WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Under their occupying governments, the two Germanys followed very different paths. West Germany was allied with the U.S., the U.K. and France and became a western capitalist country with a market economy. In contrast, East Germany was allied by the Soviet Union and fell under highly centralized communist rule.

Detailed explanation-2: -West Germany was created in 1949 when the United States, Great Britain, and France consolidated those zones, or portions, of Germany that they had occupied at the end of World War II.

Detailed explanation-3: -By 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union had begun to emerge as ideologically opposed ‘superpowers’, each wanting to exert their influence in the post-war world. Germany became a focus of Cold War politics and as divisions between East and West became more pronounced, so too did the division of Germany.

Detailed explanation-4: -The German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), commonly known in English as East Germany) was created as a socialist republic on 7 October 1949 and began to institute a government based on the government of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era.

Detailed explanation-5: -Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948 and the GDR began to function as an independent state on 7 October 1949, gaining sovereignty from the Soviet Union in 1955, although the Soviet Union was still deeply involved in this country’s situation.