History Topic 1

• Potsdam Conference took place

  July-Aug 1945
• Potsdam Conference


  Meeting of "the big three" (USA, USSR, UK) outside Berlin
• Main objective of Potsdam Conference

  • To finalise post-war settlements and put into place the Yalta agreements
• The pattern for future conflict between USA and USSR had begun

  At the Potsdam Conference
• While the meeting was reasonably friendly, there was a lot of disagreement at Potsdam which had taken place since Yalta
• The result of these significant changes was to avoid communist takeover. Stalin wanted to weaken Germany further to avoid invasion
• Significant changes since Yalta

  • Defeat of Germany, therefore no longer a reason for kindness between USSR and USA
  • Roosevelt had died and been replaced by Harry Truman, who did not trust Stalin, unlike Roosevelt
  • Clement Attlee had defeated Churchill to become British Prime Minister, therefore Stalin was the only leader at both conferences
• Allies agreed at Potsdam

  1. To divide Germany into zones

  2. To claim reparations for war losses from each zone

  3. The USSR could take reparations from the British and US zones in return for providing supplies
• Outcomes of the Potsdam conference

  1. Germany was to be divided and occupied

  2. Austria was to be divided and occupied

  3. Changes to Germany's border with Poland - moved west toward Oder river, all German territory to the east became part of Poland and all Germans still living in this area were made to leave
• There was considerable disagreement about the future shape of Europe now that the common enemy of Nazism was defeated, the wartime alliance was breaking up
• The suspicions and tensions of Potsdam

  Marked the first "drop in temperature" of what would become the Cold War