Allied Occupation Zones in Germany

From Freepedia

The Allied powers who defeated Germany in World War II divided the country west of the Oder River into four occupation zones for administrative purposes during the period 1945-1949.

The United States zone consisted of Bavaria, Hesse and the northern portions of the present state of Baden-Württemberg.

The British zone consisted of Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and the present state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The French zone consisted of the present state of Rheinland-Pfalz and the southern areas of Baden-Württemberg.

The Soviet zone incorporated Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

The city of Berlin was jointly occupied by the four Allied Powers and itself subdivided into four zones.

Each power wielded government authority in its own zone and carried out different policies toward the population, local and state governments there.

The original Allied plan to govern Germany as a single unit through the Allied Control Council broke down in 1946-1947 due to growing Cold War tensions between the West and the Soviet Union, and was never fully implemented (see Berlin Blockade).

The three western zones merged to form the Federal Republic of Germany when that state was declared in May 1949, and the Soviet zone emerged as the German Democratic Republic in October of that year.

All German territory east of the Oder (Pomerania, Silesia and East Prussia) was annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union. The territory annexed by Germany during the war from France, Belgium, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Lithuania was returned to those countries (or annexed by the Soviet Union).