LET’S GET TOGETHER…Yeah, Yeah, Yeah…

“THE BIG THREE”

• Roosevelt, Churchill, & Stalin - Yalta

YALTA – FEB. 1945

Stalin wants: - a buffer to protect the Soviet Union from West by

establishing pro-Soviet governments in Eastern Europe

• FDR wants: -“self-determination” – allow liberated countries

to hold free elections -Soviet military help against Japan -Creation of the United Nations

AND MORE…

• All 3 want:

-Germany’s unconditional surrender

-Germany would be divided into 4 zones – occupied and governed by military forces from the U.S. , Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union

OUTCOME…

• Stalin agrees to free-elections in Poland, but the issue of elections in Eastern Europe cause a split between Soviets & U.S.

• Stalin’s price for military help in Japan – the Sakhalin & Kuril Islands, plus 2 ports

and railroad rights in Manchuria* Creation of United Nations 1st meeting in

San Francisco April 1945

BUT WAIT…

• Roosevelt dies April 12, 1945

• Harry Truman becomes U.S. President

THE POTSDAM CONFERENCEJuly 1945

• Truman demands free elections

• Stalin declares that free elections in any Eastern Europe country were anti-Soviet and would not be allowed

NUREMBERG TRIALS1945-1949

• 22 Nazi political, military, & economic war criminals are put on trial for “crimes against humanity”

• Only 3 are acquitted• 11 of the guilty will be sentenced for execution by

hanging• The rest will receive 10yrs.- life• The bodies of the executed will be cremated in the ovens at Dachau

CREMATION OVENS AT DACHAU

THE IRON CURTAIN

• West views Soviet policy as part of a global Communist conspiracy

• Soviets views Western (esp. U.S.) policy as global capitalist expansionism

• March 1946 – Winston Churchill declared “an iron curtain” had “descended across the continent” – The “Cold War” had begun

The Iron Curtain

The Iron Curtain

The Berlin Wall