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Potsdam Conference

The Potsdam Conference was held in Potsdam, Germany (near Berlin), from July 17 to August 2, 1945. The participants were the victorious allies of World War II, who had gathered to decide how to administer Germany, which had unconditionally surrendered nine weeks earlier, on May 8. Also the conference goals included estabilishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues, and countering the effects of war.

Table of contents

1 Participants 2 Primary results of conference 3 The Potsdam Conference was preceded by

Participants

• Soviet Union, represented by Joseph Stalin

He arrived a day late to the conference, citing "official business" that required his attention, but in fact was tardy just to emphasize his importance.

• United Kingdom, represented by Winston Churchill and later Clement Attlee

The results of the British election became known during the conference. As a result of the Labour Party victory over the Conservative Party the Prime Ministership changed hands.

• United States, represented by newly inaugurated President Harry S. Truman.

Joseph Stalin suggested that Truman preside over the conference as the only head of state attending, a recommendation accepted by Churchill.

Primary results of conference

• Statement of aims of Germany occupation: demilitarisation, denazification, democratization and decartelization.
• The Potsdam Agreement, which called for the division of Germany and Austria into four occupation zones (agreed on earlier at the Yalta Conference), and the similar division of Berlin and Vienna into four zones.
• Agreement on prosecution of Nazi war criminals.
• The establishment of the Oder-Neisse line as the provisional border between Germany and Poland.
• The expulsion of the German populations remaining outside the borders of Germany.
• Agreement on war reparations. The Allies estimated their losses and damages at 200 billion dollars and Germany was obliged to pay it off in German property, current industry products, and work force. The Cold War prevented the full pay off however.

On Stalin's proposal, Poland was to be excluded from division of German compensation to be later granted 15% of compensation given to Soviet Union.

• In addition, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration which outlined the terms of surrender for Japan.

The west did not see the Oder-Neisse line as a permanent arrangement: the final fate of the region was to be decided by a later peace conference. The Soviet-Union and Poland took the Oder-Neisse line as the final boundary between Germany and Poland.

The western allies, and especially Churchill, were suspicious of the motives of Stalin, who had already installed communist governments in the central European countries under his influence; the Potsdam conference turned out to be the last conference among the allies.

During the conference, Truman told Stalin about his "powerful new weapon"; Stalin of course knew already about the atomic bomb through his spies in the Manhattan project. Toward the end of the conference, Japan was given an ultimatum (threatening "prompt and utter destruction" without mentioning the new bomb), and after Japan had rejected it, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman made the decision to use atomic weapons to end the war while at the conference.

The Potsdam Conference was preceded by

• the Casablanca Conference, January 14 to 24 1943
• the Yalta Conference, February 4 to 11, 1945

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