<P> Memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too . On 30 August 1954 French Parliament rejected the EDC, thus ensuring its failure and blocking a major objective of US policy towards Europe: to associate Germany militarily with the West . The US Department of State started to elaborate alternatives: Germany would be invited to join NATO or, in the case of French obstructionism, strategies to circumvent a French veto would be implemented in order to obtain a German rearmament outside NATO . </P> <P> On 23 October 1954--only nine years after Allies (UK, USA and USSR) defeated Nazi Germany ending World War II in Europe--the admission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the North Atlantic Pact was finally decided . The incorporation of West Germany into the organization on 9 May 1955 was described as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by Halvard Lange, Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway at the time . In November 1954, the USSR requested a new European Security Treaty, in order to make a final attempt to not have a remilitarized West Germany potentially opposed to the Soviet Union, with no success . </P> <P> On 14 May 1955, the USSR and other seven European countries "reaffirming their desire for the establishment of a system of European collective security based on the participation of all European states irrespective of their social and political systems" established the Warsaw Pact in response to the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO, declaring that: "a remilitarized Western Germany and the integration of the latter in the North - Atlantic bloc (...) increase the danger of another war and constitutes a threat to the national security of the peaceable states; (...) in these circumstances the peaceable European states must take the necessary measures to safeguard their security". </P> <P> One of the founding members, East Germany was allowed to re-arm by the Soviet Union and the National People's Army was established as the armed forces of the country to counter the rearmament of West Germany and vice versa . </P>

Who took the initiative to form the warsaw pact