The Second World War ended in May 1945 with the capitulation of Germany. The Allied powers – the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the USA and France – divided Germany into four occupation zones and Berlin into four sectors. Each of the Allied powers took control of one zone and one sector. The Soviet Occupation Zone (SOZ) encompassed what is now Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, as well as the eastern part of Berlin. In 1949, the German Democratic Republic developed from the SOZ and joined the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990.