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 were to decide how to administer Germany, which had unconditionally surrendered nine weeks earlier, on May 8.

Participants were:

• United States, represented by president Harry S Truman
• Soviet Union, represented by Joseph Stalin
• United Kingdom, represented by Winston Churchill and later Clement Attlee

The primary results of this conference were:

• 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.

• The establishment of the Oder-Neisse line as the provisional border between Germany and Poland.

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

The western allies, and especially Churchill, were suspicious of the motives of Stalin, who had already installed communist governments in the eastern 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.