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POTSDAM CONFERENCE FACTS

Postdam Conference Issues:

Background

Yalta Conference

Wartime meeting from February 4 to 11, 1945
Between United States (Roosevelt), United Kingdom (Churchill), and Soviet Union (Stalin)

Changes since Yalta

The results of the British election became known during the Potsdam conference. As a result of the Labor Party (Clement Attlee) victory over the Conservative Party (Winston Churchill) the leadership changed hands. Churchill attended the conference up to July 24th, and Atlee, as Prime Minister of Britain, after this date until the close of the conference.

President Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945, and Vice-President, Harry Truman assumed the presidency. Truman became much more suspicious of communist moves than Roosevelt had been, and he became increasingly suspicious of Soviet intentions under Stalin. Truman learned (on July 21st) that America had tested the first atomic bomb. It meant that Truman didn't need Stalin's help in Japan. Instead, Truman's main aim at the conference was to find out from Stalin what date the Russians intended to enter the war in the Pacific - something which (unlike Roosevelt) he did NOT want.

Postdam Conference Issues:

Allied control of defeated Germany
Division and Occupation of Germany

The four occupation zones of Germany conceived at the Yalta Conference were set up, each to be administered by the commander-in-chief of the Soviet, British, U.S., or French army of occupation.
Berlin, Vienna, and Austria were also each divided into four occupation zones.
The Soviets wanted a united but disarmed Germany
Truman, fearing the spread of Soviet influence over all Germany, fought for an agreement whereby each Allied power (including France) would administer a zone of occupation in Germany to limit Russian influence to its own eastern zone.

Purposes of Occupation of Germany

Destruction of German war-potential through the destruction or control of all industry with military potential.
Reorganize the economy with primary emphasis on agriculture and peaceful domestic industries.
Destroy the National Socialist Party and its affiliated and supervised organizations, to ensure that they are not revived in any form including all Nazi laws which discriminated on grounds of race, creed, or political opinion.
Bring war criminals particularly those who participated in planning or carrying out Nazi atrocities to judgment.

Reparations

Each Allied power received reparations (payment through seized assets) from its own occupation zones.
The Soviet Union was also permitted 10–15 percent of the industrial equipment in the western zones of Germany
The entire German navy was equally divided among the USSR, UK and USA

The Oder/Neisse Line

Created the “Oder-Neisse line” which redrew the border between Germany and Poland.
Resulted in land forfeited by Germany to Poland and the Soviet Union

The Postdam Declaration and Russia’s joining the war against Japan

On July 16, 1945, the United States successfully tested an atomic bomb; Churchill and Truman agreed that the weapon should be used.
Truman did not tell Stalin of the weapon until July 25 when he advised Stalin that America had "a new weapon of unusually destructive force."
The “Potsdam Declaration” issued on July 26 presented an ultimatum to Japan, offering them the choice between unconditional surrender and total destruction.
After Japan refused to surrender, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on August 6, 1945 on Hiroshima and on August 9, another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
In the interim, (Aug 8) Russia declares war on Japan and invades Japanese-ruled Manchuria.

Post-Conference Tensions

When the meeting began, U.S. and British suspicions concerning Soviet intentions in Europe were intensifying.
Russian armies occupied most of Eastern Europe, including nearly half of Germany, and Stalin showed no inclination to remove his control of the region
The governments of Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria were already controlled by communists, and Stalin was adamant in refusing to let the Allies interfere in Eastern Europe.
Therefore the Potsdam Conference coincided with the beginning of tension between the Western Democracies (including the US) and the USSR which eventually led to the “Cold War”.