Introduction

Abstract

The discussion and implementation of policy regarding the future of Germany from the declaration of ‘unconditional surrender’, made at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, until the partition into two states in 1949, constituted the most important factor in the configuration of the post-war international order. Germany was given the most comprehensive treatment ever dispensed to a vanquished nation in the modern history of the international political system. The fundamental principle guiding the treatment of the German Question was the acknowledgement of Germany’s central position in the European political and economic order and its implications for the post-war international order. Germany had challenged the ‘society of states’ during the 1930s by rearming and gearing itself towards a war economy. Since 1938, Germany had redrawn its borders with its advance into Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and much of Western and Eastern Europe until the turn of the tide in favour of the Allies in 1942–1943. Germany was the only member of the Axis against whom all the major Allies campaigned together. This meant that at the end of the war, the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France would have troops stationed on German soil. The new balance of power system and the formation of the spheres of influence were configured in Germany.KeywordsForeign PolicyNational InterestInternational OrderEnglish SchoolAmerican Foreign PolicyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.