Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany

Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany

Type	Independence treaty
Signed	12 September 1990
Location	Moscow, USSR
Effective	15 March 1991
Signatories	Two: East Germany West Germany Plus Four: Soviet Union United States United Kingdom France
Languages	English French German Russian

The Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany, Template:Lang-de (or the Two Plus Four Agreement, Template:Lang-de; short: German Treaty) was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic (the titular "Two"), and the Four Powers which occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

Background

On 2 August 1945, the Potsdam Agreement was issued at the end of the Potsdam Conference. Among other things, it agreed on the initial terms under which the Allies of World War II would govern Germany and the provisional German-Polish border known as the Oder-Neisse line. The agreements reached were provisional ones that would be finalised by "a peace settlement for Germany to be accepted by the

The Treaty

The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed in Moscow, USSR, on 12 September 1990, and that paved the way for German reunification on 3 October 1990.

Under the terms of the treaty, the Four Powers renounced all rights they formerly held in Germany, including in regard to the city of Berlin. As a result, the united Germany would become fully sovereign on 15 March 1991, with Berlin as its capital. It would be free to make and belong to alliances, and without any foreign influence in its politics. All Soviet forces were to leave Germany by the end of 1994. Before the Soviets withdrew, Germany would only deploy territorial defense units to areas where Soviet troops were stationed. After the Soviets withdrew, the Germans could freely deploy troops in those areas. During the duration of the Soviet presence, Allied troops would remain stationed in Berlin upon Germany's request.

Germany was to limit its combined armed forces to no more than 370,000 personnel, no more than 345,000 of whom were to be in the Army and the Air Force. Germany also reaffirmed its renunciation of the manufacture, possession of, and control over nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and in particular, that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty would continue to apply in full to the unified Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany). No foreign armed forces, nuclear weapons, or the carriers for nuclear weapons would be stationed or deployed in six states (the area of Berlin and the former East Germany), making them a permanent Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. The German Army could deploy conventional weapons systems with nonconventional capabilities, provided that they were equipped and designed for a purely conventional role. Germany also agreed to use military force only in accordance with the United Nations Charter.

Another of the treaty's important terms was Germany's confirmation of the internationally recognized border with Poland, and other territorial changes that Germany had undergone since 1945, preventing any future claims to territory east of the Oder-Neisse line (see also former German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line). The treaty defined the territory of a united Germany as being the territory of East and West Germany, prohibiting Germany from making any future territorial claims. Germany also agreed to sign a separate treaty with Poland reaffirming the present common border, binding under international law. This was done on 14 November 1990 with the signing of the German-Polish Border Treaty.

Although the treaty was signed by the western and eastern German states as separate entities, it was ratified by the united Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany) per the terms of the treaty agreement.

Implementation and claimed violations of the treaty

After the Soviet Union dissolved itself in December 1991, command of the Soviet Group of Soviet Forces in Germany devolved to the Russian Federation. The German government subsequently recognized the Russian Federation's claim to be the successor state of the Soviet Union, including the right to maintain troops in Germany until the end of 1994. However with post-Soviet Russia facing severe economic hardship, President Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troop deployment in Germany reduced to levels significantly below those permitted in the Treaty. The last Russian troops left Germany at the end of August in 1994, four months before the treaty deadline.

In the 2000s (decade), the Bundeswehr underwent a gradual transformation to a fully professional force, eventually suspending conscription in 2011. As of 2011 the Bundeswehr had retained fewer than 250,000 active duty personnel - barely two thirds of the country's treaty limit of 370,000.

"The Americans promised that NATO wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted."

former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

However, the treaty has been allegedly violated on a number of occasions. German News Information Services has argued that "an international lawsuit should be initiated against the development of installations at Leipzig Airport in preparation for service in NATO and EU combat missions". Similarly, manoeuvres including NATO-troops in Trollenhagen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the area of the former East Germany have also been questioned. Under the treaty, only German forces may be deployed in the area of the former East Germany.

The scholar Stephen F. Cohen asserted in 2005 that a commitment was given that NATO would never expand further east, but according to Robert Zoellick, then a US State Department official involved in the Two Plus Four negotiating process, this appears to be a misperception; no formal commitment of the sort was made. On May 7, 2008, the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, in an interview with the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, repeated his view that such a commitment had been made.

See also

• Reunification of Germany
• Council of Foreign Ministers
• Allied Control Council
• Occupation statute
• Petersberg Agreement
• Bonn–Paris conventions
• Germany Treaty
• London and Paris Conferences
• Four Power Agreement on Berlin
• Basic Treaty

Further reading

• Full Text of the Treaty (US Embassy in Germany Web site)
• Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (Harvard University Press, 1995 & 1997).
• Charles S. Maier, Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (Princeton University Press, 1997).