Editing East Germany (section)

=== Zones of occupation ===
{{Further|Allied-occupied Germany|Soviet occupation zone of Germany}}

In the Yalta and [[Potsdam Conference|Potsdam]] conferences of 1945, the Allies established their joint military occupation and administration of Germany via the [[Allied Control Council]] (ACC), a four-power (US, UK, USSR, France) [[military occupation|military government]] effective until the restoration of German sovereignty. In eastern Germany, the Soviet Occupation Zone (''Sowjetische Besatzungszone'', SBZ) comprised the five states (''Länder'') of [[Mecklenburg-Vorpommern]], [[Brandenburg]], [[Saxony]], [[Saxony-Anhalt]], and [[Thuringia]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Peterson |first=Edward N. |author-link=Edward N. Peterson |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38207545 |title=Russian Commands and German Resistance: The Soviet Occupation, 1945–1949 |date=1999 |publisher=P. Lang |isbn=0-8204-3948-7 |location=New York |pages=5 |oclc=38207545}}</ref> Disagreements over the policies to be followed in the occupied zones quickly led to a breakdown in cooperation between the four powers, and the Soviets administered their zone without regard to the policies implemented in the other zones. The Soviets withdrew from the ACC in 1948; subsequently, as the other three zones were increasingly unified and granted self-government, the Soviet administration instituted a separate socialist government in its zone.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Peterson |first=Edward N. |author-link=Edward N. Peterson |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38207545 |title=Russian Commands and German Resistance: The Soviet Occupation, 1945–1949 |date=1999 |publisher=P. Lang |isbn=0-8204-3948-7 |location=New York |oclc=38207545}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Stokes |first=Raymond G. |author-link=Raymond G. Stokes |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/51480817 |title=Constructing Socialism: Technology and Change in East Germany 1945–1990 |date=2000 |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |isbn=0-8018-7299-5 |location=Baltimore |oclc=51480817}}</ref>

[[File:Deutschland Bundeslaender 1949.png|thumb|left|upright|West Germany (blue) comprised the Western Allies' zones, excluding disputed [[Saar (protectorate)|Saarland]] (purple); the Soviet zone, East Germany (red) surrounded West Berlin (yellow).]]

Seven years after the Allies' 1945 [[Potsdam Agreement]] on common German policies, the USSR via the [[Stalin Note]] (10 March 1952) proposed [[German reunification]] and [[superpower disengagement]] from Central Europe, which the three Western Allies (US, UK, France) rejected.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ruggenthaler |first=Peter |date=2011 |title=The 1952 Stalin Note on German Unification: The Ongoing Debate |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26924047 |journal=Journal of Cold War Studies |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=172–212 |doi=10.1162/JCWS_a_00145 |issn=1520-3972 |jstor=26924047}}</ref> Soviet leader [[Joseph Stalin]], a Communist proponent of reunification, died in early March 1953. Similarly, [[Lavrenty Beria]], the First Deputy Prime Minister of the USSR, pursued German reunification but was removed from power that same year before he could act on the matter. His successor, [[Nikita Khrushchev]], rejected reunification as equivalent to returning East Germany for annexation to the West; hence reunification was off the table until the [[Fall of the Berlin Wall|fall of the Berlin wall]] in 1989.

[[File:West and East Berlin.svg|thumb|Map of West and East Berlin bisected by the Berlin Wall]]

East Germany regarded East Berlin as its capital, and the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc diplomatically recognized East Berlin as the capital. However, the Western Allies disputed this recognition, and considered the entire city of Berlin to be [[military occupation|occupied territory]] governed by the ACC. According to Margarete Feinstein, the West and most [[Third World]] countries largely unrecognized East Berlin's status as the capital.<ref name="German Democratic Republic page 78">{{Cite book |last=Feinstein |first=Margarete Myers |title=State Symbols: The Quest for Legitimacy in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, 1949–1959 |date=2001 |publisher=Brill Academic Publishers |isbn=9780391041035 |page=78 |quote=... claims of East Berlin as the capital of the GDR, ... East Berlin was not recognized by the West and most Third World countries.}}</ref> In practice, the [[Cold War]] nullified the ACC's authority, East Berlin's status as occupied territory largely became a [[legal fiction]], and the Soviet sector of Berlin fully integrated into the GDR.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fulbrook |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Fulbrook |title=Becoming East German: Socialist Structures and Sensibilities after Hitler |last2=Port |first2=Andrew I. |publisher=Berghahn Books |date=2013 |isbn=9780857459756}}</ref>

The deepening Cold War conflict between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union over the unresolved status of West Berlin led to the [[Berlin Blockade]] (24 June 1948{{snd}}12 May 1949). The Soviet army initiated the blockade by halting all Allied rail, road, and water traffic to and from West Berlin. The Allies countered the Soviets with the [[Berlin Airlift]] (1948–49) of food, fuel, and supplies to West Berlin.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Haydock |first=Michael D. |title=City Under Siege: The Berlin Blockade and Airlift, 1948–1949 |date=2000}}</ref>