ABSTRACT
The origins of the Cold War were not, though, a purely, perhaps not even primarily, a Soviet-American game. Other countries were bound to play a significant role as the battle-lines of the post-war confrontation hardened. In the two major 'Big Three' conferences in 1945, the Americans, Soviets and British concurred on a number of principles and practical steps regarding the post-war status of Germany. Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)the German state created in 1949 out of the former American, British and French occupation zones. The American attitude towards European integration itself shifted during the Cold War. Moreover, the fact that an increasing number of East Germans were willing to risk their lives in order to benefit from such consumerism and personal freedoms created the last major European crisis of the first Cold War. The Soviet-American rivalry over nuclear weapons issue was the issue that, above all others, defined the extreme bipolarity of the Cold War.
