To What Extent Was The Soviet Union Responsible For The Division Of Germany From 1945 To 1949

To what extent was the Soviet Union responsible for the division of Germany from 1945 to 1949?
Post-war Germany found itself in the middle of international tensions after its division – between the Allied powers of Britain, France and the USA and the Soviet Union under Stalin. However, the German nation that hoped for a new beginning could not do so due to the distribution of her land between the victors of the Second World War, and historians have since debated over who was to blame for this occurring. It is clear that the Cold War climate that started to arise played a large part on the policies that both the Allied Powers and the USSR made, with both eventually pushing the divisions deeper into Germany’s culture, economy and politics. This idea is strengthened by the fact that the USSR brought in visions such as Cominform and Comencon, while the United States introduced ideas like the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine. However, it is not clear whether the division was due to a collective influence of policies, aims and interests; or whether it was in fact mainly the fault of the Soviet Union and its harsh plans and ideas towards post-war Germany.
It is evident that the USSR did lead a major role in increasing tensions between the victors of the Second World War between 1945 and 1845, which did lead to the division of Germany. This is clear through Stalin’s use of policies that were implemented after 1945, and the plans that he had in place for Germany; such as Stalin’s determination to create a buffer zone between the West and the USSR; and also the Soviet’s general attitude towards Germany. Stalin wanted to protect the USSR from future conflicts with Germany, as this was a big issue that wasn’t properly addressed in 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference, and definitely was not dealt with in the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty merely wounded Germany and left her wanting revenge; this is supported by the fact that one of Hitler’s main points for war was revenge against the ‘November Criminals’. Instead of wounding, Stalin wanted to make sure that once Germany had been knocked down, she wouldn’t be standing back up again. The Yalta Conference helped the USSR move closer to achieving its aims, as it gave them the platform to try and secure the safety of the Soviet Union. As stated by Stalin at the conference when debating the political situations of Eastern countries like Poland and Romania; “Only a strong, pro-communist government in Poland would be able to guarantee the security of the Soviet Union”. At Yalta, the division of Germany was also discussed. The idea that Germany could be split into four sections for each of the four victors from the war, was great news for Stalin and the Soviet Union – it meant that even if the Allies didn’t agree on the $10 billion reparation scheme for Germany to pay, the USSR could simply use their section of Germany to support the revitalisation of the Soviet economic and industrial infrastructure.
At Potsdam, the conditions on reparations and what would happen with Poland were finally agreed and set out on paper. Due to the poor state that Germany was in at the time, she had no ability to pay any monetary reparations to either the Allies or the Soviet Union. This meant that, leading back to the earlier point – the Soviet’s simply used East Germany as a farm for the revival of the USSR after the war. This caused deep divisions between East and West Germany, especially economically. Its lack of a strong economy meant that the East was futher away from its western counterpart than ever before – even though the United States poured large sums of money into West Germany, the Soviet Union put nothing back into the economy of the East, and instead just took out large amount to help the USSR. An example of this is in the late 1940’s, the USSR ordered ships from East Germany that cost $148 million to build; however the Soviets paid only $46 million, allowing the rest to be absorbed by the German Democratic Republic. This is clear evidence, that the USSR did nothing to stop the forming divisions within Germany and through their actions, actually helped and increased these divisions. This proves, that with the Soviet Union agreeing with the Allies over the splitting of Germany at Yalta, the USSR must hold some responsibility for her division.
The Potsdam