question: During the cold war, what's the point of splitting Berlin? Like, it seemed like a bad idea from the start?
comment: It wasn't split during the cold war. It was split 4 ways after the Germans surrendered in WWII, into the Russian, American, English, and French zones. The idea behind splitting Berlin was that the allied powers defeated Germany, and thus each should be responsible for a section of the German capital.
passages: In order to reach such improvements, the ultimate political definition of the status of Berlin was purposely left vague, thus it preserved the differing legal positions of the two sides. The word "Berlin" does not appear in the text. The city of Berlin is identified only as the "relevant area."
  
  The Quadripartite Agreement is drawn up "in the English, French and Russian languages, all texts being equally authentic." Thus, there is no authentic text in the German language. The translations used by the two German states have some differences.
   At the close of the century, it became evident that despite significant investment and planning, Berlin was yet to retake "its seat between the European Global Cities of London and Paris." Yet ultimately, the disparity between East and West portions of Berlin has led to the city achieving a new urban identity.
   In the context of urban planning, in addition to a wealth of new opportunity and the symbolism of two former independent nations being re-joined, the reunification of Berlin presented numerous challenges. The city underwent massive redevelopment, involving the political, economic and cultural environment of both East and West Berlin. However, the "scar" left by the Wall, which ran directly through the very heart of the city had consequences for the urban environment that planning still needs to address. Despite planning efforts, significant disparity between East and West remain.
  
  Section::::Reunified Berlin.:Urban planning issues.
   The early period of partition plans evolved by the European Advisory Commission is documented. When in February 1945, the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union decided to split the former German Reich in occupation zones at the Yalta Conference, including a fourth area assigned to the French, the German capital likewise was divided into four sectors. In late April, Soviet Red Army troops fought their way into the city during the Battle of Berlin and enforced the unconditional surrender by the German Wehrmacht armed forces. In Summer they pulled out from the city's Western sectors according to the agreements concluded.
   BULLET::::- During the Cold War, underground lines in West Berlin ran under parts of East Berlin. Ghost stations () were stations on Berlin's U-Bahn and S-Bahn metro networks that were closed during this period of Berlin's division.
  
  Proposals
  
  BULLET::::- The shortest and straightest route for a proposed east–west high-speed railway in Austria through Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck would pass under some mountains belonging to Germany.
  
  Section::::Unusual cross-border transport channels.:National railway passing through another state's territory.:Africa.
   As expressed by Grésillon "the fall of the Berlin Wall [marked] the end of 40 years of divided political, economic and cultural histories" and was "accompanied by a strong belief that [the city] was now back on its 'natural' way to become again a major metropolis".
   The Council had held its final meeting on 2 October 1990, on the eve of the reunification of Germany, when it promulgated the formal documents – already agreed in advance – that authorized the inclusion of the city of Berlin in the German reunification. This was necessary because, until then, West Berlin was legally not a part of the Federal Republic of Germany, although it was administered by it. But with the allied Souveränitätserklärung (Sovereignty Declaration) agreed in the Council, the Federal Republic was allowed to assume legal control of Berlin at the moment of German reunification (although the withdrawal of the Allied military presence had to wait until 1994, in accordance with the timeframe provided by the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany).
   The reasons given for the demerger were that the two businesses had relatively little synergies and could be better developed as separate concerns.
  
  On 6 February 2017, the AGM of Metro AG agreed to the demerger. The demerger was executed on 12 Juli 2017 by way of required changes in the Trade Register in Düsseldorf, followed by the IPO on 13 July. Metro AG was renamed to "Ceconomy AG" on 11 August 2017. Subsequently, "Metro Wholesale & Food Specialist AG" was renamed to "Metro AG" on 18 August 2017.
  
  Section::::Business.
   An immediate challenge facing the reunified city was the need for physical connectivity between the East and the West, specifically the organization of infrastructure. In the period following World War II, approximately half of the railway lines were removed in East Berlin.
  
