West Germany joined NATO on October 22, 1954. The country had been defeated in the war and left in ruins, and less than a decade later it was being brought into the western military alliance. The decision rearmed a nation that the world had sworn to keep down.
The war had ended with Germany occupied. It was split. The country was split into zones run by the victors, and by the 1950s the western zones had been merged into a state called the Federal Republic. The Soviet Union held the east, and the line between them became the front of the Cold War.
Rearming was controversial. Many Europeans, remembering two wars, were wary of a German army again, and the idea was sold as the only way to defend the west against Soviet power. The new German forces were placed under NATO command, so no independent German general staff could rise again.
The Soviet Union answered in kind. The pact came in 1955. It formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955, binding its satellite states into a rival alliance, and the division of Europe into two armed camps was complete. The Cold War now had its full military shape.
The decision fixed Germany's place for forty years. The Federal Republic became the front line and the economic engine of the western alliance, and its army, the Bundeswehr, grew into a large force. A country that had twice marched to war was now the anchor of a peace that held until the wall came down.