Question by jr: How and why did the USSR seize East Germany?
They say that the Berlin Wall was put up because USSR seized East Germany and took away their rights.
How could the USSR seize part of Germany? How could they run anything in Germany?
When did this happen?
Answers and Views:
Answer by Billy
when the soviet union invaded east germany and the britain, the commonwelth and france west the fighting was brutal. the russians were ruthless and excted a terrible revenge on the german people for what happened in stalingrad which saw the most brutal fighting of the war.they took over and destroyed the rights of the germans there, executing civillians ect and in effect were exactly like the germans themselves. so in answer to your question the berlin wall was built to stop that happening aswell as to seperate comuinst germany[ east]from socialist germany[west]
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Danley B Wolfe says
So the open question today, July 15, 2022, is will Russia after brutally invading Ukraine now attempt to recapture parts of East Germany that it ceded the area – as nicely summarized in the above comments. Don’t underestimate Putin.
brainstorm says
My, you are out of touch.
There was an event called World War 2 from 1939 to 1945.
This initially involved Poland, France Britain and Germany.
Later on in 1941 Germany attacked the USSR and then in December 1941 declared war on the USA.
In 1944 the leaders of Britain the USA and the USSR met to discuss the division of territory after the war was finished and it was agreed that the USSR should occupy the Eastern part of Germany and several other Eastern European States most of which had supported Germany
Germany was thus divided into East Germany and West Germany along agreed frontiers, with Berlin which was in the eastern part and had been captured by the USSR at a cost of over 500,000 dead soldiers, divided into four zones between the French, Americans, British and Russians.
German governments were eventually formed to administer all these areas and the Russian zone of Berlin came under the control of the East German government although the occupying forces were still present in all parts of Germany.
The Berlin Wall was erected in the 1960s by the East German government to prevent its citizens leaving for a new life in the west.
Tarragon says
Sadly only the answer about Yalta cam close to answering your ACTUAL question — everyone got confused and started talking about the Berlin Wall.
It was in 1945 at Potsdam.
The division of Germany into postwar occupation zones was largely settled at Yalta. Under this agreement, Russia occupied only a small pocket on NE Germany around Berlin. Remember, it was a BIGGER piece of Germany back then, before the Russians changed the borders of both Germany and Poland westwards.
Anyway, at Potsdam, Russia bitched and screamed and kicked its legs like a two yr old until the Allies, primarily the US (from who sector it was deducted) it was agreed that Russia should have a "more equal geographic share" of Germany, so Saxony was excised from the US occupation zone and GIVEN to Russian (so "seize" was actually yr original writer getting a bit excited).
The Allies agreed partly because they were war weary and wanted to demobilise. The veterans soldiers were replaced by green troops who hadn't had experience of Germans or Russian ruthlessness.
Russia was still a friend and victorious ally, although Patton had seen through them and already demanded not only to liberate Vienna but to "keep on going". But at least we got to the moon. Without a cold war to spark it, we would never have tried.
East Germany was a basket case overpopulated by spies (everybody's spies, including ex-Germans recruited to spy, by both sides, on each other). They bred a race of super athletes by doping their athletes until the women were built like men. Their internal equivalent of the KGB was world renowned.
Russia didn't really "run anything" in East Germany, it was simply an occupation zone for two generations.
JuanB says
1945 to 1980.
Technically, Nazi Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941. That just didn't go very well for them and the USSR defeated them by 1945 and by then had pushed the German Army all the way back to Berlin.
After that the allies agreed to split occupied Germany into 4 sectors between France, USA, UK and USSR. The other 3 amalgamated in West Germany and run as a democracy.
That's the easy part. Just how did the USSR end up running Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland and other countries after WW2 that didn't first invade them is the difficult question.
Irish Carbomber says
It happened at the end of World War II. Originally Germany was divided into four parts: an American sector, British sector, French sector and Soviet sector. Keep in mind that Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union at the end of the war, and pretty much everyone else was against him. Pres. Harry Truman was the most vocal opponent, and the world was divided into two camps: the West (US and its allies) and the Communists (USSR, Cuba, Eastern Bloc nations). Great Britain and France, decimated economically by the aftermath of World War II, allowed the Americans to take charge of their sectors, which became known as West Germany. Stalin, wanting to keep capitalism out of his lands, erected the Berlin Wall to prevent the West from attacking East Germany, but more importantly, to prevent East Germans to cross over to the more free West Germany. Originally, it was just a system of barbed wires and hastily constructed barriers that were easy to bypass, but Stalin had tall concrete walls built and armed guards with orders to kill any would-be wall jumpers guarding the boundary. East Germany, as was the case with most countries in Eastern Europe, were governed by proxy by governments loyal to Stalin. The Berlin Wall was torn down in late 1989 and in the following year both Germanies were reunited. Most of the wall has been lost, but there are memorials in Berlin and Washington, D.C., that still have parts of the wall. Additionally, the Wall's previous boundaries are marked by a cobblestone line throughout Berlin. The Berlin Wall was in use from 1961 to 1989.
Nigel101 says
As Hitler's 'thousand year Reich' crumbled there were two advances, from the West came the Western Allies, American, Britain, Free French etc, from the East the Soviet Union, The two forces met approxamately half way through Germany, and the decision was made to divide the country into zones, with the East coming under Soviet administration.
The Soviets set up a provision system of rule, and tried to force Communist rule on the East, after the Western powers unified their zones, Soviet influence in Eastern Germany increased, it was in effect a puppet state, doing as Stalin wanted.
Later under Kruschev, it became obvious that in Berlin (the capital which had been divided into an Eastern and Western sector) the VAST inbalance in stabndards f living, meant that many East Germans were fleeing into West Germany to escape Soviet control and gain a better economic chance. This was very embarassing, so the Communists ordered the Berlin wall to seperate Berlin to stop this from happening, some civilians escaped, so did some border guards who had had enough. There were similar boundaries across the rest of Germany to divide the Communist East, from the capitalist west.
JFK said, when in Germany:
'capitalism may never have been perfect, but we've never had to build walls to keep our people in'
It was a propoganda coup for the West, and it's eventual fall (in 1989, leading to the reunification of Germany)would mark the end of the Cold War, and the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union two years later in 1991.
studentofthepast says
This occurred because of the foolish concessions that the Stalin received at the Yalta conference.
Here is a good article on it.