But the biggest stumbling blocks in Potsdam were Poland`s post-war fate, the revision of its borders and Germany`s borders, and the expulsion of several million ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. The question of Poland played a major role in both the Tehran Conference and the Yalta Conference. In exchange for its loss of territory to the Soviet Union, Poland was to be compensated in the west by large parts of Germany up to the Oder-Neisse line – the border along the Oder and Neisse rivers. Foreign ministers from the three governments – James F. Byrnes, V.M. Molotov and Anthony Eden and Ernest Bevin – as well as other advisers also attended the conference. Nine meetings were held from 17 to 25 July. After that, the conference was suspended for two days when the results of the British general election were announced. On the 28th. In July, Clement Attlee defeated Winston Churchill and replaced him as British representative, with the new British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin replacing Anthony Eden. This was followed by four days of additional discussions. During the conference, meetings of the three Heads of Government with their Foreign Ministers were held, as well as meetings of the Foreign Ministers only. The committees appointed by the Committee for the preliminary consideration of pre-Conference matters also met daily.

Important decisions and agreements were made and opinions were exchanged on a variety of other issues. However, consideration of these issues was continued by the Council of Foreign Ministers subsequently established by the Conference. The conference ended with a closer relationship between the three governments through their cooperation. This renewed confidence in the fact that they will ensure, together with the other United Nations, the establishment of a just and lasting peace. [6] [7] Truman had mentioned to Stalin during the conference an unspecified “new powerful weapon.” Towards the end of the conference, on July 26, the Potsdam Declaration gave Japan an ultimatum to surrender unconditionally or achieve “rapid and total destruction,” which did not mention the new bomb,[48] but promised that “it was not intended to enslave Japan.” The Soviet Union was not involved in this statement, as it was still neutral in the war against Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki did not respond,[49] which was seen as a sign that the Japanese Empire had ignored the ultimatum. [50] As a result, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and August 9, 194aki. The justifications were that both cities were legitimate military targets and that it was necessary to end the war quickly and preserve American lives. When Truman informed Stalin of the atomic bomb, he said that the United States “had a new weapon of unusual destructive power,”[51] but Stalin was fully aware of the development of the atomic bomb from Soviet spy networks within the Manhattan Project,[52] and told Truman at the conference that he hoped Truman would “use it well against the Japanese.” [53] The Germans of Czechoslovakia (34% of the population of the present-day Czech Republic), known as Sudeten Germans, but also Carpathian Germans, were expelled from the Sudetenland, where they formed the majority, linguistic slaves from Central Bohemia and Moravia, and from the city of Prague. Poland`s border became the Oder and Neisse to the west, and the country received part of the former East Prussia. This necessitated the relocation of millions of Germans to these regions in Germany.

The governments of Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria were already controlled by the Communists, and Stalin stubbornly refused to let the Allies intervene in Eastern Europe. In Potsdam, Truman told Stalin about the “new weapon” of the United States (the atomic bomb) that it wanted to use against Japan. On July 26, the conference issued an ultimatum to Japan calling for unconditional surrender and threatening harsher airstrikes. After Japan rejected this ultimatum, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So what was agreed in Potsdam? In short, world leaders have decided to completely demilitarize, denazify and democratize Germany, but that`s not all. Since many important things were decided at the Potsdam Conference, the following is summed up in one word: Churchill himself was not at his best in Potsdam. He was depressed, beside himself and deeply concerned about the outcome of the election at home. He missed the adrenaline rush that the leadership of the nation`s war effort had given him. He told his doctor, “I don`t want to do anything.

I have no energy. I wonder if he will come back. He refused to consult the information documents prepared for him by experts from the Federal Foreign Office and instead engaged in a long and irrelevant speech on the conference table. The Potsdam Conference, which took place near Berlin from 17 July to 2 August 1945, was the last of the three major meetings of World War II. It was taken by Prime Minister Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, the new US President Harry S. Truman and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain (replaced on 28 July by his successor Clement Attlee). On July 26, the leaders issued a statement calling for Japan`s “unconditional surrender” and concealing the fact that they had privately agreed to let Japan keep its emperor. Otherwise, the conference focused on post-war Europe. A Council of Foreign Ministers was agreed, comprising the big three, as well as China and France.

The German military administration was established with an Allied Central Control Board (the requirement that decisions be unanimous would later prove paralyzing). The Heads of State and Government reached various agreements on the German economy, with emphasis on the development of agriculture and non-military industry. The institutions that had controlled the economy under the Nazis were to be decentralized, but all of Germany would be treated as one economic entity. War criminals would be brought to justice. Stalin`s request to define the German-Polish border was postponed to the peace treaty, but the conference agreed to his transfer of lands east of the Oder and Neisse rivers from Germany to Poland. In the case of reparations, a compromise was made on the basis of the exchange of capital goods from the western zone for raw materials from the east. He resolved a dispute but set the precedent for the management of the German economy by zone rather than globally, as the Western powers had hoped. Although post-war Europe dominated potsdam`s agenda, the war was lurking behind the scenes in the Pacific. Truman received news of the success of the atomic bomb test shortly after his arrival in Potsdam; He broke the news to Churchill, but only casually mentioned “a new weapon” to Stalin. Truman continued to ask Stalin for help against Japan, but he knew that if the bomb succeeded, Russian help would not be needed. In fact, the bomb would give the United States unprecedented power in the postwar world.

The reader`s companion to American history. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. At the end of the conference, the three heads of government agreed on the following steps: all other issues should be resolved through the final peace conference, which should be convened as soon as possible. There was also agreement on whether it was desirable to end the “current abnormal position” of the German war allies – Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania – and its bellicose Co-Finland. A Council of Foreign Ministers would be set up to conclude peace treaties with them that would be concluded after a conference with the Big Three and “other interested allied governments”. This was done correctly the following year in Paris and signed the treaties on February 10, 1947. Winston Churchill, who had served most of the war as British prime minister in a coalition government, was replaced by Clement Attlee during the conference.

Churchill had a Soviet policy since the early 1940s that differed considerably from Roosevelt`s, believing that Stalin was an “evil” tyrant who ran an odious system. [9] On 5. In July 1945, a general election was held in the United Kingdom, but the results were delayed so that the votes of the armed forces could be counted in their original constituencies. The result was known during the conference when Attlee became the new prime minister. The Poles, but also the Czechs and Hungarians, had begun to expel their German minorities, and the Americans and British were extremely concerned that a massive influx of Germans into their respective areas would destabilize them. A request has been made to Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary to temporarily suspend the expulsions and carry them out “in an orderly and humane manner” when they resume. The atmosphere and management staff in Potsdam differed considerably from previous “Big Three” conferences in Tehran and Yalta. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was on the 12th. He died in April 1945 and was replaced by the new president, Harry S. Truman, accompanied by his new Secretary of State, James Byrnes. Halfway through the conference, the results of the British general election on 5 July were announced and Churchill and Anthony Eden were replaced by the new Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee and his Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin.

Only the main Soviet delegates, Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov, remained the same as at the Yalta conference. .