Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany The Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany , ( or the Two Plus Four Agreement , ; short : German Treaty ) was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic ( the eponymous " Two " ) , and the Four Powers which occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe : France , the Soviet Union , the United Kingdom , and the United States of America . In the treaty the Four Powers renounced all rights they held in Germany , allowing a united Germany to become fully sovereign the following year . Background . On 2 August 1945 , the Potsdam Agreement was issued at the end of the Potsdam Conference . Among other things , it agreed on the initial terms under which the Allies of World War II would govern Germany and the provisional German - Polish border known as the Oder - Neisse line . The agreements reached were provisional ones that would be finalised by " a peace settlement for Germany to be accepted by the Government of Germany when a government adequate for the purpose is established " ( Potsdam Agreement 1 . 3 . 1 ) . The " German Question " became one of the salient and crucial issues of the long - running Cold War , and until it ended in the late 1980s , little progress had been made in the establishment of a single government of Germany adequate for the purpose of agreeing to a final settlement . This meant that in some respects ( largely but not only technical ) , Germany did not have full national sovereignty . With the fall of the Berlin Wall the German people and the German governments of the Federal Republic of Germany ( in the West ) and the German Democratic Republic ( in the East ) made it clear that they wished to form a united democratic German state , and that to achieve unity and full sovereignty , they were willing to accept the terms of the Potsdam Agreement that affected Germany . It was then possible for all the parties to negotiate a final settlement as envisioned in the Potsdam Agreement . The Treaty . The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed in Moscow , USSR , on 12 September 1990 , and it paved the way for German reunification on 3 October 1990 . Under the terms of the treaty , the Four Powers renounced all rights they formerly held in Germany , including in regard to the city of Berlin . As a result , the united Germany would become fully sovereign on 15 March 1991 , with Berlin as its capital . It would be free to make and belong to alliances , and without any foreign influence in its politics . All Soviet forces were to leave Germany by the end of 1994 . Before the Soviets withdrew , Germany would only deploy territorial defense units to areas where Soviet troops were stationed . After the Soviets withdrew , the Germans could freely deploy troops in those areas , with the exception of nuclear weapons . During the duration of the Soviet presence , Allied troops would remain stationed in Berlin upon Germany ' s request . Germany was to limit its combined armed forces to no more than 370 , 000 personnel , no more than 345 , 000 of whom were to be in the Army and the Air Force . Germany also reaffirmed its renunciation of the manufacture , possession of , and control over nuclear , biological , and chemical weapons , and in particular , that the Nuclear Non - Proliferation Treaty would continue to apply in full to the unified Germany ( the Federal Republic of Germany ) . No foreign armed forces , nuclear weapons , or the carriers for nuclear weapons would be stationed or deployed in six states ( the area of Berlin and the former East Germany ) , making them a permanent Nuclear - Weapon - Free Zone . The German Army could deploy conventional weapons systems with nonconventional capabilities , provided that they were equipped and designed for a purely conventional role . Germany also agreed to use military force only in accordance with the United Nations Charter . Another of the treaty ' s important terms was Germany ' s confirmation of the internationally recognized border with Poland and Russia , and other territorial changes that Germany had undergone since 1945 , preventing any future claims to lost territory east of the Oder - Neisse line ( see also former German territories east of the Oder - Neisse line ) which had belonged to Germany before 1937 . The treaty defined the territory of a ' united Germany ' as being the territory of East and West Germany , prohibiting Germany from making any future territorial claims . Germany also agreed to sign a separate treaty with Poland reaffirming the present common border , binding under international law , effectively relinquishing territories to Poland . This was done on 14 November 1990 with the signing of the German - Polish Border Treaty . Although the treaty was signed by the western and eastern German states as separate entities , it was ratified by the united Germany ( the Federal Republic of Germany ) per the terms of the treaty agreement . Implementation and claimed violations of the treaty . After the Soviet Union dissolved itself in December 1991 , the command unit of the Soviet Group of Soviet Forces in Germany devolved to the Russian Federation . The German government subsequently recognized the Russian Federation ' s claim to be the successor state of the Soviet Union , including the right to maintain troops in Germany until the end of 1994 . However with post - Soviet Russia facing severe economic hardship , President Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troop deployment in Germany to be reduced to levels significantly below those permitted in the Treaty . The last Russian troops left Germany at the end of August in 1994 , four months before the treaty deadline . In the first decade of the 21st century , the Bundeswehr underwent a gradual transformation to a fully professional force . By 2011 , the year Germany voluntarily suspended conscription , the Bundeswehr had retained fewer than 250 , 000 active duty personnel - barely two thirds of the country ' s treaty limit of 370 , 000 . However , the treaty has been allegedly violated on a number of occasions . German News Information Services has argued that " an international lawsuit should be initiated against the development of installations at Leipzig Airport in preparation for service in NATO and EU combat missions " . Similarly , manoeuvres including NATO - troops in Trollenhagen , Mecklenburg - Vorpommern in the area of the former East Germany have also been questioned . Under the treaty , only German forces may be deployed in the area of the former East Germany . The scholar Stephen F . Cohen asserted in 2005 that a commitment was given that NATO would never expand further east , but according to Robert Zoellick , then a US State Department official involved in the Two Plus Four negotiating process , this appears to be a misperception ; no formal commitment of the sort was made . On May 7 , 2008 , the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev , in an interview with the British newspaper " The Daily Telegraph " , repeated his view that such a commitment had been made .