Yalta and Potsdam

The Big Three during the War

During the War, Britain and the USA were allies of the Soviet Union but the only thing that united them was their hatred of Germany.

In 1945, the Big Three held two conferences – at Yalta (February) and Potsdam (July) – to try to sort out how they would organise the world after the war. It was at these conferences that the tensions between the two sides became obvious.

Links:

Film clips

Powerpoint:

• The differences between Yalta and Potsdam (swf)

Spidergram:

• The differences between Yalta and Potsdam

Yalta (Feb 1945)

Held during the war, on the surface, the Yalta conference seemed successful. The Allies agreed a Protocol of Proceedings to:

	Russia would join the United Nations.
	divide Germany into four ‘zones’, which Britain, France, the USA and the USSR would occupy after the war.
	bring Nazi war-criminals to trial.
	set up a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity 'pledged to the holding of free and unfettered elections as soon as possible'.
	help the freed peoples of Europe set up democratic and self-governing countries by helping them to (a) maintain law and order; (b) carry out emergency relief measures; (c) set up governments; and (d) hold elections (this was called the 'Declaration of Liberated Europe').
	set up a commission to look into reparations.

But, behind the scenes, tension was growing.

After the conference, Churchill wrote to Roosevelt that ‘The Soviet union has become a danger to the free world.’

é Source A

‘How are we feeling today?’

– a British cartoon of 1945 shows

Churchill, Roosevelt (USA) and Stalin (USSR) as doctors, working together to heal the world.

Extra:

1. Does Source A prove Britain, Russia and America were friends?

2. Write two reports of the Yalta Conference: one for the British government, the other for the British newspapers.

Potsdam (July 1945)

At Potsdam, the Allies met after the surrender of Germany (in May 1945) to decide the post-war peace – Potsdam was the Versailles of World War II.

America had a new president, Truman, who was determined to ‘get tough’ with the Russians. Also, when he went to the Conference, Truman had just learned that America had tested the first atomic bomb. It gave the Americans a huge military advantage over everyone else, but Truman did not tell Stalin - something which angered Stalin when the Americans used the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.

On the other hand, in March 1945, Stalin had invited the non-Communist Polish leaders to meet him, and arrested them.

So, at Potsdam, the arguments came out into the open.

The Conference agreed the following Protocols:

	to set up the four ‘zones of occupation’ in Germany. The Nazi Party, government and laws were to be destroyed, and 'German education shall be so controlled as completely to eliminate Nazi and militarist doctrines and to make possible the successful development of democratic ideas.
	to bring Nazi war-criminals to trial.
	to recognize the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity and hold 'free and unfettered elections as soon as possible'.
	Russia was allowed to take reparations from the Soviet Zone, and also 10% of the industrial equipment of the western zones as reparations. America and Britain could take reparations from their zones if they wished.

and Truman presented it as a 'compromise'.

But in fact the Allies had disagreed openly about:

1. the details of how to divide Germany.

2. the size of reparations Germany ought to pay.

3. Russian influence over the countries of eastern Europe.

Source E

A map of how Germany was divided into zones

Source B

The Russians only understand one language - ‘how many armies have you got?’

I’m tired of babying the Soviets.

President Truman, writing in

January 1946

Source C

What is surprising about the fact that the Soviet Union, worried about its future safety, wants governments friendly to it in Finland, Poland and Romania?

Stalin, writing in March 1946

Source D

In this ‘marriage of convenience’, the thought that a divorce was inevitable had been in the mind of each partner from the beginning.

Written by the historian,

Isaac Deutscher, Stalin (1969).

Extra:

3. Using this page, especially Sources B and C, discuss why the Potsdam Conference was less successful than the Yalta Conference.

4. When did Deutscher think the Cold War started (Source D)?