacious struggle, which attempted to combine the old and the new and to provide for a government accountable to the Reichstag. But when Austria insisted on annexing to the future empire its entire territory, which included dozens of nationalities, the Little German program prevailed. The National Assembly recommended that King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia succeed to the German throne. The king rejected this proposal, not wanting to give thanks to a revolution in his honor, and in May 1849 the popular revolts to impose the constitution "from below" were defeated in Saxony, Palatinate and Baden. Thus, the defeat of the German Revolution was finalized. Most of the gains were lost, and the constitutions of all the countries were altered in a reactionary manner, and in 1850 the German Confederation was re-established.
The Rise of Prussia: The 1950s were a period of economic boom. Germany became an industrialized country. It still lagged far behind Britain in the scale of production, but it surpassed it in the rate of growth. Leading the way were heavy industry and machine building. Prussia also dominated the German economy. Economic power increased the political self-confidence of the liberal bourgeoisie. the Progressive Party of Germany, founded in 1861, became the strongest party in parliament in Prussia. The party refused to fund the government when it intended to make the military structure reactionary. The newly appointed chancellor, Otto von Bismarck (1862), accepted this contest, and for many years in power the budget was not constitutionally approved by parliament. The opposition of the Progressive Party did not dare to go beyond the parliamentary opposition.
Bismarck strengthened his internal disadvantages by successes in diplomacy. In the German-Danish War (1864), Prussia and Austria forced Denmark to cede Schleswig-Holstein, which was to be administered first by Prussia and Austria***. However, Bismarck deliberately annexed the two duchies from the outset, going so far as to enter into open conflict with Austria. In the German War (1866), Austria was defeated and had to leave the German Confederation. The German Confederation was dissolved and replaced by the North German Confederation, which included all the states north of the river Main, and of which Bismarck was Chancellor.
Bismarck's Empire: Bismarck was at this time committed to completing the unification of Germany in the spirit of the Little Germany program. In the German-French War (1870/71), he crushed the French resistance. The cause of this war was a diplomatic conflict over the succession to the Spanish throne. France had to cede Alsace and Lorraine and pay huge reparations. Stirred by the patriotism of the war, the South German states united with the North German Confederation to form the German Empire; and on January 18, 1871, King Wilhelm I of Prussia was crowned Emperor of Germany at Versailles.
The unification of Germany was not decided by the people "from below", but "from above", through the marquisate treaties. Prussia was so dominant that all the states had the feeling that the new empire was the "Great Prussia". The Reichstag was elected by universal and equal suffrage. Although it had no influence on the composition of the government, it could influence the activities of the government through its participation in imperial legislation and its right to approve the budget. The Chancellor of the Empire is responsible only to the Emperor and not to the Diet, but he must secure a majority for his policies in the Diet. Elections to the people's representative bodies were not yet uniform across the states; eleven German states still practiced hierarchical elections dependent on tax revenues, while the other four had the old practice of dividing the people's representative bodies into social classes. The South German states, which had a longer parliamentary tradition, reformed their electoral laws at the beginning of the 20th century. Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria were adapting to the electoral laws of the Reichstag. Germany's development into a modern industrial state strengthened the influence of an economically productive bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, the aristocracy and the officer corps, which consisted mainly of members of the aristocracy, remained important in society.
Bismarck was imperial chancellor for 19 years. He tried to create a firm position for the empire in the new balance of power in Europe through a persistent policy of peace and alliance. His internal policy was in total contradiction to this visionary foreign policy. He turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the democratic tendencies of the time; his political opponents were summarily dismissed as "anti-imperialists". He persisted, and finally accomplished nothing, in his opposition to the left wing of the liberal bourgeoisie, to the political Catholic Church and, above all, to the organized workers' movement, which had been persecuted by special laws for 12 years (1878-1892) as a result of the "socialist laws". Thus, despite the advanced welfare legislation, the growing working class remained alienated from the state, and in 1890 Bismarck was deposed by the young Emperor Wilhelm II, ultimately becoming a victim of his own system.
William II wanted to rule himself, but lacked the knowledge and fortitude to do so. He gave the impression of a tyrant who threatened the peace more by his words than by his actions. The transition to "world politics" took place under his rule; Germany tried to catch up with the dominance of the imperialist powers, but became increasingly isolated. Wilhelm II tried to win over the working class to his "welfare empire", but failed to obtain the desired results quickly, and soon adopted a reactionary course in internal affairs. His lieutenants relied on a shifting coalition of conservative and bourgeois camps. The Social Democrats, though one of the strongest parties with millions of voters, remained ineffective.
