War ended in May 1945 and the western two thirds of Germany were divided into four large military occupation zones. The north-west of the country, including Dortmund, became the British military occupation zone. There were no longer any democratic political structures in operation, and while these were being prepared the military administrators set up institutions which as far as possible reflected the political balance evidenced by the 1932 elections, being the most recent democratic elections. The English appointed Elisabeth Zillken to membership of the Dortmund city council and of the for the newly constituted province of North Rhine-Westphalia. She sat as a CDU member till April 1947, but with her sixtieth birthday looming on the horizon she did not then stand for election for a further term. The Christian Democratic Union CDU was in many ways a successor political party to the old "Catholic" Centre Party, but it was more broadly based. Across what remained of Germany there was a perception that the National Socialists had succeeded electorally because of political divisions between the more moderate parties and on the political left, and there was a shared determination on the part of the occupying powers to avoid a return to populism. In the west the military authorities strongly backed the creation of the CDU. Between 1947 and 1958 Elisabeth Zillken served as a deputy chair of the .