To decapitate the nascent European Community and prevent German rearmament, Stalin presented five conditions for German reunification: the withdrawal of all occupying forces, neutrality, Germany unified within the 1945 borders, the removal of limits on the development of the Ruhr, and the right to its own army. These conditions were imposed on the Allies, not the German government. But Adenauer would have had to abandon the progress made toward European integration to achieve German reunification. The Allies, and first and foremost Eisenhower, who supported European unification, rejected the proposal. And on May 5, 1955, the Federal Republic of Germany returned to being a sovereign state when the Allied High Commission was dissolved and the Federal Republic of Germany became a sovereign state.
