From the Ashes: The Birth of the German Fourth Reich

The defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich is historical fact. It's fusion of militarism-nationalism-industrialism lived on, coaxed back to life by the very forces that once conspired to defeat it.

After the end of the Second World War, Germany was divided into four occupation zones, involving US, British and French troops in what was known as the western zone of occupation, and Russian troops in the eastern zone of occupation. In 1949, confronted by the collapse of the wartime grand alliance and the emergence of what Winston Churchill called an “iron curtain” separating the western powers from Russia, the western zones of occupation were consolidated into what became known as the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany.