WI no West Berlin

In MANY ways it feel odd that Stalin agreed a deal where Western forces would control an area in the middle of his part of Germany

Without West Berlin would East Germany have done better?

How much difference would it mke to the Cold war?

Does it butterfly Willy Brandt who in otl led west berlin?
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
For Stalin to get West Berlin in Potsdam would require everyone else to be brain dead or drugged up on amphetamines. But let's say Morgenthau's plan is passed over for something else that doesn't have 'joint occupation of the capital' as a selling point. Of course, reunification of Germany just became a little harder, after all, you just cut out the third man in the tangled mess of the postwar Deutschland. The border is no longer the recognizable wall, it's the miles upon miles of rolling northern plain countryside with occasional towns.
 
In MANY ways it feel odd that Stalin agreed a deal where Western forces would control an area in the middle of his part of Germany

One could argue the opposite. Solzhenitsyn would later write, "How could they, [Roosevelt and Churchill] for the laughable toy of a four-zone Berlin, their own future Achilles' heel, give away broad regions of Saxony and Thuringia?"
 
One could argue the opposite. Solzhenitsyn would later write, "How could they, [Roosevelt and Churchill] for the laughable toy of a four-zone Berlin, their own future Achilles' heel, give away broad regions of Saxony and Thuringia?"

I just don't understand why the WAllies accepted such terms. They could have easily just give a big fat no and redraw the occupation zones for a smaller GDR with all of Berlin. Stalin may or may not complain, depending on how much he weighs an intact Berlin as a prize compared to a larger puppet state with a blight in the middle.
 
The Berlin Blockade was Stalin's way of trying to get the West out of Germany.... He didn't like the fact that the West had this little toe-hold in the middle of his territory.
 
From 1987 to 1989!

US-Berlin-Brigade-patch.jpg
 
Actually, without West Berlin being a Western enclave, East Germany will be a lot stronger. They won't lose the millions to brain drain they did until 1961, and when and if Communism collapses, there won't be the same wide open door there was in real life. OTL, that helped bring about the collapse of the East German economy and state in the months after October 1989, and created a big impetus for reunification.

With Berlin being wholly eastern though, even a post-communist East Germany is going to be more stable. It may never end up formally reunifying with West Germany, except perhaps in the context of EU membership.
 

Tyr Anazasi

Banned
It will mean as well, that the GDR will be a lot smaller. In how far she is strong enough to survive as a valid state is debatable.
 
Noooooo my beautiful apartment Haus replaced with plattenbau! Man ehh... 's jibt doch jar nischt!
 
In MANY ways it feel odd that Stalin agreed a deal where Western forces would control an area in the middle of his part of Germany

Without West Berlin would East Germany have done better?

How much difference would it mke to the Cold war?

Does it butterfly Willy Brandt who in otl led west berlin?

Stalin had no choice as far as Berlin went. The other 3 powers wanted it that way and to much LL and other help could be at risk.

Having a portion of W Berlin made the cold war much harder for the Soviets.
 
Stalin had no choice as far as Berlin went. The other 3 powers wanted it that way and to much LL and other help could be at risk.

Having a portion of W Berlin made the cold war much harder for the Soviets.

If I recall correctly Soviet forces took Berlin. I suspect that given geography and the military situation it would have been obvious that his would be the outcome by late 1944
 
Not to veer wildly off topic but is it true that West Berlin was actually a pretty fun place to live? I've read that it attracted hordes of artists and folks of that ilk because the whole place was heavily subsidized...?

Well it's economy basically ran on western subsidies, since virtually all the industry decamped to other parts of Germany after the war.

Also, because West Berlin wasn't constitutionally part of West Germany (technically remaining a regime under Allied Occupation), men there were exempt from the draft. So a lot of artists, leftists, and antiwar activists moved there to avoid national service.
 

Tyr Anazasi

Banned
West Berlin was a part of the FRG according to the German Constitutional Court (BVerfGE 19, 377):

„Das Grundgesetz gilt grundsätzlich auch in Berlin; Berlin ist trotz des Vorbehalts der Besatzungsmächte ein Land der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.“
 
West Berlin was a part of the FRG according to the German Constitutional Court (BVerfGE 19, 377):

Not under international law, and under ambiguous status even under German law given the Allied occupation:

When on 4 August 1950 the West Berlin parliament passed a new constitution (Verfassung von Berlin), declaring Berlin a state of the Federal Republic and the provisions of the Grundgesetz as binding law superior to Berlin state law (Article 1, clauses 2 and 3) this became statutory law only on 1 September and only with the inclusion of the western Allied provision[1] that Art. 1, clauses 2 and 3, were not valid (literally in German: zurückgestellt, i.e. deferred for the time being; the clauses became valid law on 3 October 1990, the day of Germany's unification) and that Art. 87 (clause 3), specifying that insofar as for the time being the western Allies accepted provisions of the Grundgesetz as applicable, they were only considered superior law to the extent necessary to prevent conflicts between the Grundgesetz and the Constitution of Berlin (West).[2] Thus civic liberties and personal rights (save the secrecy of telecommunications) guaranteed by the Grundgesetz were also valid in Berlin (West).

In addition, West German federal laws did not apply to West Berlin, but the House of Representatives of Berlin (German: Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin; the West Berlin legislature; reunited Berlin's legislature bears the same name) had voted in every new federal law without debate to maintain legal status with the pre-1990 Federal Republic of Germany.

The ambiguous legal status of West Berlin, then still legally styled as Greater Berlin, although technically only comprising the western sectors, meant that West Berliners were not eligible to vote in federal elections. In their notification of permission of 12 May 1949 the three western military governors for Germany explained their proviso in No. 4, as follows:

"A third reservation concerns the participation of Greater Berlin in the Federation. We interpret the effect of Articles 23 and 144 (2) of the Basic Law as constituting acceptance of our previous request that while Berlin may not be accorded voting membership in the Bundestag or Bundesrat nor be governed by the Federation she may, nevertheless, designate a small number of representatives to the meetings of those legislative bodies".[3]

Consequently, West Berliners were indirectly represented in the Bundestag in Bonn by 22 non-voting delegates chosen by the city's House of Representatives. Similarly, the Senate sent four non-voting delegates to the Bundesrat.

However, as West German citizens, West Berliners were able to stand for election, such as Social Democrat Chancellor Willy Brandt, who was elected via his party's list of candidates. Also, men there were exempt from the Federal Republic's compulsory military service; this exemption made the city a popular destination for West German youths, which resulted in a flourishing counterculture, which became one of the defining features of the city.
 
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