Bizone

The Bizone (German: [ˈbiːˌt͡soːnə] ^ⓘ) or Bizonia was the combination of the American and the British occupation zones on 1 January 1947 during the occupation of Germany after World War II. With the addition of the French occupation zone on 1 August 1948 the entity became the Trizone (German: [ˈtʁiːˌt͡soːnə] ^ⓘ; sometimes jokingly called Trizonesia (German: Trizonesien, German pronunciation: [tʁit͡soˈneːzi̯ən] ^ⓘ)). Later, on 23 May 1949, the Trizone became the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly known as West Germany.

At the conclusion of World War II, the Allies began organising their respective occupation zones in Germany. The easternmost lands were permanently annexed to either Poland or the Soviet Union. The lands that were to remain "German" were divided four ways: The Americans occupied the South, the British the West and North, France the South-West, and the Soviets Central Germany (the future East Germany). Berlin was similarly divided into four zones.

Cooperation between the four occupying powers broke down between 1945 and 1947. The Soviet Union, which encouraged and partly carried out the post-war expulsions of Germans from the areas under its rule, stopped delivering agricultural products from its zone in Germany to the more industrial western zones, thereby failing to fulfill its obligations under the Potsdam Agreements to provide supplies for the expellees, whose possessions had been confiscated. At Potsdam, it had been agreed that 15% of all equipment dismantled in the Western zones – especially from the metallurgical, chemical, and machine manufacturing industries – would be transferred to the Soviets in return for food, coal, potash (a basic material for fertilisers), timber, clay products, petroleum products, etc. The Western deliveries had started in 1946.

The Soviet deliveries – desperately needed to provide the eastern expellees with food, heat, and basic necessities, and to increase agricultural production in the remaining cultivation area – did not materialise. Consequently, the American military administrator, Lucius D. Clay, stopped the transfer of supplies and dismantled factories from the Ruhr area to the Soviet sector on 3 May 1946 while the expellees from the areas under Soviet rule were deported to the West until the end of 1948. As a result of the halt of deliveries from the western zones, the Soviet Union started a public relations campaign against American policy and began to obstruct the administrative work of all four zones.

The Soviets had established central administration in their zone for nutrition, transport, jurisdiction, finance, and other areas already in July 1945, before the participants of the Potsdam Conference had officially agreed to form central German administrations. The central administrations (Zentralverwaltungen) in the Soviet zone were not a form of German self-government, but were rather subdivisions of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SVAG), which had the legislative power. The states in the Soviet zone had only limited functions.

After Potsdam, in the summer of 1945, the Control Commission for Germany – British Element (CCG/BE) in Bad Oeynhausen created central offices (Zentralämter) for its zone. Its chairpersons were appointed by the British military government and were more influential than the minister-presidents of the states in the British zone, which at the time were administrative bodies rather than republics. After March 1946 the British zonal advisory board (Zonenbeirat) was established, with representatives of the states, the central offices, political parties, trade unions, and consumer organisations. As indicated by its name, the zonal advisory board had no legislative power, but was merely advisory. The Control Commission for Germany – British Element made all decisions with its legislative power.

In reaction to the Soviet and British advances, in October 1945 the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) encouraged the states in the US zone to form a co-ordinating body, the so-called Länderrat (council of states), with the power to legislate for the entire US zone. It created its own central bodies (Ausschüsse or joint interstate committees) headed by a secretariat seated in Stuttgart. While the British and Soviet central administrations were allied institutions, these US zone committees were not OMGUS subdivisions, but instead were autonomous bodies of German self-rule under OMGUS supervision.

France had not participated in the Potsdam Conference, so it felt free to approve some of the Potsdam Agreements and ignore others. Generally the French military government obstructed any interzonal administrations in Allied-occupied Germany; it even blocked interstate co-operation within its own zone, aiming at total decentralisation of Germany into a number of sovereign states. Therefore, the states in the French zone were given a high level of autonomy but under French supervision, inhibiting almost any interstate co-ordination.