From Partial Sovereignty towards Independence (1945–55)

Abstract

Subsequent to surrender, Germany was divided into four occupation zones. The divisions were based on agreements between the Allies and redrew the administrative map of the country into a much decentralized structure. Excluding the Soviet Russian zone, ten Länder were created. The British zone comprised the Länder of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Lower-Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The American zone included the Länder of Bavaria, Hesse, Bremen and Württemberg-Baden. In addition, the French occupied Rhineland-Palatinate, the Saarland, as well as Württemberg-Hohenzollern and Baden. Later, in 1952, Württemberg-Hohenzollern, Baden and Württemberg-Baden were merged to form the Land Baden-Württemberg. Berlin was divided between the four Allies. Whereas some of the Länder, e.g. Lower Saxony or, most strikingly, Baden-Württemberg, were arbitrary constructs, Bavaria, though also created from territories with different cultural identities, such as Swabia, Franconia and Kurbayern, came, as Friedrich-Wilhelm von Sell notes, close to ‘a self-contained cultural entity’ which, in 1949, as the only Land, opposed the German federal constitution and considered forming a federation with Tyrol.¹