Germany Between the Rise & Fall of The Berlin Wall Quiz

Answer: West Germany

After WWII ended, Germany was occupied by the Soviets and the Allied Forces (USA, UK and France) in a four-way split. Berlin was similarly split. As tension increased between the Soviets and the Allies, Germany, in 1949, was divided into two separate countries: the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), a democracy, and the Democratic Republic of Germany (East Germany), a Soviet Republic. Similarly, Berlin was split into West Berlin and East Berlin with West Berlin becoming a political enclave entirely cut off from FRG.

In 1961 the Berlin Wall was erected separating East and West Berlin. The isolated city was 160 km (100 mi) east and north of the West German border and only accessible by land from West Germany with narrow rail and highway corridors. These restrictions remained in place until the wall fell in 1989. On 3 October 1990, when Germany was officially reunified, East and West Berlin formally reunited and became Berlin once again, and once again became the capital of Germany.

Answer: East Germany

From the Middle Ages Leipzig, located in the far southeast of what was eastern Germany, 150 km southeast of Berlin, was a mercantile city as it was at the intersection of a major North-South and East-West trade route. It had also a large Jewish population that was persecuted from 1933-1943. Before WWII, Leipzig had a thriving creative business (particularly publishing), and service industries (predominantly legal services), as well as light and heavy industries. During the period of the German Democratic Republic (1949-1989), the service industry was incorporated into the State and became concentrated in East Berlin. The creative business moved to the more accommodating West Germany, leaving Leipzig with only heavy industry.

Leipzig played a key role in the reunification of Germany. From 1989 to 1991, people gathered at St. Nicholas Church on Monday evenings to share 'prayers of peace" to protest against the East German government. This led to spontaneous peaceful protests against the government in the city itself as part of a national backlash. This reached a climax with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

After the reunification, Leipzig fared badly as its only remaining economic contributor was heavy industry, but its methods were inefficient compared with those in the western parts of the country. It took a concerted whole-of-government program starting in 2000 to rejuvenate the city with an urban renewal program that brought back the creative and cultural industries which implemented a service-based economy and made the inner city attractive again.

Answer: Not in Germany 1961-1989

Alsace (Old German for "Foreign Domain) is a French region near the border with Germany. In the 20th century, it changed its sovereignty several times. In 1871 Otto von Bismarck annexed Alsace and northern Lorraine for the newly-formed German Empire as stipulated in the Treaty of Frankfurt. After WWII, the Alsatians proclaimed an autonomous republic, but the French intervened and remade it part of France. Alsace-Lorraine was occupied by Germany in 1940 and incorporated into the Greater German Reich. After WWII it was returned to the French.

Strasbourg is the largest city in the Alsace region. It, like the rest of Alsace, was occupied and then annexed by Nazi Germany in 1940, but liberated by Allied forces in 1944. It has been under French sovereignty ever since. Its citizens identify as French and the city's name uses the French term for the town "-bourg' not the German "-burg".

Because of its location where France meets Germany, arguably the two most influential countries within the EU, Strasbourg is the seat of many international institutions, particularly those of the EU, including the Council of Europe and of the European Parliament. Strasbourg is the legislative and democratic capital of the European Union.

Answer: West Germany

Bonn is located in far western Germany on the River Rhine. Upon the recommendation of West Germany's first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, who was a former Cologne mayor, Bonn, just south of Cologne by a few kilometres, became the de facto capital, officially designated the "temporary seat of the Federal institutions," of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. The Bundestag relocated to Bonn's Bundeshaus, confirming Berlin's status as the West German capital.

Bonn was chosen over larger cities with requisite infrastructure because Adenauer and other key politicians intended to make Berlin the capital of the reunified Germany, which was expected to take just a few years. It was believed that locating the capital in a major city like Frankfurt, Hamburg, or Cologne would imply a permanent capital, and possibly even lessen support in West Germany for a reunified Germany. When the capital was relocated back to Berlin after unification in 1990, the German federal government maintained a significant presence in Bonn with over a third of ministerial positions held there due to a political compromise (Berlin-Bonn Act) after reunification.

Answer: East Germany

Potsdam lies about 25 km south of Berlin. It was a residence of the Prussian kings and later the German Emperor until 1918. It was a planned city of culture with many buildings of historical and cultural significance. Potsdam was also the location of the significant Potsdam Conference in 1945, the conference where the three heads of government of the USSR, the US, and the UK (Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, and Joseph Stalin) met to decide on the division of Germany following surrender.

