Berlin Declaration (1945)

By way of the Berlin Declaration of June 5, 1945, (officially the "Declaration regarding the defeat of Germany and the assumption of supreme authority with respect to Germany by the Governments of the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and the Provisional Government of the French Republic"), the Allies of World War II assumed "supreme authority" over the territory of the German Reich and basic administrative issues were addressed:

The declaration was signed by the commanders-in-chief:
 * Georgy Zhukov for the Soviet Union
 * Dwight D. Eisenhower for the United States
 * Bernard Montgomery for the United Kingdom
 * Jean de Lattre de Tassigny for France.

The declaration confirmed the division of Allied-occupied Germany according to the Yalta Conference and the continued existence of the German Reich as a whole, which would include its eastern territories as of 31 December 1937. By the end of June, the Western Allies had vacated those occupied areas, which were to be incorporated into the Soviet occupation zone. Upon the implementation of the Oder-Neisse line in the course of the Potsdam Agreement on 2 August 1945, the eastern territories came under Polish and Soviet (Kaliningrad Oblast) administration. The Allied Control Council was established to execute the governmental power.

A monument placed at the site in the Wendenschloss district of Berlin-Köpenick on Niebergall Street reads in German "On 5 June 1945 in the former headquarters of Marshal G. K. Zhukov here, the representatives of the high commands of the Anti-Hitler Coalition signed the Declaration of the defeat of Fascist Germany and the assumption of governmental authority through the four allied states."