Dividing Germany, 1945-1949January 20, 2012

The Allied Control Council HQ, Berlin

The Allied Kommandatura, Berlin

The Nuremberg Trials (here: Albert Speer)

Street signs in Russian

Soviet victory monument, November 1945

Soviet dismantling in their sector

Walter Ulbricht

Communist poster in SW Germany

April 1946: the handshake unitingSPD and KPD

Denazification in the American zone:Germans sit in judgment

Konrad Adenauer as head of theParliamentary Council (1948-49)

Kurt Schumacher

Rubble women

Ration cards in use

The black market: cigarettes as currency

CARE packagesfrom America

The currency reform (June 20, 1948)

The shop-window miracle

The Soviet blockade of Berlin

General Lucius Clay

Allied planes at Tempelhof Airport

Raisin bombers

Mayor Ernst Reuterat the burned-out Reichstag,Aug. 1948

West Germanys first federal elections(August 1949):

CDU/CSU 31.0%SPD 29.2%FDP 11.9%KPD 5.7%Others 22.3%

Adenauer sworn in as Chancellor (Sept. 1949)