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3 unusual facts about Legal status of Germany


Legal status of Germany

The issue of the legal status of Germany from an international legal perspective prompted questions, as the Allied takeover was neither determined by the Hague Conventions nor could it be measured against the three-element theory of state law developed by the legal academic Georg Jellinek (1851–1911), whereafter a state qualifies as a subject of international law if it fulfills the three characteristics of territory, people, and government.

While municipal administrations (Gemeinden) had continued operating nearly without any interruption, and by 1946 local elections took place in all occupational zones, Germany's federal states located within the occupational zones of the western allies were once again assigned state governments between May 1945 and July 1947.

These incidents preceded the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces (Wehrmacht), signed by representatives of the High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) on May 7 in Reims and on May 8 in Berlin-Karlshorst (often incorrectly referred to as "Germany's surrender"), from which, due to its nature as a purely military capitulation, no legal consequences for the legal status of the German Reich arose.



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