Potsdam Conference, 1945

The leaders met, but the big three were gone. Clement Atlee represented Great Britain, and Harry S Truman represented the USA. Germany had surrendered, and they met in what was to become the soviet occupied zone of Germany.

The atomic bomb had been tested, and this gave the Americans an edge in the conference. Truman was a lot more hard on communism than Roosevelt had been. The UN had also been created.

They agreed that Germany, and Berlin would be divided into four zones for the British, French, Americans and the Soviets.

Stalin wanted heavier reparations, but Truman and Atlee refused. Stalin also demanded that the Soviet zone could take a quarter of the industrial equipment for the other zones, as the Soviet zone was the poorest.

Truman was unhappy that there had been no free elections in eastern Europe, but there was little he could do. Truman also was unhappy about the communist takeover of Poland, and he didn't like the solution to the border issue.