| This study takes a new look at the conflict over Germany between 1945 and 1953 and the question of whether there was sufficient common ground between East and West for German unification and self-determination to have been possible. It does so by adding recently released evidence from the archives of the former German Democratic Republic, combined with published and translated documents from Soviet and other archives, to the story as we have known it for most of the Cold War period. In addition, it emphasizes continuity in Stalin's foreign policy between the pre-World War II years and the period of the Cold War, particularly toward Germany and Germany's communists. Finally, this dissertation approaches the East-West conflict over Germany as a contest of competing visions for Germany's future. Rather than just on diplomacy, it focuses on how political developments inside Germany, particularly Eastern Germany, determined the course of the conflict. |
