July 17 - The Potsdam Conference

This Day in History: 17 July 2020

 

17 July 1945

 

75 years ago, today, the Potsdam Conference began between the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain, towards the end of World War Two. The decisions made at the meeting settled many of the issues between the Allies, including post-war Europe and the ongoing conflict with Japan, but it was also marked by growing suspicion and tension between the two superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union. Soviet armies occupied most of Eastern Europe, but Soviet leader Joseph Stalin showed no inclination to remove his control. US President Harry S. Truman was determined to appear tough to Stalin and announced the news that American scientists had just successfully tested the atomic bomb.

 

The issue of post-war Germany dominated the meeting. The Soviets wanted a united but disarmed Germany. Truman and his advisors feared the spread of Soviet influence throughout Germany and further into western Europe and fought for an agreement where each Allied power would control a zone of occupation in Germany. The United States also limited the amount of reparations the Soviets could take from Germany. When the conference ended in early August, matters were more-or-less the same as before the meeting, but there would be no further wartime conferences. The Second World War ended less than a month later, just after the United States dropped two atomic bombs in Japan.

 

Want to find out more about the Potsdam Conference? Click here for more information, or here for more on the wartime conferences of World War Two.