  Section::::Reunified Berlin.:Policy for reunification.
  
  As urban planning in Germany is the responsibility of city government, the integration of East and West Berlin was in part complicated by the fact that the existing planning frameworks became obsolete with the fall of the Wall.
   BULLET::::- Neustrelitz: founded in 1733 with streets spreading from an octagonal market place
  
  BULLET::::- Neuwied: founded in 1653
  
  BULLET::::- Putbus: built around a circular centre with radially aligned streets
  
  BULLET::::- Sennestadt: founded in 1956, today part of Bielefeld
  
  BULLET::::- Wilhelmshaven: founded as a naval base by the Kingdom of Prussia
  
  BULLET::::- Wolfsburg: founded in 1938 to host the factories for the newly built Volkswagen
  
  Welthauptstadt Germania was the projected renewal of Berlin as a planned city, although only a small portion was constructed between 1937 and 1943.
   Only two jointly run four-power organizations survived the division of Germany. Both were in West Berlin, Germany, and existed during the Cold War from 1948 to 1989. These were the Berlin Air Safety Center and Spandau Prison (which was demolished in 1987 when Rudolf Hess, the sole remaining prisoner, died).
  
  Section::::Status.
   After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the ensuing collapse of the GDR, the support for the "Berliner Friedenslauf" also diminished. So the former organizer Stefan Senkel quickly had to find a new partner to save the race. SCC-RUNNING, the organizer of the Berlin marathon, joined. Both parties agreed on one distance: a half marathon. Thus, there is only one major half marathon in Berlin since 1990.
   BULLET::::- 1900 Albingia Aachen (until it fused with Marko-Guestphalia Aachen in 1996)
  
  BULLET::::- 1933 Frisia Frankfurt (until it suspended due to Nazi pressure in 1935)
  
  BULLET::::- 1993 Altsachsen Dresden
  
  BULLET::::- 2010 Corps Berlin (established in 2009 by fusion of Corps Teutonia, Cheruscia, and Rheno-Guestphalia in Berlin)
   The victors of World War II — France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, comprising the Four-Power Authorities—retained authority over Berlin, such as control over air travel and its political status. From the onset, the Soviet Union sought to use reunification as a way to push Germany out of NATO into neutrality, removing nuclear weapons from its territory. However, West Germany misinterpreted a 21 November 1989 diplomatic message on the topic to mean that the Soviet leadership already anticipated reunification only two weeks after the Wall's collapse. This belief, and the worry that his rival Genscher might act first, encouraged Kohl on 28 November to announce a detailed "Ten Point Program for Overcoming the Division of Germany and Europe". While his speech was very popular within West Germany, it caused concern among other European governments, with whom he had not discussed the plan.
   The Berlin Crisis of 1961 was the last major incident in the Cold War regarding the status of Berlin and post–World War II Germany. By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to restricting emigration movement was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc. However, hundreds of thousands of East Germans annually emigrated to West Germany through a "loophole" in the system that existed between East Berlin and West Berlin, where the four occupying World War II powers governed movement.
   Prior to the reunification of the city, the Land Use Plan of 1988 and General Development Plan of 1980 defined the spatial planning criteria for West and East Berlin, respectively. These were replaced by the new, unified Land Use Plan in 1994. Termed "Critical Reconstruction", the new policy aimed to revive Berlin's pre-WWII esthetic; it was complemented by a strategic planning document for downtown Berlin, entitled "Inner City Planning Framework".
  
  Following the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic on 3 October 1990, all planning projects under the socialist regime were abandoned.
   Section::::Period following the building of the Berlin Wall.
  
  After the Berlin Wall was constructed, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer suggested to U.S. President John F. Kennedy that the United States propose a swap of West Berlin with Thuringia and parts of Saxony and Mecklenburg; the city's population would have been relocated to West Germany. While the Kennedy administration seriously considered the idea, it did not make the proposal to the Soviet Union.
   Vacant lots, open areas and empty fields in East Berlin were subject to redevelopment, in addition to space previously occupied by the Wall and associated buffering zone. Many of these sites were positioned in central, strategic locations of the reunified city.
  
