Reconstruction and Reconstitution, 1945–69

Abstract

Germany was defeated in May 1945 by an alliance of British, American and Russian armies. Unlike the experience of 1918, when the sudden collapse of the German armies found the Allies politically unprepared, conferences at Quebec and Yalta had laid the basis for a division of Germany into zones of occupation, from which reparations were to be extracted (principally to benefit Russia) and where de-Nazification was to be carried out, though more extreme policies involving the dismemberment of Germany, and the Morgenthau Plan to make Germany a pastoral economy, were not proceeded with. Occupation policies were activated as the armies advanced into Germany and, following the surrender and arrest of the nominal successor Government headed by Admiral Dönitz, the occupation regime was established as the new Government of Germany.