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The Potsdam Conference was the final wartime meeting of the leaders of the Allied “Big Three” nations and dealt
chiefly with the future of Germany and the role of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan. The conference was
held in 1945 from July 17 to August 2, in the Cecilienhof Palace at Potsdam, near Berlin. Its code name, terminal,
signaled both the end of the war and the wartime alliance. U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt had died in April
1945; President Harry Truman represented the United States, assisted by Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. William Leahy. Truman traveled to and from Europe on the cruiser
Augusta. The results of British elections were announced in the midst of the conference, and in one of the most stunning
upsets in British electoral history, the Conservatives were ousted. Prime Minister Winston Churchill resigned,
replaced by leader of the British Labour Party Clement Attlee with Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin. No elections
disturbed the Soviet delegation, headed by Joseph Stalin, assisted by Foreign Minister Viacheslav Molotov. Despite
French leader Charles de Gaulle's appeals to Washington, France was not represented at Potsdam. The day before
the conference formally opened, Truman received word of the successful explosion of an atomic bomb at
Alamogordo, New Mexico. Among issues discussed at the conference were the future of Germany and eastern Europe and involving the Soviet
Union in the war against Japan. On July 26, U.S. and British leaders issued a surrender ultimatum to Japan.
Designed to weaken Japanese resistance to surrender, the Potsdam Declaration held out some hope to the
Japanese for the future. Although their country would be disarmed, occupied, and shorn of its conquests, Japan
would be allowed access to raw materials after the war and would have the opportunity for democratic development.
If, however, Japanese leaders refused to surrender, the nation would be destroyed. The Soviet Union, several weeks
away from a declaration of war against Japan, was not a party to this proclamation. Stalin demanded heavy reparations from Germany for the vast damage suffered by the Soviet Union in the war. He
held out for a firm figure, whereas Truman would agree only to the Soviet Union receiving a set percentage of a
whole to be determined on the German capacity to pay. The U.S. delegation also disagreed with the Soviets over
their very loose interpretation of "war booty"—goods that could be confiscated without reference to reparations.
Agreement was reached at Potsdam, however, that the Russians would receive 25% of plants and industrial
equipment removed from the western zones. In return, the Soviets were to repay 15 of the total 25% in food and raw
materials from their zone. The Soviets also received permission to seize German assets in Bulgaria, Hungary,
Finland, Romania, and their zone of Austria. No agreement on reparations was ever reached, but it is estimated that
the Russians probably took about $20 billion (the total sum discussed at the Yalta Conference) from their zone of
Germany alone. The Allies also reached agreement on the "three Ds"—democratization, denazification, and demilitarization. German
leaders were also to be punished as war criminals, and Germany's resources were to be used to repair the damages
that had been inflicted in the war on its neighbors. German industrial production was set at a level no higher than the
average for Europe as a whole. No peace treaty was signed between the Allies and Germany, and so further "temporary" arrangements sanctioned
by Potsdam became permanent. Following the war, East Prussia was divided according to agreements made at the
Tehran Conference. Konigsberg, Memel, and northern East Prussia were appropriated by the Soviet Union, and the
remainder of East Prussia went to Poland. The conferees at Potsdam agreed on an "orderly and humane" transfer of
the German population from this region. This did not occur. Perhaps 2 million Germans lost their lives in the forced
reparations and exodus that followed. Agreement was reached over the surrender of Japanese forces in Korea and Indochina. In the case of Korea, the
Soviets were to be responsible for their surrender north of the 38th parallel, and American forces were to be
responsible south of that line. In Indochina, Chinese forces would take the Japanese surrender north of the 16th
parallel and British forces south of it. Never intended as political boundaries, these too became part of the Cold War. The leaders at Potsdam also established a Council of Foreign Ministers to plan the preparation of peace treaties.
Their discussions produced increasingly bitter exchanges that reflected the start of the Cold War.
Spencer C. Tucker
Further Reading
Feis, Herbert. Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957;
Feis, Herbert. Churchill­Roosevelt­Stalin: The War They Waged and the Peace They Sought. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1957; Gormly, James. From Potsdam to the Cold War: Big Three Diplomacy, 1945–
1947. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Books, 1990; Mastny, Vojtech. Russiaís Road to the Cold War:
Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Communism, 1941–1945. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979; Szaz,
Zoltan Michael. Germanyís Eastern Frontiers: The Problem of the Oder­Neisse Line. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1960;
Thomas, Hugh. Armed Truce: The Beginnings of the Cold War, 1945–1946. New York: Atheneum, 1987.
Select Citation Style: MLA
MLA
Tucker, Spencer C. "Potsdam Conference." World Geography: Understanding a Changing World. ABC­CLIO, 2016.
Web. 31 Jan. 2016.
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Entry ID: 1318602