Germany: An occupied nation
When Germany surrendered on 8th May 1945, half of the country was occupied by the Western Allies, Britain, America, and the forces of the previously occupied countries of Europe and the other half by the Russian armies.
The
four major powers in Europe, Britain, France, America and Russia decided
to divide Germany into four zones of occupation; Soviet, American, British
and French. The Soviets insisted on taking massive reparations from Germany,
while Britain and America had no wish to visit massive reparations on Germany
because it caused havoc as evidenced by the aftermath of the First World
War. Eventually, the Allies agreed and Roosevelt compromised on a figure
of $20 billion to be paid in goods and equipment over a period of years.
These decisions at the Yalta Conference revealed the first cracks in the
Allied alliance. Victory over Hitler left the Western Allies outnumbered
by the Soviet forces in northwest Europe. Only the destruction of two Japanese
cities by atomic bombs stopped the Soviet armies from resuming their advance
into Western Europe after Japan was defeated.
The Soviet Army at the end of World War Two was the largest in the world, and the largest the world had ever known, but Russia itself had been devastated. Millions of Soviet citizens had died. The United States by contrast, ended the war as the greatest industrial power, untouched by enemy bombs and unscathed by enemy attacks on her cities, towns and industries.
In Eastern Europe, the Soviets gradually took over the countries they had liberated, Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Eastern Austria, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania and Romania all became part of the Soviet Block, with only Greece being saved by the timely arrival of a British army in 1944.
On 5th March 1946, Churchill gave his famous Iron Curtain speech stating that 'From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. The Berlin crisis of 1948 led to the massive Berlin airlift, and subsequently the formation of NATO. In Western Europe, the Marshall Plan brought renewed prosperity and funding to Europe and West Germany gradually returned to normality, becoming a nation proper in 1948 with a new constitution. Stalin's attempt to prevent the east-west division of Germany failed.
Italy was threatened by a resurgent Communist party in elections on 18th April 1948, but the election brought Italy's Christian Democrats to power in a landslide victory and the Marshall Plan aid then flooded into the country. Czechoslovakia became part of the Soviet block and thus was denied Marshall Plan aid.
On 29th August 1949, the Soviets detonated their first atom bomb. The race was on, now Russia and America would race to build the biggest, most powerful bombs for the next fifty years, battling to gain temporary supremacy in the event of a nuclear war. In May 1955, the Western Allies formally ended their occupation of West Germany and the Federal Republic of West Germany was admitted to NATO, causing the Soviet bloc to form the Warsaw Pact. Germany was still home to the main elements of NATO's principal defence against the west, BAOR and the US Army in Germany as well as hundreds of fighters, bombers, close support aircraft and tactical nuclear weapons.
The
Russians built the Berlin wall in 1961. This wall cut East and West Berlin
in half, dividing neighbourhoods and families in an effort to stem the
tide of fleeing East Berliners and East Germans to the safe haven of West
Berlin. Over 200 people would die trying to cross the wall in the following
years. The first wall was barbed wire, but over the years a permanent concrete
wall replaced this. Machine gun posts, minefields, watchtowers and searchlights
were all added. Buildings within a hundred yards of the wall were levelled
and would be escapers were shot as they tried to escape. As well as the
Berlin Wall there was a Country Wall encompassing the outer edges of West
Berlin and preventing the residents of East Germany from entering. The
Berlin Wall saw most of the old crossing points closed, only seven were
allowed to be used by East Germans and West Berliners could use only one
with special permits, Checkpoint Charlie, in the American Zone.
In 1984, Gorbachev came to power and in a spectacular four years brought about the end of the Cold War, marred by the explosion at Chernobyl, which sent a radioactive cloud over much of Western Europe. Glasnost saw new freedoms granted to Soviet citizens, more information was made available and gradually the Soviet nation started to free itself from the arms of Communism. In 1989, the Iron Curtain began to fall and the Communist Government began to fall as the threat of Soviet intervention was withdrawn.
Fall of the Wall
On
9th November 1989, the East German Government announced that effective
the next day, exit visas would automatically be granted to all citizens
who wished to visit the West. Crowds gathered that night at the eight crossing
points in Berlin. They were still suspicious and the border guards were
uncertain, as they had received no clear instructions about what to do.
Finally, under pressure from the crowds, the guards decided to open the
gates and forego the visas. At first only a few wary people passed through,
but as they weren't stopped or attacked by the border guards, the trickle
became a flood. Families were reunited, strangers embraced and the Berliners
went to work on the wall. Hammer, chisels, and anything else at hand were
put to work. Over the next year, the Berlin Wall was almost totally demolished
and pictures of the fall of the wall were carried around the world on live
satellite television. The fever spread. In Czechoslovakia massive peaceful
demonstrations brought down the Communist Government with no blood shed.
It was called the velvet revolution. On 3rd October 1990, East Germany
and West Germany ceased to exist; after 55 years, Germany was whole once
more.
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