Four German Nations After 1948?

What if instead of unifying their zones, they allies created four German nations?

Like the following:

French Zone and Saarland becomes the Rhine Republic

British Zone becomes the Federal Republic of Hannover

American Zone becomes the Republic of Bavaria

And the Soviet Zone becomes the People's Republic of Prussia

Why would this change the cold war and history in General?
 

Curiousone

Banned
What would make them do it? There's an ideological difference between the West & East that isn't there intra-West.

Reparations? I think there was a squabble over how to divide the spoils, the Soviets got told to get their share out of their part first basically. You'd need U.K/France not fearing the Soviets in order not to be having to rebuild Germany for their own defense, trying to squabble over how much of their own war loans they can get Germany to repay.
 
You'd somehow need for the end of the war not to be an increasingly-clear prelude to Western/Soviet rivalry. By 1945, the war was less about how to defeat Germany and more about racing to capture as much of Germany as possible before the other side could get there.

By 1948, everyone in the West was more scared of the Soviets than they were of a resurgent Germany (especially after the thorough deNazification campaigns). There are two ways that can happen: by making people less scared of the Soviets, or more scared of Germany resurgent. But I don't have any particularly strong ideas for either of those directions.

EDIT: Not
 
Last edited:
People's Republic of Prussia? Doubtful.

Not only is Prussia a stereotypically aristocratic concept, but the nation would also lack Prussia, and the name Prussia would forgo the normal Communist convention of basing around ethnic groups.
 
You'd somehow need for the end of the war not to be an increasingly-clear prelude to Western/Soviet rivalry. By 1945, the war was less about how to defeat Germany and more about racing to capture as much of Germany as possible before the other side could get there.

By 1948, everyone in the West was more scared of the Soviets than they were of a resurgent Germany (especially after the thorough deNazification campaigns). There are two ways that can happen: by making people less scared of the Soviets, or more scared of Germany resurgent. But I don't have any particularly strong ideas for either of those directions.

EDIT: Not

This is not as much the case as it seems actually. Of course, the rivalry with the Soviets was a huge factor in German policy postwar. But the borders themselves were decided long before, which is why despite reaching the Elbe, the Americans still withdrew from Thuringia.
 
Top