World War I: The assassination of the Crown Prince of Austria on June 28, 1914, led to the outbreak of the First World War. The question of who was to blame for the war has always been controversial. With Germany and Austria on one side and France, Russia and Britain on the other, neither side certainly had any intention of going to war, but both were prepared to take certain risks. The belligerents had clear war aims from the outset. They were prepared to use force even if it was necessary to achieve these goals. Germany's plan to conquer France at a rapid pace did not work. In fact, after Germany's defeat at the Marne River, the war on the Western Front became a stalemate, a battle of positions, culminating in a war of attrition that was militarily pointless with heavy losses on both sides. The Kaiser took a back seat at the beginning of the war, and the weak Reich Chancellors succumbed more and more in the course of the war to the pressure of the Army High Command under the nominal command of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, with General Erich Ludendorff at the helm of power, and the entry of the United States into the war in 1917 finally decided the outcome of the war which was already at an early stage, and which not even the Russian Revolution and the armistice on the Eastern Front could change. Although Germany was already badly wounded, Ludendorff, who had misjudged the situation and insisted on a "victorious peace" as late as September 1918, unexpectedly called for an immediate cease-fire. With the military defeat came the political collapse, and in November 1918 the Kaiser and the kings of the states abdicated without resistance, leaving no one to defend the unreliable Reich. Germany became a **** and a state.
The Weimar **** and state: the regime fell into the hands of the Social Democrats. Most of them had long since abandoned the revolutionary views of the early years and saw their main task as ensuring the orderly transition from the old to the new polity. Private property in industry and agriculture remained inviolable; the old officials and judges, who were mostly ideologically opposed to the **** and the state, were all retained; and the Reich's officer corps retained command of the army. Attempts by the radical forces of the left to continue the revolution in the direction of socialism were opposed by force, and in the National Assembly, elected in January 1919, and which adopted the new constitution of the Reich at its session at Weimar, a majority of votes was given to the three thoroughly ****harmonistic parties, the Social Democrats, the German Democrats, and the Center Party. However, during the 1920's those forces which had more or less reservations about a democratic state were becoming stronger and stronger among the people and in the parliament. The Weimar **** and State was "a **** and State without **** and party men". The enemies were determined to destroy it, while its advocates were only too ready to defend it. In particular, the economic difficulties of the post-war period and the harsh terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty, which Germany was forced to sign in 1919, aroused heavy suspicion of the **** and the State, with the result that the domestic political situation became more and more unstable.
The post-war turmoil culminated in 1923 (inflation, occupation of the Ruhr, Hitler's coup d'état, subversive attempts by the ****-producing parties); later, with the recovery of the economy, a certain degree of political calm emerged. Gustav Stresemann's foreign policy restored political equality to defeated Germany through the Locarno Pact (1925) and accession to the League of Nations (1926). The arts and sciences experienced a brief but active boom in the "Golden Twenties", and in 1925, after the death of the first Reich President, Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert, former Field Marshal Hindenburg was elected head of state as a right-wing candidate. Although he strictly adhered to the constitution, he never had a good feeling in his heart for the **** and the state of the system. With the onset of the world economic crisis in 1929, the Weimar **** and state began to deteriorate. Unemployment and widespread poverty were exploited by both left-wing and right-wing radicalism. There was no longer a governing majority in parliament; each cabinet depended on the support of the president. The hitherto insignificant National Socialist movement of Adolf Hitler, combining extreme anti-democratic tendencies with frenzied anti-Semitism in seemingly revolutionary propaganda, rocketed from 1930 to become the strongest party in 1932, and on January 30, 1933, Hitler became Reich Chancellor. In the cabinet there were several right-wing camp politicians and non-partisan professional ministers in addition to his party, so that there was hope of stopping the dictatorship of the National Socialists.
National Socialist dictatorship: Hitler was quick to get rid of his allies. He secured for himself almost unlimited power and banned all political parties except the Nazi Party by means of an "enabling law" to which all the bourgeois parties subscribed. Trade unions were destroyed, fundamental rights were abolished in name only, and freedom of the press was abolished. The authorities terrorized those they disliked with impunity. Thousands of people were put into hastily established concentration camps without going through the court process. All levels of parliament were banned or stripped of their powers, and when Hindenburg died in 1934, Hitler was left in charge as chancellor and president, and as supreme commander in chief of the Wehrmacht, which until then had had some independence.
During the brief years of the Weimar **** and state, the realization of liberal democracy had not yet taken root in the minds of most Germans. Above all, the long period of internal chaos, the armed battles between political opponents up to bloody street battles, and the mass unemployment due to the world economic crisis greatly shook people's trust in the power of the state. Hitler, on the other hand, restored the economy and rapidly reduced unemployment through various employment and military expansion programs. In addition, the end of the world economic crisis provided him with favorable conditions.
