Yalta and Potsdam Conferences

Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met at Yalta conference in February 1945

The three powers decided on:

• Germany would be devided into four zones, each looked after by an allied power.
• Berlin would be divided in the same way.
• The United Nations was formally approved.
• USSR gained land from Poland.

Yalta seemed to show optimism for peace. However, underlying the talks were differences in what Roosevelt wanted and what Stalin wanted.

Roosevelt wanted collective security, a rebuilt Germany, world econmonic reconstruction.

Stalin wanted the opposite. Reconstruction of the USSR and Soviet security guaranteed by a soviet sphere of influence.

Roosevelt had died, Truman now president. Truman did not like Stalin.

Atomic bomb had been launched on Japan. Stalin was not told about it and so felt isolated.

It was agreed at Potsdam that:

• Germany would be completely disarmed and demiliterised
• De-nazification
• Freedom of speech and free press to be restored.
• USSR to recieve reparations from its own zone and an additional 25% from the western German zones.

The Potsdam conference did nothing to reinforce the apparent unity acheived at Yalta.

It contributed to the growing uncertainty and suspicion between the USA and the USSR.