Potsdam Conference

POTSDAM CONFERENCE

The Potsdam Conference was the last of the wartime summits among the Big Three allied leaders. It met from July 17 through August 2, 1945, in Potsdam, a historic suburb of Berlin. Representing the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain respectively were Harry Truman, Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill (who was replaced midway by Clement Atlee as a result of elections that brought Labor to power). Germany had surrendered in May; the war with Japan continued. The purpose of the Potsdam meeting was the implementation of the agreements reached at Yalta. The atmosphere at Potsdam was often acrimonious, presaging the imminent Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West. In the months leading up to Potsdam, Stalin took an increasingly hard line on issues regarding Soviet control in Eastern Europe, provoking the new American president and the British prime minister to harden their own stance toward the Soviet leader.

Two issues were particularly contentious: Poland's western boundaries with Germany and German reparations. When Soviet forces liberated Polish territory, Stalin, without consulting his allies, transferred to Polish administration all of the German territories east of the Oder-Neisse (western branch) Rivers. While Britain and the United States were prepared to compensate Poland for its territorial losses in the east, they were unwilling to agree to such a substantial land transfer made unilaterally. They would have preferred the Oder-Neisse (eastern branch) River boundary. The larger territory gave Poland the historic city of Breslau and the rich industrial area of Silesia. Reluctantly, the British and Americans accepted Stalin's fait accompli, but with the proviso that the final boundary demarcation would be determined by a German peace treaty.

Reparations was another unresolved problem. The Soviet Union demanded a sum viewed by the Western powers as economically impossible. Abandoning the effort to agree on a specific sum, the conferees agreed to take reparations from each power's zone of occupation. Stalin sought, with only limited success, additional German resources from the British and American zones. Agreements reached at Potsdam provided for:

Transference of authority in Germany to the military commanders in their respective zones of occupation and to a four-power Allied Control Council for matters affecting Germany as a whole.

Creation of a Council of Foreign Ministers to prepare peace treaties for Italy, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, and Romania and ultimately Germany.

Denazification, demilitarization, democratization, and decentralization of Germany.

Transference of Koenigsberg and adjacent area to the Soviet Union.

Just prior to the conference, Truman was informed of the successful test of the atomic bomb in New Mexico. On July 24 he gave a brief account of the weapon to Stalin. Stalin reaffirmed his commitment to declare war on Japan in mid-August. While the conference was in session, the leaders of Britain, China, and the United States issued a proclamation offering Japan the choice between immediate unconditional surrender or destruction.

Though the facade of allied unity was affirmed in the final communiqué, the Potsdam Conference marked the end of Europe's wartime alliance.

See also: teheran conference; world war ii; yalta conference

bibliography

Feis, Herbert. (1960). Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Gormly, James L. (1990). From Potsdam to the Cold War: Big Three Diplomacy, 1945–1947. Wilmington, DE: SR Books.

McNeil, William H. (1953). America, Britain and Russia: Their Cooperation and Conflict, 1941–1946. London: Oxford University Press.

Wheeler-Bennett, John W., and Nicholls, Anthony. (1972). The Semblance of Peace: The Political Settlement after the Second World War. London: Macmillan.

Joseph L. Nogee