Editing Bizone (section)

=== Initial breakdown of four-zone cooperation ===
Cooperation between the four occupying powers broke down between 1945 and 1947. The Soviet Union, which encouraged and partly carried out the post-war [[Expulsion of Germans after World War II|expulsions of Germans]] from the areas under its rule, stopped delivering agricultural products from [[Soviet occupation zone|its zone in Germany]] to the more industrial western zones, thereby failing to fulfill its obligations under the [[Potsdam Agreement]]s to provide supplies for the expellees, whose possessions had been confiscated. At Potsdam, it had been agreed<ref>Cf. section III. Reparations from Germany, paragraph 4 [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_potsdam.html Agreements of the Berlin (Potsdam) Conference] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101031085625/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_potsdam.html |date=31 October 2010 }}</ref> that 15% of all equipment dismantled in the Western zones – especially from the metallurgical, chemical, and machine manufacturing industries – would be transferred to the Soviets in return for food, coal, potash (a basic material for fertilisers), timber, clay products, petroleum products, etc. The Western deliveries had started in 1946.

The Soviet deliveries – desperately needed to provide the eastern expellees with food, heat, and basic necessities, and to increase agricultural production in the remaining cultivation area – did not materialise. Consequently, the American military administrator, [[Lucius D. Clay]], stopped the transfer of supplies and dismantled factories from the [[Ruhr area]] to the Soviet sector on 3 May 1946<ref>Lehmann, Hans Georg, ''Chronik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1945/49 bis 1981'', Munich: Beck, 1981, (Beck'sche Schwarze Reihe; Bd. 235), {{ISBN|3-406-06035-8}}, pp. 32 seq.</ref> while the expellees from the areas under Soviet rule were deported to the West until the end of 1948. As a result of the halt of deliveries from the western zones, the Soviet Union started a [[public relations]] campaign against American policy and began to obstruct the administrative work of all four zones.