The Potsdam Conference: The History of the Negotiations Between the Allies Near the End of World War II by Charles River Editors

Author:Charles River Editors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Published: 2016-06-19T16:00:00+00:00

The foreign ministers: Molotov, Byrnes, and Anthony Eden

In fact, Byrnes' strategy had the effect of eventually canceling Soviet reparations demands entirely. The Soviets never sent any raw materials or food to the West and therefore had no claim, under the new terms of the agreement, to receive any machinery in exchange. The Americans worked out this arrangement to avoid impoverishing Germany any more than the war already had. If stripped of all capital goods, food, and other items, the former Reich would become a disaster area, and the aftermath of World War I had already shown such conditions made Germany ripe for the emergence of a new dictator. In fact, the American government ended up providing food to the defeated Germans for the rest of 1945 and into 1946, preventing mass starvation. With between 13.5 million and 22 million Germans expelled from the new Polish territory in the east, and a countryside devastated by war, the U.S. had no choice but to assist the Germans or let them starve. They chose to assist, preventing an additional humanitarian disaster.

The Americans also remained well aware that the Soviets had already plundered large quantities of material from the western zones before withdrawing to their own area, in some cases dismantling entire factories and shipping them east. Thus, when the Soviets asked for a hand in administering the Ruhr industrial district, the British – who held it – refused point blank, guessing that trains full of Ruhr machinery would soon begin rolling east if they agreed. Charles Bohlen even suspected that the Soviets wished to deliberately bring the Germans to pauperage in order to prepare the way for a communist revolution that would promise an end to their misery.

Chapter 5: Impasse

The plenary session on July 23rd, one day before the arrival of the Polish representatives, turned to the matter of Stalin's wishes for partial control of the Dardanelles, the passage from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. The Soviet leader wanted this concession due to Russia's long-standing desire for a warm-water port. Since the Turks opposed this, the matter appeared to be a potential bone of contention, but Truman opted to support Stalin's idea on the 23rd. In fact, he expanded on it enthusiastically with a pet project of his own, one he believed likely to promote future peace on a wide and permanent scale. The President described his ideas: “The United States Government proposes that there be free and unrestricted navigation of such inland waterways as border on two or more states and that the regulation of such navigation by provided by international authorities representative of all nations directly interested in navigation on the waterways concerned.” (Feis, 1960, 298). Stalin, however, showed little favor to that idea, simply stating that he would need to examine the plan in detail before he could even offer an opinion on it.

That evening, Churchill hosted a magnificent dinner for 28 guests at his assigned manor, complete with music, fine food, and innumerable toasts. The British military police

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