Potsdam Conference

Potsdam Conference (1945).On 17 July 1945, Josef Stalin, Harry S. Truman, and Winston S. Churchill (who was replaced on 28 July by Clement Attlee) met for eleven days at Potsdam near Berlin. They faced two related issues: ending the war against Japan and restructuring Germany and Eastern Europe.

Germany ranked high on everyone's list of problems. Truman's goal was to create principles to guide the proposed Allied Control Council in preparing for unification of Germany. Stalin was concerned about reparations and Germany's border with Poland. Accepted were the American principles, including denazification, demilitarization, and democratization, and the Soviet desire for the Oder and Neisse Rivers as Germany's eastern border. Agreeing on reparations was difficult and was resolved only at the end of the conference by a formula calling for each power to take reparations from its zone, with the Soviets receiving some from other zones.

As for Japan, Stalin agreed to Soviet entry into the war by mid‐August, while Truman informed Stalin in vague terms about a new weapon to be used against Japan, but failed to specify that it was an atomic bomb. At the end of the meeting, Truman and Attlee issued the Potsdam Declaration, calling upon Japan to surrender unconditionally or face destruction.

Specifics about reparations and issues of Soviet‐occupied Eastern Europe were deferred to a newly created Council of Foreign Ministers, which was to draft the peace treaties. This allowed general agreement, and left each power partially satisfied. Much was left undone, and the Big Three's ability to cooperate and work toward similar postwar goals was still unknown. Potsdam remains a transition point as the former Allies moved from World War II to the Cold War.
[See also World War II: Postwar Impact; World War II: Changing Interpretations.]

Bibliography

Herbert Feis , Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference, 1960.
Charles Mee, Jr. , Meeting at Potsdam, 1975.

James Gormly