  Section::::Reunified Berlin.:After the fall of the wall.
  
  Berlin's urban organization experienced significant upheaval following the physical and metaphorical collapse of the Wall, as the city sought to "re-invent itself as a 'Western' metropolis".
   In November 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev issued an ultimatum to the three other Allied powers to withdraw from Berlin within six months and make it a free and demilitarised city, after that access to Berlin would be controlled by East Germany. In response the United States, United Kingdom, and France stated their determination to remain in the city and maintain their legal right of free access to West Berlin. The Soviet Union withdrew the deadline before it passed in 1959 and engaged in negotiations with the other powers.
   BULLET::::- 1992 Brussels, Belgium
  
  BULLET::::- 1993 Jakarta, Indonesia
  
  BULLET::::- 1993 Tashkent, Uzbekistan
  
  BULLET::::- 1993 Mexico City, Mexico
  
  BULLET::::- 1993 Bern, Switzerland
  
  BULLET::::- 1994 Beijing, China
  
  BULLET::::- 1994 Tokyo, Japan
  
  BULLET::::- 1994 Buenos Aires, Argentina
  
  BULLET::::- 1995 Prague, Czech Republic
  
  BULLET::::- 2000 Vaduz, Liechtenstein
  
  BULLET::::- 2000 Windhoek, Namibia
  
  BULLET::::- 2000 London, United Kingdom
  
  Section::::Security.
  
  Section::::Security.:Berlin Police.
   Section::::Cold War.
  
  At the end of World War II in 1945, West Berlin's city boundary became the dividing line between the Soviet zone of Germany and the American, British and French sectors of Berlin. For the first couple of years, the border still remained open.
  
  An escalation of the Cold War (the Berlin Blockade and the proclamation of two separate German states) turned Berlin's outer boundary into a part of the Iron Curtain, and thus Steinstücken into an island of West Berlin, itself an island, in East Germany.
   As these groups began to evolve, the Red Line and the Fourth Reich quickly entered a state of war, as both sought to destroy the other. As the war raged, the stations who refused to join either side were either demolished by the factions, merged into the Hanza regime, raided by criminal bandits, or formed their own independent states. Other stations were outright destroyed by animals, mutated by the nuclear fallout. While most of the stations were controlled by the three main factions, some stations formed an independent alliances, including the station VDNKh ("Exhibition"). Within that station, the events of "Metro 2033" unfold.
   In early 1961, the East German government sought a way to stop its population leaving for the West. Walter Ulbricht, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and Staatsrat chairman and thus East Germany's chief decision-maker, convinced the Soviet Union that force was necessary to stop this movement, although Berlin's four-power status required the allowance of free travel between zones and forbade the presence of German troops in Berlin.
   Immediately following the fall of the Wall, Berlin experienced a boom in the construction industry. Redevelopment initiatives saw Berlin turn into one of the largest construction sites in the world through the 1990s and early 2000s.
   BULLET::::- Council of Foreign Ministers
  
  BULLET::::- Allied Control Council
  
  BULLET::::- Allied Kommandatura
  
  BULLET::::- Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany
  
  BULLET::::- Steinstücken
  
  Section::::External links.
  
  BULLET::::- Text des Viermächte-Abkommens E-text of the Agreement in German
  
  BULLET::::- Ostpolitik: The Quadripartite Agreement of September 3, 1971 U.S Embassy Germany
  
  BULLET::::- Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations "Note 4" gives details of the impact of this Agreement on the assession of East and West Germany to this Convention and other international treaties which effected the international status of West Berlin.
  
presuppositions: Berlin was split during the Cold War.
corrections: Berlin was split during World War II. 
raw_presuppositions: Berlin was split during the Cold War. Berlin was split during the Cold War.
raw_corrections: Berlin was split during World War II.  Berlin was split after World War II.