By the time the war ended the victorious powers had agreed upon the division of the western two-thirds of post-war Germany into four military occupation zones . Arrangements would , however , be confirmed at the Potsdam Conference in July/August 1945 . Berlin itself was to be separately treated , surrounded by the Soviet occupation zone and itself administered as four separate military zones ( or " sectors " ) . On 2 May 1945 - a few days before the formal end of the war - the local Soviet commander appointed Karl-Heinz Gerstner to serve as " second deputy mayor " in Berlin-Wilmersdorf . However , it had already been agreed that Wilmersdorf would be administered as part of the British sector , and in July the Red army troops withdrew to the pre-agreed frontiers , leaving the British to take control in this part of Berlin . British military police arrested Gerstner on 24 July 1945 , reasoning that since he had worked at the German embassy in Paris he must have been a senior Nazi official . They handed him over to the Soviet sector to be detained pending further decisions . He was now taken to in the underground NKVD prisoner of war holding centre in what had previously been the cellar for keeping the bodies of dead animals cool at the former Veterinary Medicine Institute in central Berlin . On 21 September 1945 he was moved to " more appropriate " accommodation in Special Internment Camp 3 at Berlin-Hohenschönhausen . Now , however , Sibylle Boden-Gerstner ( as she had become ) was able to deliver to the Soviet district commander 23 written statements from friends and former Resistance activists whom Karl-Heinz and Sibylle had known during their time in Paris . The statements demonstrated that Gerstner ( unlike most of the staff at the Paris embassy ) had never been a convinced Nazi , and they included several sworn statements attesting ways in which he had helped Resistance members during the war . The Soviets were convinced , and Gerstner was released from detention on 21 January 1946 . Gerstner later claimed that while he was held in Soviet detention he had succeeded in communicating with his wife using Kassiber code . It had taken his wife six months to organise the written statements , and she had entered a closed military zone in the city " under fire " from a Soviet sentry in order to hand over the papers . In his memoire Gernstner concluded the chapter in question , " I owe her my life " . There was no resentment on Gerstner 's part over his seven months of incarceration : his return to freedom was accompanied by " complete understanding for the Soviets who persecuted the fascists " ( '' " mit vollem Verständnis für die Sovjets , die die Fascisten verfolgten " '' ) , according to information in the Stasi records that became available after 1990
Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
Karl-Heinz Gerstner