Zonal administrative structures were materializing very slowly, and as the destroyed country’s material want could only be overcome by means of generous planning across state and zonal borders, and as quadripartite administration was not functioning, the United States and the United Kingdom decided in 1947 to merge their zones economically into what was known as the bizone. The conflicting systems of government in East and West and the different approach to reparations in the individual occupation zones were an obstacle to the introduction of uniform financial, taxation, raw materials and production policy throughout Germany and led to considerable regional disparities.

France was not interested in a common economic administration (bizone/trizone) at first. Stalin wanted to have a say in the management of the Ruhr but at the same time sealed his own zone off to the others. He would not have any Western interference with the appointment of pro-communist officials in the Soviet-occupied zone. The Western powers were powerless to prevent such arbitrary Soviet measures as the compulsory merger of the German Communist Party (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to form the Socialist Unity Party (SED) in April 1946.

In view of the intensifying conversion of the Soviet occupation zone into a communist dictatorship - as early as 1948 it was no longer possible to speak of a system based on freedom there - the British and Americans began to work hard to promote the development of their own zones. If uniform administration of postwar Germany was no longer possible, the Western occupying powers were concerned to at least alleviate misery and need in the Western zones and pave the way for the creation o’f a democratic state structure based on freedom. Thus the beginning of the Cold War and the division of Germany were almost simultaneous events.