Origins of the Cold War: The Breakdown of the Grand Alliance at Potsdam Flashcards
When was the Potsdam Conference?
• 17 July to 1 August 1945
Who was at the Potsdam Conference?
• Stalin
• Truman (became president when Roosevelt died on 12 April
1945)
• Attlee (replaced Churchill on 26 July after winning the General Election)
What agreements were made at Potsdam relating to Nazis and military?
• Germany was to be completely disarmed and demilitarised
• DeNazification
• War crimes would be judged
• All former Nazi Party members were to be removed from public office
• Education system was to be purged of all Nazi influences
What political agreements were made at
Potsdam?
• Decentralisation of the political system and local responsibility developed
• Restoration of freedom of speech, free press and religious tolerance
• Democratisation
What economic agreements were made at
Potsdam?
• Germany was to become a single economic unit with common policies on industry and finance
What council was made to ensure joint occupation of Germany?
• The Allied Control Council (ACC) was made
• There was no central German government
• ACC made of military commanders from each of the four powers
• To avoid being outvoted by the three Western powers, the Soviets insisted that each commander should have complete responsibility for his own zone
• This decision effectively stopped the ACC from exercising any real power in Germany as a whole
• A limited number of central German departments dealing with finance, transport, trade and industry were to be formed in the future
Why were agreements on reparations difficult to achieve?
• USSR had suffered immensely from WWIl and wanted reparations from Germany
• Britain and USA wanted to keep German economy strong so
Allies didn’t have to pay for imported food and raw materials
What was the consensus on reparations?
• Temporary compromise made - both USSR and Western powers would take reparations from their own zones
• Britain and USA would grant ten per cent of these reparations to the Soviets
• And a further fifteen per cent in exchange for supply of food and raw materials from the Soviet zone
What was the issue with Polish borders?
• GA agreed at Yalta that Poland should be awarded territory from
Germany to compensate for land annexed by the USSR
• USSR set new boundary along the Oder and Western Neisse
Rivers
• Britain and USA thought this gave Poland too much land
How was the Polish borders issue settled?
• Soviet troops occupied eastern Germany and Poland, so Britain and USA couldn’t change frontier
• Oder-Neisse Line recognised this as new Polish borders
• As a result, Poland’s eastern border shifted westward, and significant portions of its territory were ceded to the Soviet Union, while it gained some territory in the west at the expense of Germany.
• They hoped this would persuade Soviets to be more flexible about German reparations and the establishment of a democratic government in Poland
What did the US do before Potsdam?
• 16 July 1945 - USA successfully detonated its first atomic bomb
How did the atomic bomb affect Potsdam?
• The day before the Potsdam Conference, the first successful detonation of the USA’s atomic bomb had taken place
• Truman wanted to use atomic bomb to gain democratic leverage (power to influence someone) over Stalin
• Stalin called this atomic diplomacy
• Truman was rash and Molotov tried to not be intimidated by
USA’s nuclear monopoly
• Rose tensions as a whole
What were the failures of the Potsdam
Conference?
• No long-term plans made for reconstruction or reunification of
Germany and Europe
• Nothing done to ease tensions between communist East and capitalist West
• Disagreements over four zones in Germany
