WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -After the Potsdam conference, Germany was divided into four occupied zones: Great Britain in the northwest, France in the southwest, the United States in the south and the Soviet Union in the east.

Detailed explanation-2: -The main combatants were the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China).

Detailed explanation-3: -Germany was divided after WWII because it was to blame for WWI and WWII. The Allied Powers did not want Germany to have to possibility of waging another war. Germany had also forced ethnic Germans out of the country, and raped, and starved many of the German citizens.

Detailed explanation-4: -After 1945 peace returned to Europe, but Europe was divided into two blocs: eastern Europe and western Europe. The dividing line ran through Germany. So Germany was divided into two countries: East Germany and West Germany. The lives of the people on either side were very different.

Detailed explanation-5: -For 28 years, the wall split Germany like an iron curtain, into the capitalist West and the communist East. Estimated hundreds had died trying to cross that wall, and beginning in September 1989, demonstrations demanding reform were swelling quickly week by week.