History of Germany (1945–1990)

The history of Germany from 1945 to 1990 spans the period following World War II, from the Berlin Declaration marking the abolition of the German Reich and Allied-occupied period in Germany on 5 June 1945 to German reunification on 3 October 1990.

Following the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945 and its defeat in World War II, Germany was stripped of its territorial gains. Beyond that, more than a quarter of its old pre-war territory was annexed by communist Poland and the Soviet Union. Its German populations were expelled to the west. Saarland was French protectorate from 1947 to 1956 without the recognition of the "Four Powers", because the Soviet Union opposed it, making it a disputed territory.

At the end of World War II, there were some eight million foreign displaced people in Germany, mainly forced laborers and prisoners. This included around 400,000 survivors from the Nazi concentration camp system, survivors from a much larger number who had died from starvation, harsh conditions, murder, or being worked to death. 12 to 14 million German-speaking refugees and expellees arrived in Western and central Germany from its Eastern provinces and other countries in Eastern Europe between 1944 and 1950; an estimated two million of them died on the way there. Some nine million Germans were prisoners of war.

The remaining Germany was divided during the Cold War between the Western Bloc led by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc led by the USSR. In the Cold War two separate German countries emerged:

• the Federal Republic of Germany, established on 23 May 1949, commonly known as West Germany, was a parliamentary democracy with an ordoliberal economic system and free churches and labor unions;
• the German Democratic Republic, established on 7 October 1949, commonly known as East Germany, was a Marxist–Leninist socialist republic with its leadership dominated by the Soviet-aligned Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).

Under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, West Germany built strong relationships with France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Israel. West Germany also joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Economic Community. East Germany stagnated as its economy was largely organized to meet the needs of the Soviet Union; the East German secret police tightly controlled daily life, and the Berlin Wall (1961) ended the steady flow of refugees to the West. The country was reunited on 3 October 1990, following the decline and fall of the SED as the ruling party of East Germany and the Peaceful Revolution there.