Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Germany
This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Germany

Constitution
Federal Council (Bundesrat) Federal Parliament (Bundestag) Federal Assembly (Bundesversammlung) Constitutional Court Federal Court of Justice
President Horst Köhler Chancellor Angela Merkel Cabinet
States (Länder) Districts (Kreise)
Elections Political parties Former parties
Human rights Foreign relations EU Politics
Other countries • Politics Portal view • talk • edit

The Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany (in place of a peace treaty), was negotiated between the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, and the Four Powers which occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union.

Since the end of the Second World War in 1945 and the immediately following Cold War there had not been a peace treaty. This Treaty on the Final Settlement... was instead signed in Moscow on September 12, 1990. It is sometimes referred to as the Two Plus Four Agreement (German: Zwei-plus-Vier-Vertrag) and paved the way for German reunification on October 3 that year.

Under the terms of the treaty, the Four Powers renounced all rights they formerly held in Germany, including Berlin. As a result, the reunited country became fully sovereign on March 15, 1991. Soviet troops were to leave Germany by the end of 1994. Germany agreed 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 air force. Germany also reaffirmed its renunciation of the manufacture and possession of and control over nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and in particular that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty would continue to apply to united Germany. Also, no foreign armed forces and nuclear weapons or their carriers would be stationed in former East Germany or deployed there, making it a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone.

Perhaps the most significant of the treaty's terms was Germany's renouncing of all claims to territory east of the Oder-Neisse line: Germany thus accepted the territorial changes imposed after 1945 (see also Territorial changes of Poland after World War II). Germany also agreed to sign a separate treaty with Poland confirming their present border, which it did the following year.

Although the treaty was signed by the two German states as separate entities, it was ratified by a united Germany per the terms of the agreement.