Which country was divided into East and West after World War II?

The division of Germany into East and West after World War II is a significant historical event that resulted from the geopolitical tensions of the Cold War. Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the country was split into four occupation zones controlled by the Allies: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union. In 1949, this division solidified into two separate states: the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), aligned with the West, and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), aligned with the Soviet bloc.

This division not only represented a physical split but also a profound ideological divide between capitalism in the West and communism in the East. The Berlin Wall, erected in 1961, became a powerful symbol of this division and the broader conflict between the two superpowers represented by NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

While Korea and Vietnam also experienced divisions during the Cold War, they arose in different contexts and were not the same as the division of Germany in terms of its global implications and the duration of the split. Japan, on the other hand, was occupied by the Allies but was not divided into separate nations after the war. Thus, Germany is the correct answer when discussing post-World War II divisions among these