Why is there east and west Germany?

Answer 1

East Germany and West Germany had two types of governments represented by the two superpowers of the time period, America and the USSR.

West Germans generally think of East Germans as backwards and poor. East Germans think of the West Germans as rich and arrogant.

Answer 2

There isn't East and West Germany anymore. They reunited in 1990 to become Germany.

But between 1948 and 1990, Germany was indeed split into East and West. The reason is because of how World War II ended. The four major countries that won the War (England, France, the USA and the Soviet Union) split Germany into four parts and each controlled one of those parts. They wanted to ensure that the Nazis were removed from power and a new government was set up that would not do the horrible things the Nazis did.

However, the Soviet Union and the other three countries started to distrust each other, despite haivng been allies during the war. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian Dictatorship, and the other countries began to distrust them, and the Soviets distrusted them back. So in 1948, the US, French and British zones of Germany were united into the "Federal Republic of Germany", or West Germany.

In the Soviet-controlled zone, a totalitarian dictatorship similar to that in the Soviet Union was set up, and the new country was named the "German Democratic Republic", or East Germany. The split became official, and would last until the fall of the Communist bloc in the late 1980's. In October of 1990, the East German government ended and East Germany was merged into West Germany; West Germany then became just Germany, and still is to this day.