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22.1 Notes
Aftermath of the War in Europe
Wartime Conferences and Postwar Problems
• Victory over the Axis powers brought on a whole new set of problems for
Allied leaders
• To a degree, these problems were the result of decisions they had made
during the war
• February 1945- Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin had met at the Black Sea
resort town of Yalta
• Three leaders agreed to divide Austria into zones of military occupation
• Berlin would lie entirely within the Soviet zone- divided into four parts
• Soviets control East Berlin
• Western Allies would create their own zones in West Berlin
• Allied leaders saw division of Germany temporary- final peace
settlement later
Wartime Conferences and Postwar Problems
(continued)
• Poland and territories that Soviets had already taken in
Eastern Europe
• Churchill and Roosevelt believed these countries should
be allowed to determine own futures
• Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin also were considering how to
prevent another war
• Roosevelt proposed United Nations
• Organization that would keep the peace through collective
security arrangements
• Eventually, at Yalta, the three leaders would discuss their
future Plans
Potsdam
• July 1945- Allied leaders met at Potsdam, outside Berlin, to discuss a
postwar settlement
• At Potsdam- the three leaders agreed on several basic principles
• Germany should remain a single country- for time being, it would
be divided
• Germany must be demilitarized
• The Nazi party must be outlawed
• German political structure should be rebuilt on a democratic basis
• Individuals responsible for war crimes should be brought to trial
Potsdam (continued)
• To oversee the occupation governments, the Allied leader established the
Allied Control Council
• They also agreed that a Council of Foreign Ministers representing China,
France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States should write
the peace treaties
• It became clear Western democracies and Soviet Union had very different
plans for settlement
• Major disagreements between the two countries centered around two
points:
• The boundaries of Postwar Germany
• War reparations
Redrawing Borders
• The Allies agreed on a new western border for Poland
• Both Poland and the Soviet Union took parts of East
Prussia
• This transfer of territory stripped Germany of one
fourth of its land
• Poles and Soviets evicted Germans from the lands they
required
• Czechoslovakia insisted that Sudeten Germans who had
supported Hitler’s invasion in 1938 leave the country
Demilitarization and Reparations
• Allies swiftly disbanded all German land, air, and sea forces
• They also demanded that all factories used in the war industry be
dismantled
• This plan proved hard to enforce
• The Allies disagreed on German economic recovery
• United States and Britain concluded that German industry
must be revived if Europe was to become prosperous again
• France initially wanted to keep German industries weakprevent future rearmament
• Soviets demanded Germany pay them 10 billion dollars in
reparations
Demilitarization and Reparations (continued)
• In the end, Western leaders agreed that the Soviets could
claim reparations
• mostly in the form of industrial equipment from all the
military zones
• The Soviets dismantled and moved hundreds of industrial
plants from Germany to Soviet Union
• This severely hurt German industry’s chances to
recover
• Eventually, Western Allies halted the flow of
reparations to the Soviet Union
• The Allied Control Council found it increasingly difficult to
reach decisions
The Nuremberg Trials
• Many Nazi leaders were captured after the war
• The Allies were determined to bring them to trial
• 1945 and 1946- a special international court met at Nuremberg,
Germany
• Nuremberg trials- court charged 22 Nazi leaders with crimes
against peace & humanity
• 12 were sentenced to death
• 7 were sentenced to life imprisonment
• 3 were acquitted
• The court declared the Nazi Party a criminal organization
The United Nations
• April 1945- representatives from 51 nations met
in San Francisco
• Primary purpose of the UN was to maintain
international peace and security
• Also designed to foster international
cooperation to solve cultural, economic, and
social problems
• Many Americans looked with skepticism at the
UN
The United Nations (continued)
• The two most important bodies within the UN were the General
Assembly and the Security Council
• Any nation that wished to join would be admitted to the General
Assembly
• Each nation in the Assembly would have same amount of rights and
voting powers
• General Assembly responsible for drawing up the UN budget and
determining each member’s cost
• Security Council- included 10 temporary members elected from the
General Assembly
• 2 year rotating terns
• Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United Statespermanent members
• Each permanent member had veto power
Peacemaking Problems
• The war undermined or destroyed many governments in Europe
• Eastern Europe- Soviets established governments dominated or
controlled by Communists
• It became clear Soviet Union and Western Allies had conflicting
goals for postwar Europe
• Peace negotiations also exposed growing differences between the
Soviet Union and the Western Allies
• A compromise reached- Soviets agreed to allow a few representatives
of noncommunist parties to participate in new Eastern European
governments