Allied Kommandatura: Directives, Minutes and Papers

The records in this series are the complete set of official jointly produced Allied Kommandatura records (directives, minutes and papers of boards and committees and so on) held by the British element of the Allied Kommandatura and relating to the governing of Berlin.

In 2003 Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Topics

International

Conflict

The Allied Kommandatura was the four power (British, American, French and Soviet) body established by the allies at the end of the Second World War to conduct the administration of Berlin, following agreement at the Potsdam Conference of July-August 1945.

The Allied Kommandatura exercised all the usual civil administrative functions of a city government, as well as functions relating to the reconstruction of the city, its military occupation and other aspects peculiar to the situation of Berlin after the war. The chairmanship of the Allied Kommandatura and its various committees passed in rotation between representatives of the occupying powers.

The Allied Kommandatura governed by means of directives issued by the board, but the sub-committees of the board, largely staffed by members of the respective allied military government missions, provided the effective administration of the city.

Co-operation between the western allies and the Soviet Union ended in 1948, at which time the Soviet Union withdrew both from the Control Commissions administering Germany and Austria and from the Allied Kommandatura. From that time the Allied Kommandatura became a three-power body responsible for West Berlin only.

Regular administrative functions were swiftly devolved in West Berlin to German authorities (the executive Berlin Senat, and the House of Representatives), so that by 1950 the city was, for most practical purposes, self-governing.

However, the Allied Kommandatura remained the official government of the western part of the city, and the channel of communication between the local authorities in Berlin and the occupying powers, until it was finally dissolved in 1990 following the re-unification of East and West Germany.