The outcome of the Potsdam Conference

• By Potsdam, the ‘big three’ were now Truman, Attlee and Stalin
• Germany had surrendered in May 1945
• The USA tested the atomic bomb the day before the conference began
• It was agreed that the German economy would be run as a whole (didn’t happen with each zone developing their own currencies )
• Berlin would be divided into four zones
• Each country was allowed to take reparations from their own zone (only the USSR actually took reparations)
• The USSR was allowed to take a quarter of the industrial equipment from other zones
• Truman objectified to the Red Army occupying Eastern Europe
• Truman objected to the new Poland borders which had already been agreed at Yalta
• By Potsdam, the Red Army had ‘liberated’ many Eastern European countries from the Nazis, but had not yet left