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The partition of Germany and the origins of the Cold War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 1985

Avi Shlaim
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Extract

The Cold War remains, despite the proliferation of studies of the subject, one of the most enigmatic and elusive international conflicts of modern times. Like all complex international conflicts, it does not have a single cause. Rather, it is the end result of a concatenation of a number of problems which, by their interaction, made it so intractable. Of these problems, none was more central or pervasive than the German problem. This was central to the outbreak of the Cold War, central to its continuation and central to its decline. So close, in fact, is the inter-connection between the German problem and the Cold War that it becomes difficult to distinguish cause and effect. Clearly, the problems of what to do with Germany contributed to the breakdown of relations between the wartime allies, just as the growing conflict between those allies affected the course of German history. By drawing on the documents relating to United States policy towards Germany during the early post-war period, the present article seeks to shed some new light on the process by which Germany came to be divided and to place the developments in Germany in the broader context of the struggle between East and West. In a nutshell, the argument to be advanced here is that there was never any real possibility of avoiding the partition of Germany given the bipolarity which characterized the international system after 1945, If this was indeed the case, then it follows that the arguments of the traditionalist historians who view the Soviet Union as exclusively responsible for the partition of Germany and the arguments of the revisionist historians who lay the blame entirely at America's door, must be rejected as equally unconvincing. To put it another way, the search for a solution to the problem of Germany which would safeguard the security of Europe and satisfy the basic security needs of both superpowers, represented an attempt to square the circle. The failure to do so contributed in a crucial and decisive way to the emergence of a global conflict between East and West which we call the Cold War.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , April 1985 , pp. 123 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1985

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References

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