Chat with our AI personalities
The dividing line between the Soviets and US/allies.
Germans have occupied the Rhineland for a considerable length of time! I suspect that the question should be "When did Germany remilitarize the Rhineland?", the answer being 1936. The Rhineland had been made into a demilitarised zone after the Great War, under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, 1919. Germany had political control of this area, but was not allowed to put any troops into it. In 1936, Hitler ordered troops to re-enter the Rhineland, thus breaking the terms of the treaty.
The Rhineland, that is the area of Germany between the Rhine river & the Holland, Belgium, French border was designated to be occupied by allied forces after WW1. They were supposed to be there until 1935 but were withdrawn in 1930. It was to be a demilitarised buffer zone. General Guderian was quoted after the war (WW2) that Germany would have been powerless to oppose an allied intervention when Hitler marched a couple of divisions in, & the likelyhood would have been the removal of Hitler as chancellor at that time ! Hindsight is such a wonderful attribute !
I think of a buffer zone as a geological area which is physically located between two antagonistic countries, and it may or may or may not be another country. In the case of France and Britain, it was not. It was the English Channel.
There was really only Britain and the Soviets Fighting with half the American army because the Americans were also fighting in the pacific. Also Germany had a lot of men and used the blitzkrieg tactic which helped Germany take over almost all of Eastern Europe and France, so they had a large buffer zone to keep the enemy forces out of Berlin.