Potsdam Conference

Potsdam Conference (17 July–2 Aug. 1945) A congress held by the victorious Allies in World War II at the former Hohenzollern palace in Potsdam outside Berlin. After Tehran and Yalta, this was the last World War II conference of the ‘Big Three’, and was convened to decide on a new postwar order, now that war had come to an end. The Soviet Union was led by the experienced and hard-edged Stalin, while the USA was represented by its new President, Truman. Nine days into the conference, on 28 July 1945, the veteran Churchill was replaced by the inexperienced Attlee as the UK's representative. Polish authority over German lands east of the Oder-Neisse Line, with which Stalin had compensated the Poles for lands east of the Curzon Line which he had taken away from them, was accepted, albeit under US and British protest. At the same time, the expulsion of Germans from all non-German territories (Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary) was accepted and legalized.

With regard to Germany itself, measures were to be taken to extinguish Nazism, and to prepare the German people for democratic government, so that Germany could never again pose a threat to its neighbours. In particular, this meant complete German disarmament, destruction of war industries, dissolution of militarist or Fascist organizations, the lifting of Nazi laws, punishment of war criminals, and the removal of Nazi sympathizers from public or privileged office. More positively, there was to be decentralization, re-establishment of local self-government, establishment of democratic parties, and a renewal of the legal and educational system. Germany's economic unity was to be preserved, though this was undermined by the decision that each power could take reparations from its own occupied territories. These results were confirmed by France on 7 August 1945. With regard to subsequent developments, Stalin has generally been considered the winner of the conference, as he managed to legalize his control over almost half of German territory. However, while the inexperience of Truman and Attlee did not help, it has often been overlooked that the USSR had not only created a fait accompli by liberating most of these areas, but that, together with Poland, it had suffered the greatest destruction and loss of life of any country in the war.

Potsdam Declaration