Defeat and occupation

• Population Displacement:

  • estimated that one in two Germans was on the move
  • 12 million German refugees fleeing from the east - known as expellees
  • 10 million - who had been in forced labour or prisoners in Nazi camps
  • families torn apart
  • over 11 million German soldiers who had been taken as prisoners of war - 7.7 million were released from the West but the USSR didn't release theres till the 1950s
• Urban Destruction and shortages of food and fuel:

  • 20% of housing had been completely destroyed
  • 30% badly damaged
  • home shortages which forced people to accept temporary accommodation
  • Winter 1945 - calorie consumption was 950 - 1150
• Economic Dislocation:

  • industrial capacity had obviously declined dramatically
  • infrastructure like bridges and utilities were broken down by the end of the war
  • state had massive debts
  • described as Stunde Null - the zero hour
  • but there was still: efficient civil service, long-standing local governments, well established banking system, industrial base
  • no social breakdown
• Teheran 1943:

  • Roosevelt and Churchill agreed in Jan 1943 - demand unconditional surrender of Germany.
  • issues of the borders between Poland and Germany - USSR wanted to keep its territorial gains from the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
  • Roosevelt suggested that Germany be divided into smaller states as a means to eliminate the German threat once and for all
  • 1944 - Henry Morgenthau -- destroy all industry in Germany
• Yalta Conference, February 1945:

  • Just before the end of the war, the Allies held a conference in Crimea to discuss the peace. 
  • The meeting was attended by the leaders of the USA (Roosevelt), Britain (Churchill) and the USSR (Stalin).
  • Plans were drawn up for ending the war in Europe and Asia and for dealing with Germany. Initial plans were put forward for the occupation of Germany by the victors, which Churchill insisted must also include France.
• The Yalta Agreement:

  The big three agreed that

  • The USSR would keep most of eastern Polish territory and parts of Prussia, Poland would receive German territory on its western border
  • Germany was divided into four occupied zones, administration of each zone lay in the hands of the occupying powers - Allied Control Council
  • Allies would set up a commission to look into reparations

  Yalta was intended only to be an initial understanding before a peace settlement, yet Stalin was put in an increasingly powerful negotiating position
• Allied Control Council (ACC)

  Name given to the military occupation governing body of the four allied occupation zones
• Postdam Conference 17th July - 2nd August 1945:

  • Germany capitulated and yet the relationship between the Soviet Union and Western Allies deteriorated
  • increasing disagreements between the Allies over the Future of Germany and Europe bedevilled the first months of peace
• Postdam Conference: Truman

  • Roosevelt died on the 12th April leaving Truman as his successor
  • Truman had little experience
  • Prepared to continue American Policies mapped out by Roosevelt
  • less trustful towards Stalin
  • was waiting for news on new weaponary being tested in New Mexico
• Postdam Conference: Churchill

  • less optimistic and more antagonistic toward Stalin
  • believed that Stalin's promises of democratic election in the east European States was deceptive
  • urged America to stop the spread of Soviet influence in Europe
  • Britains status of a world power was beginning to wane
  • Churchill defeated by Clement Attlee
• Postdam Conference: Stalin

  • interested in reparations and security
  • USSR had lost 20 million people
  • industry was badly damaged
  • steel production reduced by 50%
  • agrarian production reduced by 40%
  • didn't want a division in Germany (at the time)
  • access to the Rhine and Ruhr
• Postdam Agreement: main points

  • occupation zones
  • German Polish Border
  • reparations
  • armed forces
• Postdam Agreement: Occupation Zones

  • Germany would be split into 4 zones of occupation
  • France, Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union
  • Germany to be treated as one economic unit and all issues concerning the country were to be decided by all four powers
• Postdam Agreement: Armed Forced

  • German military forced disbanded
  • prevented any independent military presence under Allied occupation
• Postdam Agreement: German Polish Border

  • caused great disagreement when Stalin demanded that it be confirmed further west at the line of the rivers Oder and Neisse
  • Churchill had no sympathy - refused to accept the concession
  • Americans agreed with Churchill
  • in practice - Polish Administration of those lands and the peaceful resettlement (expulsion) of millions of Germans tacitly accepted by the west
  • Oder-Neisse line caused great grievances for Germans
• Postdam Agreement: Reparations

  • USSR demanded reparations of $20 billion
  • (Although Americans estimated Soviet damages at $35.7 billion)
  • Each power was to take reparations from its own occupying zone
  • USSR was to receive a quarter of the reparations from the Western Zones
• Consequences of Potsdam:

  • Allies had become estranged and Potsdam was just a protocol - not a peace treaty
  • Germany had imploded, but the vacuum was quickly filled with the international rivalry of the superpowers over the issues

  = Ideology - communism vs democracy and capitalism

  = security - power of the Red army in land forces vs atomic bomb

  = economy - USSR had more economic losses

  • emerging cold war
• Berlin Blockade:

  • ran from June 1948 to May 1949
  • confirmed the division on 2 Germany's
  • USSR blocked all land transport routes to West Berlin – road, rail and waterways.
  • hoped to merge Berlin into their zone
  • caused by other factors such as marshal aid
  • Soviets argued it was cause by 'technical difficulties' - wanted Berlin
  • West resisted the spread of Soviet Influence
• Berlin Airlift: June 1948-May 1949

  • Britain and the USA supplied their zones of Berlin with supplies by air – a gigantic undertaking
  • June 1948 and May 1949, they flew in 2.3 million tonnes of food and 1.5 million tonnes of coal in 279,000 separate flights
  • 24 aircrashes and 76 air men died
  • ended as Stalin realised that the West would not back down
• Problem of Berlin:

  • Soviet Union and the Western Allies seemed to have diverging policies towards administering Germany
  • Cooperation in the ACC had broken down
  • Marshall Aid was overtly anti-Communist and therefore provocative
  • Located in the Soviet Zone geographically
  • West feared that the Soviet Union would take control of the whole of Berlin
  • Berlin which would become an island of capitalism in the east German zone administered by the USSR.
  • Currency went against the USSR
• From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent [...] Increasing measure of control from Moscow…In a great number of countries, far from Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns 


  Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech
• Truman Doctrine:

  • Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces
  • main goal was to stop the spread of communism
  • involved spending money and equipment on countries facing the threat of Communism
• Marshall Aid:

  • April 3, 1948, President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan
  • financial aid to Europe
  • stimulus to the economy for the USA
  • Soviet areas of influence did not receive American financial help. They dismissed it as “Dollar diplomacy” and refused to meet the conditions of convertible currency, market economy and mutual cooperation.