Potsdam Conference

The Potsdam Conference was a meeting of Allied leaders at the end of World War II (1939–45). Soviet premier Joseph Stalin (1879–1953), U.S. president Harry S. Truman (1884–1972; served 1945–53), and British prime minister Winston Churchill (1874–1965), followed by his successor, Clement Attlee (1883–1967), gathered in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945. Germany had surrendered on May 8, and the leaders needed to finalize several issues regarding German territories. They decided that peace treaties would be proposed later by the Council of Foreign Ministers rather than hastily decided at the conference.

The leaders of the Allies had previously decided that a defeated Germany would be divided into four zones of occupation. Each zone was to be administered by one of the leading Allied forces, namely the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France. Berlin was similarly divided, as were Austria and its capital of Vienna. Although the zones were to be overseen separately, they were to be united in common policies through the Control Council in Berlin.

Generally the Allied leaders agreed that the guiding principles for rebuilding Germany would be denazification, demilitarization, decentralization, deindustrialization, and democratization. The German economy would be redirected toward the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and light industries, protecting the Allied leaders against economic competition from Germany. With small exceptions, each Allied country would collect reparations, or war payments, in its own zone.

Another issue at the conference concerned the boundaries of both Germany and Poland. The boundaries of Poland had been discussed at the Yalta Conference the preceding February, but they remained largely undefined. The eastern boundary of Poland was to be pushed west to give additional territory to the Soviet Union. To compensate for Poland's loss, the attendees decided that Germany should surrender lands to Poland. As a result, nine million Germans were to be relocated to within Poland under its new boundaries.

Potsdam Declaration

Great Britain and the United States issued the Potsdam Declaration from the Potsdam Conference on July 26, 1945. It was an ultimatum directed at the Japanese government, which had refused to surrender. Demanding Japan's immediate and unconditional surrender to the Allied forces, the declaration threatened increased air attacks and utter destruction.

Japan offered a conditional surrender, but the United States and Britain refused it. President Truman then gave orders to use America's new military weapon, the atomic bomb . On August 6, 1945, one bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Though it killed over seventy thousand people and devastated the city, the Japanese government refused to surrender. Another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, killing over thirty-five thousand people. The Japanese government offered its surrender the following day, and World War II ended on all fronts.

On August 2, the leaders signed a statement of the agreements, called the Potsdam Agreement. The Potsdam Conference proved to be the last meeting among the Allied leaders. Deepening suspicion and conflicts of interest among the three countries led to strained relationships. The tension between communism in the Soviet Union and capitalism in the United States eventually evolved into the Cold War .