Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

The real break came in the spring of 1947, at the (March 10th–April 24th) Moscow meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the US, Britain, France and the Soviet Union, convened once again to seek agreement on a Peace Treaty for Germany and Austria. By now the fault lines were clear. The British and Americans were determined to build up the Western German economy, in order that the Germans might support themselves but also to contribute to the revival of the European economy in general. The Soviet representatives wanted a restoration of reparations from the Western zones of Germany and, to this end, a united German administration and economy as initially envisaged (albeit vaguely) at Potsdam. But by now the Western Allies were no longer seeking a single German administration. For this would entail not just the abandonment of the population of the western zones of Germany—by now a political consideration in its own right—but the effective handing over of the country to the Soviet sphere of control, given the military asymmetry of the time.