Hitler's ability to achieve his foreign policy aims almost overwhelmingly at first also strengthened his position: in 1935 the Saarland, which had been administered by the League of Nations, was returned to Germany, and the Reich regained sovereignty over its defense in the same year; in 1936 the German army moved into the Rhineland, which had been demilitarized since 1919; in 1938 Austria was annexed to the Reich, and the West condoned Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland. All this made it easy for Hitler to achieve his other goals, despite the fact that there were courageous resisters to the dictator in all sections of society.
As soon as they gained power, the Nazi authorities began to carry out their anti-Jewish program. Jews were gradually stripped of all their personal and civil rights. Whoever could, tried to escape persecution by fleeing abroad.
The persecution of political opponents and the suppression of freedom of expression likewise caused thousands to leave the country. Many of the best German intellectuals, artists and scientists fled abroad.
World War II and its aftermath: Hitler, however, was more ambitious. From the beginning, he was preparing for a war in which he would dominate the whole of Europe, as he proved when he marched his army into Czechoslovakia in March 1939, and on September 1, 1939, he attacked Poland, thus starting the Second World War. The war lasted five and a half years, left large swathes of Europe in ruins and claimed 55 million lives.
The German army first conquered Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia and Greece; in the Soviet Union it was almost at the foot of Moscow; and in North Africa it had jeopardized the Suez Canal. Ruthless occupation regimes were established in the occupied countries. Nevertheless, resistance movements continued, and in 1942 the Nazi regime began the "final solution of the Jewish question": all Jews who could be captured were placed in concentration camps and murdered. The total number of victims was estimated at six million. The year this heinous crime began, the war took a turn for the worse; since then Germany has been losing ground on every battlefield.
The Nazi regime's reign of terror and military defeats strengthened domestic resistance to Hitler. This was represented by people from all walks of life, and on July 20, 1944, an uprising started mainly by military officers failed. Hitler escaped an assassination by time bomb in his base camp and retaliated in blood. More than 4,000 people from all walks of life who took part in the revolt were executed in the following months. Prominent figures of the resistance, representing all those who lost their lives, were Admiral Ludwig Beck, Colonel Count Stauffenberg, the former mayor of Leipzig, Karl G?rtler, and the Social Democrat Julius LeBeauer.
The war continued. Hitler defied the Allied occupation of the country, and on April 30, 1945, the dictator killed himself, and his successor, Admiral D?nitz, whom he had named in his will, surrendered unconditionally eight days later.
Historical orientation after 1945: After the unconditional surrender of the German army on May 8/9, 1945, the last Reich government under Admiral D?nitz existed for two weeks. Subsequently, members of the government were arrested. They and other high officials of the Nazi dictatorship were later charged by the victorious powers at the Nuremberg Tribunal with crimes against peace and humanity.
The victorious powers - the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France - assumed supreme authority over the Reich's lands on June 5th. Their main purpose was to exercise absolute jurisdiction over Germany in accordance with the minutes of the London Conference (September 12, 1944) and the agreements reached later. The result of the basis of this policy was the division of Germany into three occupation zones and a capital city, Berlin, divided into three parts, as well as a ****same Control Commission of three military commanders.
At the Yalta (Crimean Peninsula) Conference in February, 1945, France was included by the three powers in their circle as the 4th controlling power and was given its own zone of occupation. The intention declared at Yalta was to abolish the existence of the German state, not to divide the territory of the Reich. Stalin was particularly interested in retaining Germany as an economic unity. He demanded reparations for the enormous losses suffered by the Soviet Union as a result of the German invasion, which were far too high for an occupied territory to bear. In addition to the $20 billion war reparations, Moscow demanded that 80 percent of all German industrial enterprises be transferred entirely to the Soviet Union.
After initially proposing several very different programs, the United States and Britain also turned to the idea of retaining a viable Germany as a whole. This was done not out of greed for war reparations, but because, from about the fall of 1944, U.S. President Roosevelt was seeking to stabilize the situation in Central Europe as he considered the global equilibrium system as a whole. In this, the stabilization of the German economy was indispensable. Thus, he made an immediate decision to discard the infamous Morgantau Plan (September 1944). According to the plan's recommendations, the German people should in the future live by farming, and Germany would be divided into Northern Germany and Southern Germany.
However, there were growing differences between the victorious powers. As a result, the original goal of the Potsdam Conference (July 17-August 2, 1945) - the establishment of a post-war order in Europe - soon took a backseat: there was agreement only on the issues of de-Nazification, demilitarization, the abolition of economic centralization, and the education of Germans in democracy. In addition, the victorious Western powers agreed to deport Germans from the eastern part of Germany under Polish jurisdiction, northeastern Prussia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The agreement had serious consequences. Although the Western powers promised that this repatriation would be carried out "humanely", the opposite was true. Some 7.75 million Germans were subsequently brutally deported. They paid the price for Germany's sins, as well as for the shifting of Poland's western borders as a result of the Soviet occupation of K?nigsberg and eastern Poland. Only the issue of retaining the four occupation zones as an economic and political unity was achieved