ABSTRACT
Hans Kelsen sought to describe Germany's unique societal structure the collapse of the Third Reich. The country was like a condominium. In February 1943 the Allies announced that they would not negotiate a peace treaty with any Reich government; they would accept only a declaration of "unconditional surrender." The opponents of the Third Reich were not successful in overthrowing the regime, but their failed efforts became a significant part of the politics of memory in the later East and West Germanies. Most US and British planners soon recognized, however, that the Russian approach to reparations would in effect force the Western Allies to subsidize the Russian zone. The British did establish two central administrative offices, one for economic affairs and one for agriculture; both were headed by leading German anti-Nazis. The emerging Cold War and the decline in agricultural productivity in eastern Germany made the goal of treating the four zones as an "economic unit" increasingly unrealistic.
