Hi!

--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., "lnadybal" <lnadybal@c...> wrote:
> Re: The treaty says that it was ceded to the "Westsektoren Berlins"
>
> It seems it should have read "ceded to the American Sector of
> Berlin", to which it was adjacent. I don't see how it could have
been
> made part of all three.

Of course. But I think you are more pedantic than the treaty makers.
In all the treaties of that time, including the original four-power-
agreement, "Westsektoren Berlins" is the standard wording for "West
Berlin", probably carefully designed by diplomats in order to find a
wording that both sides could live with. The wording used for "East
Berlin" is much more complicated, because there was even more
dissense if it was even subject of the treaties, and how to call it.
But that's a different subject.

So they used "Westsektoren Berlins" all the time, even if the
resulting sentence made no sense on closer look.

> Clearly the intent of the treaty
> was to cause any Russian occupation rights in Steinstuecken to
cease -
> because the Russians had certain residual rights in the Western
> sectors even after they pulled out of the Kommandatura or the
> Kontrolrat (were they the same thing?).

No. Kommandatura = supreme Allied authority for Berlin. Kontrollrat =
supreme Allied authority for Germany.

But I think you misinterpret the intention. There was no inention to
cease Soviet participation on the occupation of all Berlin, and there
was no such intention in this treaty. On the contrary, until 1990 the
Western Allies insisted on Four Power control of all Berlin,
including the Soviets, and (well, symbolically - they didn't expect a
yes) invited the Soviets to rejoin the Kommandantura. In the
meantime, they granted the Soviets rights as a consequence of their
participation, e.g. military patrols access to West Berlin (presence
the memorial in Tiergarten included, but also regular jeep patrols),
which the Soviets used, and Western patrols in East Berlin, which the
Soviets granted.

A self contradictory position on the Soviet side, because partly they
contested the fact that a common occupation of the city still
existed, partly they used their rights which grew out of it. But that
was how it was.

> Thus, Steinstuecken became a
> little area among the west sectors that had a slightly different
> occupation regime in existence, than the rest of the western areas
> had.

I don't think so.

> Re: Facts: In 1945 Germany was carved into 4 occupation zones, and
> Berlin as a "5th zone" to be occupied jointly.
>
> I have a German post-war map showing a two-part Polish sector.

Huh? Unless you speak of Schlesien/Pommern/Ostpreußen, which were
ceded to Poland and Russia, I don't know what you're talking about. I
have a map from the 12 Sept. 1944 London conference UK/USA/USSR,
which already shows the occupation zones as they later came to be,
including all of Berlin as an enclave in the Soviet zone. The only
detail this map omits is the annexation of Eastern Germany to
Poland/Russia, since that was decided at a later conference (Yalta).
No Polish zone west of Oder/Neiße border was ever contemplated, to
the best of my knowledge.

> You can't
> say really, that Berlin is in the mix as a "5th Zone", even with ""
> around it. The zones in Berlin were never occupied "jointly" and
> unlike the Bizone (Vereinigte Wirtschaftsgebiet) in the West, there
> was no "unification of zones" in Berlin.

Oh yes, quite! That is the point! The sectors of Berlin were not
meant to be governed separately from each other like four independent
cities. Instead, Berlin was meant to be kept as one, with a city
government under a joint administration of all four Allies (the
Kommandantura). Also ist was meant to be separate from the other
occupation zones. All of this follows from the London conference of
1944.

> Re: West (Western Allies, West Berlin city govt. and FRG govt.):
> Berlin is not part of either German state, but still an occupied
> territory under Allied control.
>
> But, was it not a part of "Germany the nation" that was defeated
that
> remained under occupation?

Well, "Germany the nation" is not a judicial entity. There was no
state identical to its territory at that time.

[Berlin in FRG]

> That the Allies
> "suspended" the passage meant only that they were saying to the
Bonn
> government - lay claim to whatever you want as a sovereign - we're
in
> charge here right now".

Yes. And since they legally were, they had every right to say so.

> Re: No such suspension happened towards the GDR constitution
(guess
> it was pretty much ignored).
>
> You mean you don't think the Russians told the East Germans their
> constitution didn't apply in E. Berlin or did you mean that the
Allies
> didn't suspend the DDR constitution for the area of East Berlin (or
> West Berlin or both?).

The first: Neither the Russians nor the Western Allies told East
Germany that their constitution didn't apply to Berlin. But that
doesn't mean they agreed to it.

Of course their suspension of the Western constitution applied to all
of Berlin.

> The Russians wanted to assert that the west
> had the DDR to deal with as a sovereign,

I think so.

>and the DDR constitution, did
> it ever assert sovereign rights of the East German Republic over
the
> West sectors (or Gross Berlin)?

The constitution doesn't make that clear, it just says "Berlin". But
from East German publications/propaganda of the 1950s it becomes
clear that they originally meant all of Berlin which they claimed as
territory and capital. For example, they said "the Western parts of
our capital" when referring to West Berlin(!). So at that point in
time the position were rather symmetrical, since the West laid
formally claim on East Berlin too.

Later the East German position pedalled back gradually. Since the
1960s they laid claim to East Berlin only, and treated West Berlin as
foreign territory. Since then the positions became asymmetrical,
because there was no change in the West German position.

> I don't think the DDR ever asserted that the western Allies were
> occupying the territory of the DDR, did it?

Yes they did, in the 1950s.

> W. Berlin was a "special
> entity" to the DDR government - the maps they published showed the
> west sectors often as a vast empty space, not a piece of their
country
> with the roads, buildings, etc., overprinted with the words "DDR
> territory under occupation".

That's the later position after they pedalled back.

> Re: ...also East Berlin is not part of the GDR, much less her
> capital.
>
> But, if the Russians could do in their sector what they wanted
> (Russia was sovereign over it's zone) it could have allowed the
East
> Germans to establish a "regierungsitz".

Well according to the Western position, Berlin was to be controlled
jointly. Therefore a unilateral act was impossible, including a
separation of one sector out of the common Berlin territory.

>In effect, such a situation
> would have made the DDR a country whose capital was not in it.

That is precisely the Western position. State visits of West German
government members therefore never took place in East Berlin (go
through the chronicles, you won't find a single one), because the
West wouldn't agree to it. Embassies of NATO members in East Berlin
(which they held nonetheless), were named "Botschaft _bei_ der DDR"
(Embassy _with_ the GDR) instead of "_in_ der DDR". The subtleties of
diplomatic language.

> This
> is akin to Washington D.C. not being in the united states (written
> small). The united states are 50 in number and the "District" of
> Columbia is not in them. Go figure! I leave the "united states"
> every day when I go to work.

It's not quite the same. DC isn't a "state" of the USA, its internal
status is different. But it's undisputed that DC is territory under
sovereign control of the USA.

> How could what the sovereign did in the case of Berlin be "illegal"?
> The Russians became the sovereign over E. Berlin by right of
conquest
> - their sovereignty was absolute (notwithstanding that it was
supposed
> to have been shared with the Allies in more ways than it was at the
> end).

The sharing, to which they agreed by signing the London treaty, is
the point.

OK ... anyone still reading? :)

Regards

wolfgang