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Concept
Bizone
Summary
The Bizone (ˈbiːˌt͡soːnə) or Bizonia was the combination of the American and the British occupation zones on 1 January 1947 during the occupation of Germany after World War II. With the addition of the French occupation zone on 1 August 1948 the entity became the Trizone (ˈtʁiːˌt͡soːnə; sometimes jokingly called Trizonesia (Trizonesien, tʁit͡soˈneːzi̯ən)). Later, on 23 May 1949, the Trizone became the Federal Republic of Germany, commonly known as West Germany.
At the conclusion of World War II, the Allies began organising their respective occupation zones in Germany. The easternmost lands were permanently annexed to either Poland or the Soviet Union. The lands that were to remain "German" were divided four ways: The Americans occupied the South, the British the West and North, France the South-West, and the Soviets Central Germany (the future East Germany). Berlin was similarly divided into four zones.
Cooperation between the four occupying powers broke down between 1945 and 1947. The Soviet Union, which encouraged and partly carried out the post-war expulsions of Germans from the areas under its rule, stopped delivering agricultural products from its zone in Germany to the more industrial western zones, thereby failing to fulfill its obligations under the Potsdam Agreements to provide supplies for the expellees, whose possessions had been confiscated. At Potsdam, it had been agreed that 15% of all equipment dismantled in the Western zones – especially from the metallurgical, chemical, and machine manufacturing industries – would be transferred to the Soviets in return for food, coal, potash (a basic material for fertilisers), timber, clay products, petroleum products, etc. The Western deliveries had started in 1946.
The Soviet deliveries – desperately needed to provide the eastern expellees with food, heat, and basic necessities, and to increase agricultural production in the remaining cultivation area – did not materialise. Consequently, the American military administrator, Lucius D.
Official source
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