who agreed to divide germany into zones at the end of ww2
History of Germany (1945–90) At the Potsdam Conference (17 July to 2 August 1945), after Germany's unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945,[6] the Allies divided Germany into four military occupation zones â€” France in the southwest, Britain in the northwest, the United States in the south, and the Soviet Union in the east, bounded eastwards by the Oder-Neisse line. At Potsdam these four zones in total were denoted as 'Germany as a whole', and the four Allied Powers exercised the sovereign authority they now claimed within Germany in agreeing 'in principle' the future transfer of lands of the former German Reich east of 'Germany as a whole' to Poland and the Soviet Union.[7] These eastern areas were notionally placed under Polish and Soviet administration pending a final peace treaty (which was not formalized until 1990, 45 years later); but in actuality were promptly reorganized as organic parts of their respective sovereign states.
Germany In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the revolution of 1918–19, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, World War II and the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded: the democratic West Germany and the socialist East Germany. Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990.[12]