What sort of treaties were imposed on Germany after world war 2?

by Vyncis

i.e. limited military

(also after unification in 1990)

JasonVerber

After the allied powers declared supreme authority over Germany with the Berlin Declaration, the Potsdam Agreement finalized the plans made previously at Yalta and other conferences and provided the framework under which Germany was occupied and administered for the next decade. Until 1990, there was no final treaty with Germany regarding World War II, because there was no agreed upon representative of the German people.

Even after the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1949, the allied powers withheld full sovereignty, and remained technically at war with Germany until 1951 (1955 for the Soviet Union).

The Potsdam Agreement created the Allied Control Council, which was meant to make decisions for all of Germany, while the USSR, US, UK, and France would manage day-to-day affairs in their zones of occupation. Among the main overarching goals for the Allied Control Council were what are sometimes referred to as the "5 Ds":

  • Denazification
  • Demilitarization
  • Decentralization
  • Decartelization
  • Democratization

Denazification meant not just eliminating public symbols of the old regime, renaming streets, etc. but also removing Nazi influence from Germany's economic, society, politics, etc. The most prominent example of this were trials, including the famous International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg but also a countless smaller trials in each of the occupied zones. The extent of denazification was different in each zone; in the Soviet zone, the Communists (some of the earliest victims of the Nazis) took a harsh stance against former Nazis and even big capitalists with less clear-cut ties to the regime. Few former officials retained their positions, meaning jobs needed to be filled--so, for instance, working-class Germans in the Soviet Union could get a crash-course in family law and become a judge working in that area. In the US zone, by contrast, denazification tended to be less extreme, as the United States hoped to make Germany self-sufficient sooner rather than later, a job which would require experts with experience to get the German economy running, German administration operating again, etc.

Demilitarization meant just that, and when the two German states were created in 1949, they were created without militaries. The Soviet Union began secretly rearming East Germany early on, but remilitarization in West Germany was a matter of intense debate in West Germany and across Western Europe. This almost took the form of military integration in a European Defense Community, but instead took the form of West German membership in NATO and the subordination of its military to NATO starting in 1955, at which point West Germany enjoyed (nearly) full sovereignty.

Democratization also took different forms in different zones. The Soviet Zone actually witnessed the first democratic elections in Germany after World War II, with the western powers more suspicious of German political aspirations. In all the zones, when democracy did return, it took the form of local elections first, only gradually giving way to German administration at a national level.

But distrust and disagreements between the western allies and the Soviet Union led to a breakdown of relations, especially after the introduction of a new currency in the Western zones and the subsequent Soviet blockade of Berlin, which was located deep within the Soviet zone but itself was split into four zones.

Unable to work together, the Allied Control Council became largely useless. The Soviets oversaw their zone/East Germany, while the western allies created the Allied High Commission to oversee the western zones/West Germany.

Finally, on the eve of reunification, East and West Germany as well as the USSR, US, UK, and France signed the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany. Among its provisions were limits on the German military (no more than 370,000 personnel, may only be used in line with principles of the United Nations Charter, no nuclear or other non-conventional weapons, etc.) With Germany later switching to a largely professional military (rather than mandatory service for all young men), the size of the German military has remained well under that number.

milespc

The Yalta Conference was a major conference involving Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. They agreed that:

  • Germany would be divided into three zones of occupation.

  • Reparations would be extracted from Germany

  • Nazism and Militarism would be extinguished

  • War criminals were to be found and punished

Plus other things not involving Germany such as the Soviet Union joining the fight against Japan or participating in the U.N.