The Cold War

As postwar tensions between the Soviet Union and the Western powers grew into the cold war, Germany became a focal point of conflict. In 1949 the Soviet zone, called East Germany, became the German Democratic Republic, with Berlin as its capital. Western Germany became the Federal Republic of Germany, with Bonn as its capital. With an area of 96,029 square miles (248,714 km 2 ), West Germany was more than twice the size of East Germany (41,828 square miles [108,334 km 2 ]).

West Germany, assisted by the Western Allies, accomplished rapid economic recovery under Konrad Adenauer, its first chancellor. It became a member of the Western European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and what is now the European Union. East Germany did not recover as quickly. West Berlin reflected West German prosperity, and became a source of irritation to the Communists. In 1948 the Soviets attempted to force the Western powers out of Berlin by closing the land approaches to the city. However, the Western nations supplied the city by airlift. In 1953 strikes and riots in East Germany were harshly put down by Soviet troops. Thousands of East Germans used Berlin as an escape route to the West.

East Germany became a sovereign republic in 1954, but Soviet troops remained. In 1955 West Germany was granted sovereignty. Also that year residents of the Saar voted in a plebiscite to join West Germany; the union became official in 1957.

Chancellor Adenauer died in 1963. His party, the Christian Democratic Union, remained in power, first under Ludwig Erhard (1963-66) and then under Kurt Kiesinger (1966-69). Erhard and Kiesinger continued Adenauer's policy of nonrecognition of East Germany. Economic prosperity continued, creating an overabundance of jobs. West Germany was forced to augment its own work force with millions of temporary foreign workers.

The East German economy had been stagnant throughout the 1950's, but in the early 1960's there was tremendous economic growth, and the country developed the highest standard of living in the Soviet bloc. It continued to lag behind the West, however.

In 1961 the East German regime built a wall between East Berlin and West Berlin, halting the flow of refugees to West Germany. In 1968 East Germany adopted a new constitution, formally recognizing Germany's division into two separate nations.