In july 1946 the Soviets adopted a definite policy. When the Paris Conference of Foreign Ministers reconvened, Molotov astonished his colleagues by calling for the formation of a centralized German government and the upward revision of the German Level of Industry, to be accompanied by the payment of reparations from current production. Rather than stimulating a new round of Allied negotiations on German unification, the Soviet shift accelerated the movement toward a merger of the American and British zones.

On the American side, there were diverse motives for establishing the bizone. There was universal dislike of British economic policy and a desire for a more direct voice in the Ruhr. Within U.S. Military Government this was joined to the expectation that, carefully handled, economic fusion could establish a framework for four-power amalgamation. Among many State Department officials, it was viewed in opposite fashion: as the first step in a deliberate strategy of dividing the country.