What was the ‘cold war’?

After the Second World War, the four ‘Allies’ that fought against Germany – England, France, USA, and the Soviet Union (USSR) – divided Germany into four occupation zones. Berlin lay in the middle of the Soviet zone. Sharp differences of opinion between the three western powers and the Soviet Union led to the founding of the NATO in 1949 and the formation of two German states, the FRG and the GDR. The cold war began with the enemies constantly threatening the use of atomic weapons. Soon, the GDR was blocked out for the West with a border fence and the Berlin wall. The change of events came at the end of the 1980s. The cold war ended, the two German nations got unified, and the USSR split.