answers: The Cold War
context: intensify efforts to improve relations with the Eastern Bloc, especially East Germany. West Germany commenced this "Ostpolitik," initially under fierce opposition from the conservatives, by negotiating nonaggression treaties with the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Hungary. West Germany's relations with East Germany posed particularly difficult questions. Though anxious to relieve serious hardships for divided families and to reduce friction, West Germany under Brandt's "Ostpolitik" was intent on holding to its concept of "two German states in one German nation." Relations gradually improved. In the early 1970s, the "Ostpolitik" led to a form of mutual recognition between East and West </s> or being worked to death. Over 10 million German-speaking refugees arrived in Germany from other countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Some 9 million Germans were POWs, many of whom were kept as forced laborers for several years to provide restitution to the countries Germany had devastated in the war, and some industrial equipment was removed as reparations. The Cold War divided Germany between the Allies in the west and Soviets in the east. Germans had little voice in government until 1949 when two states emerged: After experiencing its Wirtschaftswunder or "economic miracle" in 1955, West Germany became the most </s> bombing and land warfare destroyed many cities and cultural heritage sites. After Germany surrendered, the Allies partitioned Berlin and Germany's remaining territory into four military occupation zones. The western sectors, controlled by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, were merged on 23 May 1949 to form the Federal Republic of Germany ("Bundesrepublik Deutschland"); on 7 October 1949, the Soviet Zone became the German Democratic Republic ("Deutsche Demokratische Republik"). They were informally known as West Germany and East Germany. East Germany selected East Berlin as its capital, while West Germany chose Bonn as a provisional capital, to emphasise its
question: why was germany divided into two separate countries after wwii