Germany

Abstract

By the Berlin Declaration of 5 June, 1946, after the unconditional surrender of Germany, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and France assumed supreme authority with respect to Germany. That power was to be exercised by the commanders-in-chief of the armed forces, each in his own zone of occupation and also jointly, in matters affecting Germany as a whole, in their capacity as members of the Control Council. At the Potsdam Conference (17 July-2 Aug., 1946) the northern part of the Province of East Prussia, including its capital Königsberg (renamed Kaliningrad), was transferred to the Soviet Union, pending the final settlement by a peace treaty; and it was agreed that, subject to the final peace settlement, Poland should administer those parts of Germany lying east of a line rurining from the Baltic Sea immediately west of Swinemünde along the river Oder to its confluence with the Western Neisse and thence along the Western Neisse to the Czechoslovak frontier. This includes that portion of East Prussia not transferred to the Soviet Union, the former Prussian Province of Upper Silesia, most of the former Prussian Provinces of Pomerania and Lower Silesia and part of the former Prussian Province of Brandenburg.