After walking out, on March 20, 1948, from the Allied Control Council for Germany, the Soviets left the Allied Kommandatura for Berlin on June 16, 1948. On June 18, 1948, the three Western Allies, still seeking to carry out the Potsdam decision to re-create a viable German economy and after repeatedly inviting the Soviets to join in four-power control of the issuing bank, carried out a currency reform in the three Western zones. In order not to aggravate matters with the Soviets, the reform was not extended to Berlin. The Soviets, instead of joining the Allies, carried out on June 23, 1948, a separate currency reform in East Germany “and Berlin.” Thereup[on] the Allies extended their reform to the Western sectors of the city.
The sequence of significant events in Berlin from June to November 1948, which ended in the division, follows: On June 23 the Soviets ordered the SED to carry out riots around the City Hall, which was located in the Soviet Sector of Berlin, and brought the demonstrators to the scene in Russian Army trucks. Soviet Marshal Sokolovsky unilaterally issued an order on a minor subject, but he stated it was to apply to “all of Berlin.” Only the Allied Kommandatura could legally issue such an order. This usurpation of authority convinced all Germans that the U.S.S.R. was intent on ending quadripartite control of the city.
On June 24 the Soviets imposed a full blockade on the city.
From August 26 to September 6-7 the second City Hall demonstrations were carried out under Soviet instructions and direction.
On October 25 the U.N. Security Council's draft resolution for settling the Berlin crisis was vetoed by the Soviets [italics in original].
On November 30, while the “blockade” was still in force, the Berlin Communists formally split the city government, establishing a new “rump” government in East Berlin, which promised to legalize its existence by free elections. These were never held.
The vast majority of the legal deputies withdrew to West Berlin. After the municipal elections of December 5, 1948 (which had been announced before the “rump” action and which the Soviets refused to permit in their sector, despite a four-power agreement that they should be held), the elected deputies who could not return to the City Hall in the Soviet Sector constituted themselves a body in West Berlin and elected Ernst Reuter Governing Mayor of the whole city. Their laws, of course, could in practice be enforced only in West Berlin.
This is the story of how the united city of Berlin was divided, the Western part being and remaining democratic under the legally elected government of the whole city, the East becoming a “rump” which was eventually to claim to be the “capital” of the equally undemocratic “German Democratic Republic.”
It is over this “Western” Berlin that the struggle is once again being intensified.
With no prospect for obtaining Soviet cooperation in carrying out agreed principles in Europe, in Germany, or in Berlin, and alerted by the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia, the United States and the other Western Allies turned their efforts toward reunification of their zones of Germany. The starting point already existed in the form of bizonal economic cooperation. The Federal Republic was formally proclaimed in September 1949 after democratic elections and adoption of an approved Basic Law. The actions of the Western powers were designed to carry out the provisions of quadripartite agreements in areas in which the Western powers had direct control. An Allied High Commission and other supervisory agencies were established in the West to guide the German efforts toward reestablishment of a unified German state with its own place in international affairs. The steady growth, politically, economically, and in world affairs, of the Federal Republic is recognized by many sovereign nations. The U.S.S.R. itself maintains diplomatic relations with the Federal Republic.
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