The Federal Republic always maintained that no such government could be said to have been established until the peoples of East and West Germany had been reunited within a free democratic state; but a range of opinions continued within West Germany over whether a unified state consisting of the populations of West Germany, East Germany and Berlin alone could be said to represent the whole German people for this purpose. The key question being whether a Germany that remained bounded to the east by the Oder–Neisse line could act as a 'united Germany' in signing a peace treaty, without qualification.[1]