In May 1945, after the end of World War II, Germany ceased to be a single state. The countries participating in the anti-Hitler coalition decided to divide the country into zones of occupation. Subsequently, in the territory inhabited by the Germans, two independent states were created - Germany and the GDR.
Occupation of Germany
At the end of May 1945, the territory of former Nazi Germany was divided into several parts. Austria left the empire. Alsace and Lorraine returned under the auspices of France. Czechoslovakia got back the Sudetenland. Statehood was restored in Luxembourg.
Part of the territory of Poland, annexed by the Germans in 1939, returned to its composition. The eastern part of Prussia was divided among themselves by the USSR and Poland.
The rest of Germany was divided by the Allies into four zones of occupation, where control was carried out by Soviet, British, American and French military authorities. The countries that took part in the occupation of German lands agreed to pursue a coherent policy, the basic principles of which were the denazification and demilitarization of the former German empire.
The formation of Germany
A few years later, in 1949, on the territory of the American, British and French zones of occupation, Germany was proclaimed - the Federal Republic of Germany, the capital of which was Bonn. Western politicians thus planned to create in this part of Germany a state built on a capitalist model, which could become a springboard for a possible war with the communist regime.
The Americans provided considerable assistance to the new bourgeois German state. Thanks to this support, Germany quickly began to turn into an economically developed power. In the 1950s they even spoke of a "German economic miracle."
The country needed cheap labor, the main source of which was Turkey.
