The German Question, 1945–95

Abstract

The future of Germany was the most important of all European questions after the war. Germany posed an infinitely complex problem. What had seemed common to Anglo-Soviet interests during the war — the need to contain Germany and to devise the best means of preventing the revival of a strong, aggressive Germany — became rapidly over-shadowed by what divided them: all the Cold War issues. In Germany and among the western allies divergent interpretations of the Potsdam agreement — which the Soviets regarded as ‘holy writ’ — were put down to Soviet deception. Whatever faith British Foreign Office officials had had in Soviet good will, they had abandoned almost entirely by early 1946. British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin sent Prime Minister Clement Attlee a note on 10 April 1946 in which he gave his view of Moscow’s intentions: ‘The Russians’, he wrote, have decided upon an aggressive policy based upon militant Communism and Russian chauvinism … and seem determined to stick at nothing, short of war, to obtain [their] objectives. At the present time [Russia’s] aggressive policy is clearly directed to challenging this country everywhere.1 KeywordsFederal RepublicGerman StateForeign MinisterGerman UnificationGerman PeopleThese 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.