The East German government tried to destroy symbols of "Prussian militarism" and other Prussian artefacts. Many historic buildings, some damaged in WWII, were demolished. The Glienicke Bridge across the Havel connected the city to West Berlin. It was a symbol of the Cold War as Cold War exchanges of spies took place on the bridge. After reunification, plans were made to reconstruct the pre-WWII appearance of the city, including the Potsdam City Palace and the Garrison Church.

Answer: West Germany

Essen, along with Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, and several other cities, is part of the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region in central western Germany. Founded in the ninth century, Essen remained a small town until the advent of the Industrial Revolution, when the Krupp family iron works were established, and became such a colossal industrial enterprise that Essen became one of Germany's most important coal and steel centres.

It was heavily bombed by the Allies in WWII because of its industrial output, but even after the war, when the city was assigned to the British Zone of Occupation, it attracted workers from all over Germany to restore industrial output and to rebuild the flattened city.

Answer: West Germany

Hamburg is officially known as the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. This reflects Hamburg's past as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League and a 'free imperial city' of the Holy Roman Empire before 1871. With the unification of Germany, Hamburg was a fully sovereign city-state within the German Empire (1871-1918).

After WWI the city retained its self-ruling status during the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). During WWII, the Allies' bombing of Hamburg razed most of the city. After the Battle of Hamburg in early May 1945, the city surrendered to British Forces and subsequently formed part of the British Zone of Occupation. When FDR formed in 1949 it became a state of West Germany and subsequently a state in the reunified Germany in 1990. In the 21st century, it is Germany's second-largest city.

Answer: Not in Germany 1961-1989

Gdansk is a Polish seaport and a city on the Baltic coast of northern Poland. It can trace its settlement history back to the 9th Century. With the three partitions of the Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth, which was completed in 1795, Poland ceased to exist and was carved up by the Habsburg Monarchy (the Austrian Monarchy), the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russian Empire. In 1793, Gdansk was incorporated into Prussia (Later the German Empire in 1871) and became a German city. Danzig is the Germanisation for the Polish Gdansk. After the WWI Treaty of Versailles, West Prussia was ceded to the newly reconstructed state of Poland, but Danzig an ethnically German city, and became a "free city" under the oversight of the League of Nations.

In 1939 Hitler demanded the annexation of the Free City of Danzig to Germany as well as the overturning of other German losses in the Treaty. The invasion of Poland started WWII. After the war, Danzig and its surrounding districts once again became part of Poland. The German citizens either fled or were driven out. Poland renamed the city Gdansk in 1946. It has remained part of Poland ever since.

Answer: East Germany

Dresden, on the Elbe River (as is Hamburg 500 km to the northwest), is a major city in eastern Germany near the Czech border. It is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and has a proud history as the city of the royal residences of the Kings of Saxony. It was a centre for the arts and culture and the city and state were incorporated into the German Empire in 1871, thereafter becoming a major manufacturing centre, particularly in the fields of automobile production, food processing, medical equipment, camera works, and cigarette production.

When the Allies bombed Dresden in WWII, it was controversial, as it was seen as a cultural rather than an industrial hub. In the aftermath, when Dresden was within the Soviet zone of occupation, the Soviets razed most of the damaged buildings rather than repairing them. Some culturally important buildings were saved. When the Wall came down and Germany was reunified, Dresden retained its status as the capital of Saxony which became one of 16 states in the single country.

Answer: Not in Germany 1961-1989

Königsberg was the historic German and Prussian name of the city that became Kaliningrad, Russia, after WWII. It was a Baltic port city, that was the capital of the provinces of East Prussia and Prussia. Konigsberg was the coronation city of the Prussian monarchy, but the capital was Berlin. After WWI East Prussia was separated from the much-smaller-than-before-the-war Germany by the newly restored state of Poland.

When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, he made it part of Germany, and East Prussia once again was part of Germany. East Prussia was heavily bombed by the Allies during WWII and was captured by the Russians in 1944. Under the Potsdam Agreement of 1 August 1945, Prussia became part of the Soviet Union as an exclave separated by the newly-formed Lithuanian Soviet Republic in between the two Soviet land masses. Most Germans were driven out the rest were kept temporarily as forced labourers to rebuild the city, then they too were driven out in 1949. East Prussia became the Kaliningrad Oblast and Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad. It remained part of the Soviet Union until it too dissolved. Thereafter it became an exclave of Russia.