1On May 8, 945, Nazi Germany surrendered. Defeated Germany not only lost the territory of other countries annexed before and during the war, but also according to the Crimean Declaration of the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union and the Potsdam Agreement 1 14000 square kilometers east of the Oder-Nice River were ceded to the Soviet Union and Poland, respectively, and the remaining German territory and the capital Berlin were occupied and established by the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France.
Although in the international documents about Germany after the war, all the countries concerned indicated that they would safeguard the unity of Germany and make Germany a peaceful and democratic country after the elimination of Nazism and militarism, all the agreements were interpreted as beneficial to them because of the different positions, purposes and interests of the East and West allies. Therefore, around the implementation of the Potsdam Agreement, the restoration of German reunification and the issue of West Berlin, the four major powers and various political forces in their occupied areas launched a sharp and complicated struggle.
With the intensification of the Cold War between the East and the West, the United States and the Soviet Union changed from wartime allies to competitors, and the Soviet-occupied areas and the western-occupied areas embarked on different development paths, and the division of Germany became a reality step by step.
From 1947 to 1949, the United States, Britain and France successively merged their occupied areas in West Germany, held a constitutional convention in the occupied areas of West Germany, formulated an interim constitution, implemented monetary reform, and replaced the original imperial mark with Simak. 1May 1949 10, the Constituent Assembly of West Station District decided to establish a federal state with Bonn as its capital. On May 23rd, the Basic Law "Provisional Constitution" was passed and the German Federation was established.
In April 1946, five states in East Germany occupied by the Soviet Union held township and district elections, and established corresponding parliaments and governments at all levels. The United Socialist Party of Germany, which was formed by the merger of the German Production Party and the Social Democratic Party, occupies a dominant position in all levels of political power institutions.
1949101On October 7th, the German People's Committee in Suzhan District announced the establishment of the German Democratic Republic. So far, two German countries have been formed on German soil.
After the split, Germany was in the whirlpool of political and military contest between the East and the West, and became the front of confrontation between the two major military blocs in Europe. 1954 10 10 In October, the Federal Republic of Germany signed the Paris Agreement with the United States, Britain, France and other western countries, which took effect the following year. West Germany ended its occupation, became a sovereign country and joined NATO. A few days later, on May 14, the Warsaw Treaty Organization, an eastern military group with the Soviet Union as an ally and including the GDR, was also established. For a long time after that, the division of Germany was regarded as an inseparable part of the post-war European order.
In this case, the Soviet-occupied area in the eastern half of Berlin and the occupied area in the western half of Berlin formed two systems: two municipal governments, two police systems and two currencies. 1948,65438+In February, two more city councils appeared. West Berlin, controlled by the United States, Britain and France, received huge assistance from the Marshall Plan, which was quickly restored and developed, and was built as a "window" for the western world. But it is located in the hinterland of East Germany, like an island.
From 1945 to 196 1 year, hundreds of thousands of citizens of the German Democratic Republic fled to the Federal Republic of Germany through Berlin every year, causing huge losses to the German Democratic Republic.
The establishment of the Berlin wall
196 13 at 2 am on August 13, dazzling searchlights pierced the night sky, announcing the beginning of Berlin's 28-year-old separation of things.
On Sunday, when Berliners woke up, they found a 40-kilometer-long barbed wire fence hastily laid along the border of Soviet-occupied areas. The People's House of the GDR issued an order to block West Berlin with barbed wire, and later changed it into a concrete wall to build the world-famous "Berlin Wall", which cut off the free exchange between East and West Berlin.
The Berlin Wall was built in 1964. The last project of the Berlin Wall was completed in 1975. The Berlin Wall is169.5km long, including cement wall104.5km, cement wall10km and barbed wire 55km. This wall is about 3.6 meters high. 253 watchtowers, 136 bunkers, 270 police dog piles and 108 km long trenches were built along the wall to prevent cars and tanks. In addition, there are iron fences, contact signals 1 19.5 km, and patrol lanes patrolled by border guards 1 19.5 km. People on both sides of the Berlin Wall have seven crossing points.
A total of 5,000 people escaped from the Berlin Wall, and at least 255 people died while crossing the border, of which 1, 7 1 died while trying to cross the concrete wall in the city center.
Berlin and its concrete barrier have also become the frontier of the Cold War and the spy war between East and West Germany. The KGB and CIA set up large-scale spy agencies on both sides to confront each other. The Soviet Union exchanged captured spies with the West on the Glinick Bridge connecting Potsdam and West Berlin.
196 1, 10 During the period from June 27th to October 28th, 10, the two armies of the United States and the Soviet Union had a dispute over the right of the United States to enter the occupied areas of the Soviet Union. Tanks of both sides confronted each other at Charlie checkpoint on Friedrich Street 16 hours, which was probably the most sensitive and dangerous scene in the relationship between East and West.
The fall of the Berlin wall
The Berlin Wall has been strongly opposed and accused by the west since its establishment, and border incidents have emerged one after another. The West often demands the dismantling of the Berlin Wall on the grounds of "human rights violations". Honecker, the leader of the GDR, pointed out that he was not opposed to the demolition, but only after the factors leading to the construction of the wall disappeared. After the 1980s, with the relaxation of the relationship between East and West and the improvement of German-German relations, the tension around the Berlin Wall was greatly eased, the automatic shooting devices and mines buried in the German-German border were dismantled, and the number of people coming and going increased significantly.
During the period of 1989, there was a whirlwind of "reform" and "liberalization" in Poland and Hungary, and a large-scale demonstration demanding "liberalization" broke out in Leipzig, GDR. Honecker was forced to resign because of the fierce internal struggle of the United Socialist Party, which was governed by people's morality. Under the influence of Gorbachev's "new thinking", krenz, the new leader of the Chinese Revolutionary Committee, made a breakthrough decision-opening the Berlin Wall.
1989165438+1October 9, on the night when it was announced that People's Republic of China (PRC) citizens could freely cross the Berlin Wall, about 654.38+million people flocked from the east to the west of the Berlin Wall, and all the guardrails were removed, thus the artificial barrier of 28 years disappeared.
1990 June 13, the mingde government began to demolish all the Berlin walls. 1990 10 10 The reunification of Germany on 3 October marked the complete end of the "Yalta Model" in Europe based on the division of Germany and characterized by the partition of the Soviet Union and the United States after the Second World War.