Page 1 - A Country Divided
After Germany’s defeat in World War II, the four victors divided it into
four zones at, one for each victor. They also decided that they would all four
govern Germany through the Control Commission, which was based in Berlin. Berlin
was also divided into four sectors. This division was the result of distrust
between the Western Allies and the USSR, neither of which wanted to lose Germany’s
industrial and manpower resources in possible future conflicts. This led them
to continue to keep troops in Germany to prevent the other side from getting
control of the country. Because Berlin was in the Soviet zone, it was a capitalist
island in a sea of communism. The USSR continually used this fact to its advantage
by applying pressure to the Western sectors of Berlin. The first instance of
this was the Berlin Blockade, which took
Left:
Map of Germany after division into zones by the US, Great Britain, France,
and Russia (Berlin is the square dot in the Soviet zone). Right: Map
of Berlin after division into sectors.
place June 1948 through May 1949. In this case, Stalin cut all rail, road,
and canal links to the western sectors of Berlin and power supplies from
the eastern sectors. However, this blockade failed to force the western
powers out of Berlin because they used airplanes to drop supplies across
the blockade in what became known as the Berlin Airlift. After this failure,
the division of Berlin was sealed.
