Unlike occupied Japan, Nazi Germany was stripped of its sovereignty and former state: after Germany formally surrendered on 8 May 1945, the four countries representing the Allies (the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France) asserted joint authority and sovereignty through the Allied Control Council (ACC).

The Potsdam Agreement on 2 August 1945 defined the new eastern German border by giving Poland and the Soviet Union all regions of Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line (eastern parts of Pomerania, Neumark, Posen-West Prussia, East-Prussia and most of Silesia) and divided the remaining "Germany as a whole" into four occupation zones, each administered by one of the Allies.

All territories annexed by Germany during the war from Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland and Yugoslavia were returned to their respective countries.

In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, United States forces had pushed beyond the agreed boundaries for the future zones of occupation, in some places by as much as 320 km (200 miles).

The so-called line of contact between Soviet and U.S. forces at the end of hostilities, mostly lying eastward of the July 1945-established inner German border, was temporary.

[2] Some have concluded that this was a crucial move which persuaded the Soviet Union to allow American, British and French forces into their designated sectors in Berlin, which occurred at roughly the same time; the need for intelligence gathering (Operation Paperclip) may also have been a factor.

Licenses were granted to Germans not involved in Nazi propaganda to establish those newspapers, including Frankfurter Rundschau (August 1945), Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin; September 1945), and Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich; October 1945).

[5] In July the British withdrew from Mecklenburg's capital Schwerin which they had taken over from the Americans a few weeks before, as it had previously been agreed to be occupied by the Soviet Army.

Kirkpatrick carried immense responsibility particularly with respect to the negotiation of the Bonn–Paris conventions during 1951–1952, which terminated the occupation and prepared the way for the rearmament of West Germany.

[11] In April and May 1945, the French 1st Army had captured Karlsruhe and Stuttgart, and conquered a territory extending to Hitler's Eagle's Nest and the westernmost part of Austria.

Three German states (Land) were established: Rheinland Pfalz in the north and west and on the other hand Württemberg-Hohenzollern and South Baden, who later formed Baden-Württemberg together with Württemberg-Baden of the American zone.

Included in the French zone was the town of Büsingen am Hochrhein, a German exclave separated from the rest of the country by a narrow strip of neutral Swiss territory.

At the end of October 1946, Berlin had a population of: In 1945 Germany east of the Oder–Neisse line was assigned to Poland by the Potsdam Conference to be "temporarily administered" pending the Final Peace Treaty on Germany between the four Allies and a future German state; eventually (under the September 1990 Peace Treaty) the northern portion of East Prussia became the Kaliningrad Oblast within the Soviet Union (today Russian Federation).

In October 1946, the population of the various zones and sectors was as follows:[4] The original Allied plan to govern Germany as a single unit through the Allied Control Council de facto broke down on 20 March 1948 (restored on 3 September 1971) in the context of growing tensions between the Allies, with Britain and the US wishing cooperation, France obstructing any collaboration in order to partition Germany into many independent states, and especially: the Soviet Union unilaterally implementing from early on elements of a Marxist political-economic system (enforced redistribution of land, nationalisation of businesses).

While the UK, the US and the Soviet Union had agreed to accept, house and feed about six million expelled German citizens from former eastern Germany and four million expelled and denaturalised Czechoslovaks, Poles, Hungarians and Yugoslavs of German ethnicity in their zones, France generally had not agreed to the expulsions approved by the Potsdam agreement (a decision made without input from France).

Therefore, France strictly refused to absorb war refugees who were denied return to their homes in seized eastern German territories or destitute post-war expellees who had been expropriated there, into the French zone, let alone into the separated Saar protectorate.

The complete breakdown of east–west allied cooperation and joint administration in Germany became clear with the Soviet imposition of the Berlin Blockade that was enforced from June 1948 to May 1949.

A 1956 plebiscite ended the French administration of the Saar protectorate, and it joined the Federal Republic as Saarland on 1 January 1957, becoming its tenth state.

The city of Berlin was not part of either state and de jure continued to be under Allied occupation of the four countries until the reunification of Germany in October 1990.

[20] Ultimately, US occupation policy came to be determined chiefly by the War Department, with long-term objectives summed up by the four Ds: denazification, democratization, demilitarization, and decentralization (or decartelization).

US soldiers were forbidden to shake hands with Germans, visit their homes, play games or sports with them, exchange gifts, take part in social events, or walk in the streets with them.

The British Occupation Zone included the Ruhr industrial region, which had experienced the heaviest bombing and therefore faced the greatest shortages of housing and food.

[20] To further the long-term aim of democratization, the British implemented government modeled on the UK system, placing heavy emphasis on local level democracy.

The goal was to create a British-style administration with employees who viewed themselves as public servants, on the basis that this would help to reeducate Germans to democratic modes of thought.

To that end the British introduced new local government structures, including a nonpolitical position similar to the English town clerk ("city director") that replaced the office of mayor.

[20] In general, the British believed strongly in reeducation as a means to achieve democracy, which led them to prioritize the reestablishment of schooling and university education in their zone.

[20] Since one of their key goals was to ensure that Germany would never again be in a position to threaten France, the French were strongly opposed to a unified approach to occupation, and favored political structures that were as decentralized as possible.

[20] On the economic front, the French seized the opportunity to extract coal and steel resources from the Saar region, fusing it with France in a customs and currency union and encouraging the development of export industries.

In the earliest stages of the occupation, U.S. soldiers were not allowed to pay maintenance for a child they admitted having fathered, since to do so was considered "aiding the enemy".

Invariably, when a soldier was accused of criminal behaviour the occupation authorities preferred to handle the matter within the military justice system.