After its defeat in World War II, Germany was divided into 4 zones of occupation: 1) Russian (Soviet) Zone, 2) American Zone, 3) British Zone, and 4) French Zone. The city of Berlin, Germany's capital, was totally in the Russian Zone but was also divided into 4 occupation zones. So many people in the Soviet part of Berlin escaped to the free zones of Berlin that the Soviets built a barrier know as the Berlin Wall to stop them. The Russian Zone became known as East Germany and the other three zones became West Germany. This division persisted until the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 when the two divided parts of Germany re-united into the modern German state.