When was the Bizone created?
The Bizone was created on the 1st of January 1947, when the United States and Britain merged their occupation zones in Germany.
Questions about Bizone
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is the difference between the Bizone and the Trizone?
The Bizone was the merged American and British occupation zones, while the Trizone added the French occupation zone starting on the 1st of August 1948. The Trizone was sometimes jokingly called Trizonesia.
Why didn't the Soviet Union join the Bizone?
The Soviet Union did not join because extending self-rule to its zone would have meant accepting the results of the 1946 elections there, which did not clearly favor Communists, and would have ended communist rule in eastern Germany.
How large was the population of the Bizone?
The Bizone had a population of approximately 39 million people, spread across eight Länder including Bavaria, Hesse, and North Rhine-Westphalia.
What did the Bizone become?
The Bizone became the Trizone on the 1st of August 1948 after France joined, and the Trizone became the Federal Republic of Germany, known as West Germany, on the 23rd of May 1949.
Which German states were part of the Bizone?
The Bizone included Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Bremen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Bavaria, and Württemberg-Baden, but excluded the states of the French and Soviet zones as well as Berlin and the Saarland.