zwei plus vier

It's a little bit strange that Germany, modern and advanced with the meta-diplomacy of lobbyists and care-taking, does little to recognize violations of sovereignty on its own soil, real or suspected.

Perhaps it is out of fear of admitting collusion—or ignorance for the past. I learnt that it is far more bureau- cratically difficult to carry out any business as an ombudsman for a foreign government, diplomatic or military, on the soil of the former East German Democratic Republic, as defined by the pre-1990 borders than any largess committed in the West. The reason has to do with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (das Vertrag über die abschließende Regelung in bezug auf Deutschland) which codified and accorded the reunification between the East and West and the occupying plus the four occupying powers, France, Great Britain, America and the Soviet Union. The winning powers agreed to relinquish all claims to the occupied lands, except reserving the right-of-return, withdrawing their forces and placing limitations on the militarization of united Germany.

Unlike in the West (where NATO allies seem content to allow the Americans to keep watch), military operations in the lands of East Germany are strictly limited to German activities, without special and rare credentialing. The treaty's drafters argue that there was also the sub-text that the influence of NATO would advance no further east, nor the Warsaw Pact further west, as well—though that condition is placed in a dubious position with the expansion of the alliance to many former Soviet bloc nations (after the union's dissolution, having over-extended its resources in Afghanistan as part of the reason) and hosting multinational training exercises on the Baltic and the build-up of Leipzig airport to handle air-force traffic.