ABSTRACT
The division of Germany came to an end, had effectively started forty-five years earlier, after the military defeat of the Nazi dictatorship, with the creation of zones of occupation at the Potsdam conference of July and August. It had been made more enduring with the creation of two separate states, the Federal Republic (FRG) and the Democratic Republic (GDR). The legacy as much of the cold war as of Hitler's war, division had come to represent an apparently permanent feature of Europe's political geography. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl launched his own, scheme for a linking of the two German states by means of a confederation, the whole process taking place within the context of a move towards closer political integration in Europe. An understanding of the great economic and international movements that led will help to generate an outlook appropriate for a new Germany, a new Europe, and a new global order.
