Upon the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, the victorious Allied powers asserted their authority over all territory of the German Reich which lay west of the Oder–Neisse line, having formally abolished the government of Adolf Hitler (see 1945 Berlin Declaration). The four powers divided Germany into four occupation zones for administrative purposes, into what is collectively known now as Allied-occupied Germany (German: Alliierten-besetztes Deutschland). This division was ratified at the Potsdam Conference (17 July to 2 August 1945). In Autumn 1944 the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had agreed on the zones by the London Protocol. The powers approved the eventual detachment of much of the German eastern territories, lying east of the Oder-Neisse line, from Germany; th