Germany 1919-1990

1957

In 1949 the western allies set up a German governement in Bonn, the former residence of the Electors of Cologne on the Rhine river. The Federal Republic of Germany was created. It was still under western allied occupation. The Soviets declared a German Democratic Republic in its zone. So now there were two German states. The Eastern G.D.R would soon do away with its constituent states. Theoretically however the allies were still in the end responsible for the governement of Germany as a whole. So a rather comlicated situation arose where international law was concerned. In 1955 both states gained partial sovereignty and were allowed to have their own armies and conduct their own foreign policy. The Federal Republic became a part of the Western Alliance in NATO, while the G.D.R. became a member of the Soviet led Warsaw Pact. The occupation was given up in all but name. The allies still retained some military power over their zones of occupation and held on to the theoretical all allied end-reponsibillity for Germany as a whole. It was argued by especially western Germans that this ment that the German Realm in its 1937 borders was still in existence, since only the communion of the four allied occupation powers and the other allies could do away with that. Berlin was to remain fully occupied by the allies. Since 1950 the western sectors of Berlin appointed some members to the Federal diet in Bonn, and were associated with the Federal Republic and the G.D.R. governement was residing in Soviet occupied East-Berlin. The Soviets ruled that East Berlin was a part of the G.D.R. The western powers and the Federal Republic never accepted that because it felt that the four allies had a joint responsibillity for Berlin as a whole. Berlin as a whole, was in their eyes a part of Germany as a whole. Countries that recognosed the G.D.R. could not at the same time have diplomatic relations with the Federal Republic, excluding the four allied powers. (The Hallstein doctrine) In practice only the Soviet-Union had ties to both German states. In 1957 the French ceded the Saar basin to the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Soviets tried to drive the western allies out of West-Berlin twice, once in 1948 and again under Chrutsjev in 1956. Both times a blocade was broken by an airlift. Because of its staus as an all allied occupied city, Berlin was the only place where Germans could freely travel from East to West, the border between the Federal Republic and the G.D.R. being fortified and barricaded. Great numbers of G.D.R. inhabitants left the country through Berlin. In 1961 the G.D.R. governenent erected a wall seperating East and West Berlin and made the G.D.R. with East-Berlin a herimetically closed country. The Soviets declared their occupation of Berlin over and handed it over to their G.D.R. satelite state. Later an agreement between the allies reaffirmed East-Berlin as the Soviet zone of an all allied occupied Berlin. The parties agreed to disagree about the wall and the status of the two parts of the city towards the two German states.

In the early 1970's a period of relaxation in the Cold War induced the Federal Republic to open ties to Eastern European countries including the G.D.R. The first Social Democrat Federal Chancelor, Willy Brandt, initiated the opening of relations with the G.D.R. on the basis that the Federal Republic would not see the G.D.R as a foreign country but as a part of  Germany as a whole, in reference to the tights the allies still held towards Germany as a whole. The G.D.R. politly disagreed but entered into the treaty just the same. Willy Brandt also went to Warsaw and Moscow and signed treaties in which the Federal Republic recognosed the post-war borders, giving up their claim to the territories that were placed under Polish and Soviet administration by the allied governement in 1945.

A ferocious political and judicial battle within the Federal Republic was the consequence. The Federal diet ratified the treaties but the State of Bavaria challenged the treaties in the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. Bavaria's challenge was thrown out, but the court ruled that the Federal Republic might very well recognise Poland and the Soviets Unions post war borders, but in this could only speak for itself, as just a part of Germany and not for Germany as a whole, The German Realm, a state still in exitence where International Law was concerned because of the enduring rights and responsibilities that the allies still held over Germany as a whole. In other words, the Federal Republic was not entirely identifiable with the German Realm. There were the allies and now too the G.D.R. to be reckoned with. An elaborate compromise. All allies had recognised the new borders and so had the G.D.R. It enabled conservatives to claim that the lost provinces were still theoretically a part of the German realm and it enabled liberals and social democrats to take the view that they were now lost and a part of Poland and the Soviet Union as far as the Federal Republic was concerned.