On 2 December , the British and Americans decided to merge their respective occupation zones. With the addition of the French zone in , West Germany became the Trizone. From 20 April to 2 June , the three powers met in London to discuss the future of the country and decided to call a constituent assembly, the German Parliamentary Council.
These federal entities were created by the occupying powers, on more or less historical lines. For example, whilst the State of Prussia was abolished by the Allies, Bavaria was retained. This action marked the effective end to any discussion of reuniting East and West Germany.
The city of Berlin was also divided in a like fashion. This arrangement was supposed to be temporary, but as Cold War animosities began to harden, it became increasingly evident that the division between the communist and non-communist controlled sections of Germany and Berlin would become permanent. In December, the United States and Great Britain combined their occupation zones into what came to be known as Bizonia.
France agreed to become part of this arrangement, and in May , the three zones became one. Many of the German representatives at the meeting were subdued, for they had harbored the faint hope that Germany might be reunified. Two communist members of the council refused to sign the proclamation establishing the new state.
The Soviets reacted quickly to the action in West Germany. These actions in marked the end of any talk of a reunified Germany. In , with Soviet strength ebbing and the Communist Party in East Germany steadily losing its grip on power, East and West Germany were finally reunited as one nation.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! On May 23, thousands of LGBTQ activists celebrated as Ireland became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage through referendum. The vote attracted a large turnout, with The fall of the Berlin Wall put an end to the Stasi remand center. But only few interrogators were ever made accountable for what had happened behind these walls, and none were sent to jail.
People were also protesting in other East European countries, especially Poland and Hungary. On October 7, , the communist regime celebrated the founding of the GDR for the very last time: 40 years of the German Democratic Republic. Just one month later, on November 9, the Berlin Wall fell.
Millions of Germans, in both the East and the West, were ecstatic. Still, that was not the death knell for the GDR; that would not come for another year, on October 3, , when Germany was reunified. Meanwhile, the relatively small country, which had only 17 million residents before it was dissolved, has spent the past 29 years as part of the larger Federal Republic of Germany, today home to 83 million people. Still, no one would think of describing the whole as a unified fatherland.
The economy in the west is far stronger than in the east. Workers earn more in the west and very few companies have managers from the east. Probably the best known Cold War border crossing was located in the center of Berlin. In this was where the American and Russian sectors met. The crossing remained after the Berlin Wall was built in , and then served for foreigners to cross between East and West Berlin. Today a private museum depicts the city's division and escape stories - those that succeeded and those that failed.
The repression of political opponents began in with the establishment of special camps, like the one in Buchenwald near Weimar. Here the Soviet secret police imprisoned nearly 30, people, often arbitrarily, in a former Nazi concentration camp.
The remains of the camp today has exhibits documenting the conditions and stories of theses inmates as well as a memorial near the mass graves. When East Germany was founded in , the new government took charge of all prisoners. From the Ministry for State Security, known as the Stasi, was responsible for political prisoners. It had its headquarters in Berlin's Normannenstrasse until Today it is a museum that includes the preserved office of Erich Mielke, the last Minister of State Security.
On the June 17, there was a widespread uprising against the repressive East German government and the country's economic conditions. There was also strike action and protests in Dresden. This tank track on Postplatz square marks the brutal suppression of the uprising with Soviet tanks. The suppression of the uprising was followed by a wave of arrests.
The Stasi, who had not seen the protests coming, responded with force. Since , it has been home to the biggest research and memorial site in the former East Germany. Visitors get an impression of prison conditions from inmate's biographies as well as sound and film recordings of the jail. Behind five-meter walls, military style rule was imposed and offences severely punished. This memorial site today confronts what was the most brutal of all disciplinary institutions for juveniles in East Germany.
Beginning in , parts of the former Stalag prisoner of war camp near Bremen were used as an emergency reception center for refugees from communist East Germany. Sandbostel became a camp for male East Germans under the age of 24 who had succeeded in escaping to the West. As many as refugees were housed here at any given time. The Berlin Wall became an international symbol of separation and servitude. After its fall in the original wall all but vanished from the city.
The Berlin Wall Memorial, created to commemorate those killed trying to escape, contains one of the last pieces. This is where the official anniversary commemoration will take place on November 9.
The historian says he is not betting on assimilation happening any time soon, saying it will take a long time before the GDR disappears from the minds of its former citizens like it disappeared from the world.
He says lived history encompasses roughly three generations. Many people know what their grandparents went through because of family stories. Read more: The next generation must step up for German unification. Looking back to the era of Nazism that preceded the separation of Germany, he says that dark chapter of history is only now slowly coming to an end as "the last witnesses are no longer alive.
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