Handling of Postwar Germany

  • The USSR was to have one of the strongest diplomatic importance than it ever had before
  • Churchill and Stalin negotiated their spheres of influence (territories which countries claim political or economic control over) in October 1944
  • The Big Three (Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt) discussed twice to decide what should happen after the end of the war
  • There were two main meetings, which were the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference


Yalta Conference (Feb 1945)
  • Some thought it was a good display of positive international relations and cooperations
  • Some thought the Yalta Conference was the beginning of alliance breakdowns


Problem Agreed Decision
Treatment of post-war Germany
  • Only unconditional surrender was accepted
  • Only one peace was to be acceted
  • The division of Germany and Berlin into four zones, relocation of German eastern border to the west
  • $20B reparation payments (half of these reparations would go to the USSR)
Establishment of the UN
  • Originally set up to have a membership of all countries in war against Germany
  • The United Nations had a membership of 5 countries (all having veto powers) in the security Council
  • Plans were made to meet in San Francisco, June 1945
USSR Participation in war against Japan
  • Stalin agreed to join the war against Japan once Germany had fallen
  • USSR was given back land lost in the Russo-Japanese War
  • Outer Mongolia and Manchuria became addressed as part of Russia's influence
Poland's future
  • A provisional government in Poland was set up involving the pro-Soviet Lublin government and the "London" Poles (political group) who had been exiled in 1939, free and fair elections were planned to be held


Between the Yalta and Potsdam Conference, a number of events happened

  • Roosevelt's Death, his replacement as US president being an inexperienced Harry S. Truman
  • Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as British Prime Minister
  • USSR was installing their own governments in Eastern Europe
  • Truman revealed private information to Stalin about the US' atomic bomb
  • Stalin had already known this information from his spies


Potsdam Conference
  • Potsdam Conference worsened relations and Allies disagreed
    • Allies disagreed over Soviet installed government at Lublin
    • Disagreed on treatment of post-war Germany, Stalin wanted to divide Germany and stop it from growing its industry
    • Allies rejected Soviet's desire to access Germany's main industrial area
    • Stalin wanted a position in Japan, Truman rejected this
  • However, they were able to agree on the following
    • Polish-German borders settled at the Oder-Neisse Line
    • Removing Nazi influence from Germany
    • War crime trials held in Japan or Germany
    • The placement of an Allied Control Council to govern Germany
    • The treatment of all of Germany as one economic unit
    • Countries were allowed to collect reparationss from their own zones of occupation
    • USSR could take equipment from industry in the western occupation zones
    • Council of Foreign Ministers established to make decisions regarding defeated countries


Systems of the German zones
  • In eastern occupation zone, Stalin collected reparations for rebuilding the USSR
  • Britain and USA believed that they should trade the industrial resources for Russian agricultural produce
  • USSR disagreed, USA paid for the food imports and UK launched their own bread rationing program in 1946 to export wheat to Germany
  • British and American zones were treated as one economic unit named Bizonia
  • The zones in Bizonia were secretly merged politically as well
  • USSR-controlled zones were ruled by the Socialist Unity Party (a combination of the Communist and Social Democratic Party)
  • British and American zones were ruled through multi-party elections resembling the systems of the US, Britain, and France


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