World War II left most of Germany in ruins. In June 1945, the Allied Big Four Britain, France, Soviet-Union, and the United States took over supreme authority of Germany. The four allies decided to rebuild Germany to a Democracy. When World War II ended a post war Europe was divided between Western Democracies and Soviet army occupied nations of Eastern Europe. In the middle of it all lay Germany, divided and occupied by the four allies. The Soviet Josef Stalin, seeking to consolidate communist rule in East Europe demanded the Western Allies withdraw from their occupation zones in Berlin. In 1947 the British and American zones were united. The following year the three western powers issued a new currency to end inflation and the black market. Russia issued a new currency, which caused trouble in Berlin. Russia imposed a blockade of western Berlin, which lasted eleven months. The Soviet-Union put up barriers blocking trade and tension grew on both sides. It was a conflict later known as the Cold War. There were principle causes of the Cold War on which billions of dollars were spent for weapons and propagand

On August 13, 1961, East Germany leader backed by the Soviets authorized the sudden construction of a wall between West and East Berlin; where hundreds of thousands of East Germans had continued to flee to the West. The wall sealed all escape routes and forced fleeing East Germans to stay and deal with their own government. This was the only existence in history of the world that a wall was erected to keep an entire people confined to one place, rather than to keep someone out. The wall delivered a devastating blow because it presented itself as the model for Germany’s future. It led to greater prosperity in the German Democratic Republic after 1961 and helped East Germans with the highest standard of living with the Soviet Empire. Ten years later the Soviet Union concluded that its interest required closer relations between the two Germany’s. In 1969, the Free Democratic Party won a razor thin victory in parliamentary elections, and Willy Brandt became chancellor. The new government had no intention of changing the Federal Republic Governments policy towards the East. The Brandt government decided to overturn two decades of West German foreign policy and to recognize the territorial status in Europe, including the division of Germany. The word “Reunification” was dropped from the government’s vocabulary. In August 1970, the first step was made with a German-Soviet treaty in which both states renounced the use of force in Europe. In 1971 Erich Honecker took Ulbricht’s place because he opposed this. Honecker opposed any form of “revisionism” and was totally loyal to the Soviet-Union. He strongly supported he erection of the Berlin wall and was involved in the decision to shoot and kill along the dividing line between East and West Germany. About 350 people were killed trying to cross the border. From the beginning, West Germany’s foreign policy was heavily influenced by Germany, but it also provided the west with

Some topics in this essay:
East Germans, Republic Government, East German, War II, Western Allies, Cold War, West Germany, West German, Honecker Ulbricht’s, Soviet Union, democratic republic, federal republic, west germany, east germans, republic government, german democratic, federal republic government, german democratic republic, east germany, western allies, world war ii, berlin wall, western powers, east west germany, germany allies decided,