Allied-occupied Germany

After Germany's surrender in May 1945, the country was occupied by the four victorious powers: the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France, each of which administered its own zone. Berlin, deep inside the Soviet zone, was divided into four sectors. The Allies had agreed at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences to demilitarize and denazify Germany, to try war criminals and to treat the country as an economic unit under the Allied Control Council. Growing tension between the Soviet Union and the Western powers prevented this, and the Western zones were merged and developed economically. In 1949 the occupation gave way to two separate states: the Federal Republic of Germany in the west and the German Democratic Republic in the east.

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