In the late 1940s and 1950s, the Cold War was well underway. The Western powers had sponsored the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and formed NATO. In response, the Soviets initiated several countermoves such as the creation of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the formation of the Warsaw Pact which bound the Soviet satellite states of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania into a mutual defense agreement.