A new framework for Franco-German relations through European institutions, 1950 to 1954

Abstract

At the end of the Second World War, the policy of the Allied Forces toward Germany was one of punishment. The defeated nation was made to feel the weight of its guilt, as was established in the instructions of the Allied governments for the occupation authorities. The country was divided into four occupation zones, each one under the military control of one of the four victors of the Second World War (the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France). Germany was demilitarized, its productive capacity severely limited, part of its industrial infrastructure dismantled, and the country was ultimately transformed into an international pariah, without self-government and under Allied tutelage.