The decision to allow the Soviets the right to take Berlin was separate from the various decisions to divide up the city postwar. The former was mostly a military matter, and the latter a political one. The idea of the Berlin division was first floated in a concrete manner after the Casablanca Conference in 1943, and later codified by the Protocol on Zones of Occupation and the Administration of "Greater Berlin" which set up three partition zones (France was initially excluded). Allied conferences at Yalta and later at Potsdam firmed up these agreements with the The Allied Governments on the Zones of Occupation and the Administration of "Greater Berlin" in July 1945.

The understanding for these agreements was that the Berlin occupation, as well as the rest of the zonal occupations, were to be temporary affairs until a final peace treaty could be arranged between the Allied powers and an acceptable successor German government. In theory, a proper German government would sanction the territorial adjustments to German territory made at Yalta and Potsdam, sign a proper peace treaty, and then govern over a unitary German state. The problem was this moment of inter-Allied concord was quite brief, and cracks between the Allies were apparent as early as the Potsdam Conference, and soon foundered on the emerging Cold War. Who is to blame for the breakdown in the historiography of German partition is contentious to say the least. Some scholars like Gerhard Wettig and Dirk Spilker hold the Soviets and their allies in the SED responsible in that they never genuinely pursued a united Germany unless they could gain a maximum political advantage from unification. Other scholars like Wilfred Loth have argued that Soviet and SED actions need to be contextualized within light of the American-led Allied actions and were more pragmatic towards a future German state. Most contemporary scholarship on German division tend to blend these two approaches, emphasizing mutual misunderstandings and incompatible agendas as the source of German division. Additionally, the current crop of scholars also tends to look at the role of lesser actors, including the Germans themselves, as playing a role in the contours of German division. As it stands in 2016, the blame game is a debate which few Germanists are terribly interested in fighting as there were so many variables at play that prioritizing one side over the other for blame is a dicey proposition.

What this meant was the division of Berlin remained like an appendix to a German problem that had evolved into a different animal than it was in 1944/45. Allied agreements remained in force in Berlin long after both Germanys had assumed all the trappings of a sovereign state. For example, West Berlin was nominally not part of the FRG government but it sent non-voting delegates to the Bundestag and its residents were FRG citizens. The Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin in September 1971 recapitulated large parts of earlier agreements, but also confirmed various transportation agreements, suggesting that both sides of the Iron Curtain saw Berlin's division as temporary affair that would remain the status quo for the foreseeable future. Ironically, the Cold War situation of "permanent transience" over Berlin and German division greased the wheels of German unification in 1990. The contours of the postwar agreement were already known, and they gave the Kohl government an advantage to push for a final peace treaty that sanctioned German unification by the Allied powers of 1945, the 2+4 Treaty, signed in September 1990.