Allied Control Council
An Allied Control Council was established on 30 August 1945 to execute supreme governmental power over Allied-occupied Germany, which no longer included the German eastern territories. In its initial proceedings, the Allied Control Council assumed itself to be the sole repository of German state sovereignty especially in respect of external relations, but it largely left each of the Allied Powers to administer its own occupation zones as it saw fit. The functioning of the Allied Control Council proved, however, to be severely compromised by obstruction from the Allied Powers represented on it. Initially France, which had not been invited to the Potsdam Conference and refused to be bound by the Potsdam Agreement, and then the Soviet Union in 1948 walked out of the Control Council, which prevented it from meeting again until 1991.