1. Cold War Beginnings

2. Postwar Anxieties Would peace reverse the economic recovery?
No more government contracts meant no more government spending
GNP slumps in ‘46 and ‘47; prices rise without control
High demand creates inflation and huge black market

3. Germany, oh, Germany Nuremberg Trials – Germany, 1945-1946
22 tried; 12 hung, 7 jailed, Goering suicides
Other trials continue for years

4. Germany, oh, Germany Dispute: Hurt or help?
Reparations requested by U.S.S.R. (wanted payback, but not a strong German future threat)
Healthy Germany needed to rebuild Europe
Territory divided up between France, Britain, U.S. and U.S.S.R.
East and West Germany; satellite states bound to U.S.S.R.
Russia regained and extended territory – Poland
“Iron Curtain” – Winston Churchill
West Germany an independent country

5. Germany, oh, Germany Berlin? Operation Vittles – Berlin Airlift
Split into 4 zones
U.S. and Britain introduced common currency in Western zones – Stalin replies by halting all traffic to West Berlin June 24, 1948
Operation Vittles – Berlin Airlift
RAF and U.S. Air Force ship in 2 millions tons of supplies over the next year; blockade ends May 1949
Flights occur daily; citizens build runways out of gravel and broken buildings; intense coordination of flights

6. The Role of Yalta February 1945
February 1945: Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt
Plans to end Axis power
Poland, Bulgaria, Romania to have self-determination and free elections (didn’t get it)
Stalin to attack Japan in return for concessions in China
Intervention not needed – Stalin still got control of Manchuria
Purpose of meeting was informational, not determination of final outcome of conflict

7. Yalta

8. The Potsdam Conference
July 1945
Big Three: United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union
Same players as the Yalta Conference in February
Stalin had promised free elections, did not ever happen
Soviets, British, Americans, and French would take reparations from their own occupation zones
U.S. wanted to use Europe as a market for new productivity

9. Timeline February 1945: Yalta
April 1945: FDR Dies, Truman becomes Pres
May 8, 1945: V-E Day
June 26, 1945: United Nations Established
July 1945: Potsdam
August : Hiroshima and Nagasaki
September 2, 1945: V-J Day (end of the war for U.S.)

10. Cold War Tensions George F. Kennan U.S. Policy of Containment
American diplomat in Moscow
U.S. Policy of Containment
Prevent any expansion of communist rule
Truman’s foreign policy
Western (democratic) Europe and Eastern (communist) Europe
June 26, 1945 – United Nations charter signed
Arena for competition between the United States and the Soviet Union

11. Cold War Tensions After Yalta After Potsdam
Germany divided into 4 allied zones
Stalin promises free elections in satellites (especially Poland) – doesn’t happen
Germany to pay reparations
After Potsdam
Allied divisions become East (USSR) and West (US, UK, France) Germany
Stalin wants extra German reparations, UK and US say, “No.”

12. Reflection
What accounts for the breakdown in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II?
Is there anything that the United States could have done to avoid it?