Editing Potsdam Agreement (section)

==Aftermath==
{{Main|Four Ds}}
Already during the Potsdam Conference, on 30 July 1945, the [[Allied Control Council]] was constituted in Berlin to execute the Allied resolutions (the "Four Ds"):<ref>{{cite web|author1=United States Department of State|title=Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, Council of Foreign Ministers; Germany and Austria, Volume III Document 461|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1949v03/d461|publisher=Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs|access-date=28 June 2017|date=24 May 1949|archive-date=3 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190903150130/https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1949v03/d461|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Denazification|url=http://www.alliiertenmuseum.de/en/topics/denazification.html|website=Alliierten Museum|publisher=Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media|access-date=28 June 2017|archive-date=6 June 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190606093137/http://www.alliiertenmuseum.de/en/topics/denazification.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
*[[Denazification]] of the German society to eradicate [[Nazi]] influence
*[[Demilitarization]] of the former [[Wehrmacht]] forces and the German [[arms industry]]; however, the circumstances of the [[Cold War]] soon led to Germany's ''[[Wiederbewaffnung]]'' including the re-establishment of both the [[Bundeswehr]] and the [[National People's Army]] 
*[[Democratization]], including the formation of [[political parties]] and [[trade union]]s, [[freedom of speech]], of the [[freedom of the press|press]] and [[freedom of religion|religion]]
*[[Decentralization]] resulting in the re-establishment of [[German federalism]], along with disassemblement as part of the [[industrial plans for Germany]]. Dismantling was stopped in [[West Germany]] in 1951 according to the [[Truman Doctrine]], whereafter [[East Germany]] had to cope with the impact alone.

===Territorial changes===
The northern half of the German province of [[East Prussia]], occupied by the [[Red Army]] during its [[East Prussian Offensive]] followed by its [[Evacuation of East Prussia|evacuation]] in winter 1945, had already been incorporated into Soviet territory as the [[Kaliningrad Oblast]]. The Western Allies promised to support the annexation of the territory north of the [[Braunsberg]]–[[Goldap]] line when a Final German Peace Treaty was held.

The Allies had acknowledged the legitimacy of the Polish [[Provisional Government of National Unity]], which was about to form a Soviet [[satellite state]]. Urged by Stalin, the UK and the US gave in to put the German territories east of the [[Oder–Neisse line]] from the [[Baltic Sea|Baltic]] coast west of [[Świnoujście]] up to the [[Czechoslovakia|Czechoslovak]] border "under Polish administration"; allegedly confusing the [[Lusatian Neisse]] and the [[Glatzer Neisse]] rivers. The proposal of an Oder–[[Bober]]–[[Queis]] line was rejected by the Soviet delegation. The cession included the former [[Free City of Danzig]] and the seaport of [[Stettin]] on the mouth of the [[Oder]] River ([[Szczecin Lagoon]]), vital for the [[Upper Silesian Industrial Region]].

Post-war, 'Germany as a whole' would consist solely of aggregate territories of the respective zones of occupation. As all former German territories east of the Oder–Neisse line were excluded from the Soviet Occupation Zone, they were consequently excluded from 'Germany as a whole'.
===Expulsions===
{{Expulsion of Germans}}
{{main|Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)}}

In the course of the proceedings, and after the German state [[War crimes in occupied Poland during World War II|killed]] around 5-6 million Polish citizens during the war, [[Polish communists]] had begun to suppress the German population west of the Bóbr river to underline their demand for a border on the Lusatian Neisse. The Allied resolution on the "orderly transfer" of German population became the legitimation of the expulsion of Germans from the nebulous parts of [[Central Europe]], if they had not already fled from the advancing Red Army.

The expulsion of ethnic Germans by the Poles concerned, in addition to Germans within areas behind the 1937 Polish border in the West (such as in most of the old Prussian province of West Prussia), the territories placed "under Polish administration" pending a Final German Peace Treaty, i.e. southern East Prussia ([[Masuria]]), [[Farther Pomerania]], the [[New March]] region of the former [[Province of Brandenburg]], the districts of the ''Grenzmark'' [[Posen-West Prussia]], [[Lower Silesia]] and those parts of [[Upper Silesia]] that had remained with Germany after the 1921 [[Upper Silesia plebiscite]]. It further affected the German minority living within the territory of the former [[Second Polish Republic]] in [[Greater Poland]], eastern Upper Silesia, [[Chełmno Land]] and the [[Polish Corridor]] with Danzig.

The [[Germans in Czechoslovakia (1918–1938)|Germans in Czechoslovakia]] (34% of the population of the territory of what is now the Czech Republic), known as [[Sudeten Germans]] but also [[Carpathian Germans]], were expelled from the ''[[Sudetenland]]'' region where they formed a majority, from linguistic enclaves in central [[Bohemia]] and [[Moravia]], as well as from the city of [[Prague]].

Though the Potsdam Agreement referred only to Poland, Czechoslovakia and [[Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)|Hungary]], expulsions also occurred in [[Kingdom of Romania|Romania]], where the [[Transylvanian Saxons]] were [[Deportation of Germans from Romania after World War II|deported]] and their property seized, and in [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]]. In the Soviet territories, Germans were expelled from northern East Prussia ([[Oblast Kaliningrad]]) but also from the adjacent Lithuanian [[Klaipėda Region]] and other lands settled by [[Baltic Germans]].