p The third and last war conference of the Soviet, US and British leaders took place in Potsdam’s Cecilienhof, July 17-August 2, 1945. The atmosphere there was quite different from that of the two preceding conferences. The war in Europe was over. The ruling elements in the United States and Britain were eager to assure themselves of the place of dominance in the postwar world, and, if matters went so far, were prepared to make use of defeated Germany in promoting their ends. With President Roosevelt’s death and Truman’s assumption of the presidency, the tendency to toughen the attitude to the Soviet Union gained ascendancy in the US Administration. Work on atomic weapons was stepped up on the President’s orders.

p On July 16, on the eve of the conference, the US delegation, with the President at its head, received word of the first experimental bomb test in New Mexico. From then on it was preoccupied with the problem of how to demonstrate US atomic power and what advantages this would bring to the United States. State Secretary James Byrnes said: "... The bomb might well put us in a position to dictate our own terms at the end of the war."  [244•1  The War Secretary, Henry Stimpson, expressed the same opinion. He suggested using the bomb "to win concessions from the Russian leaders as to their cherished... state".  [244•2 

p It was in Potsdam, on July 24, that Truman signed his fateful order to deliver the "first special bomb... after about 3 August 1945 on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki".  [244•3  As seen by P.M.S. Blackett, a British historian, "the dropping of the atomic bombs was not so much the last military act of the Second World War, as one of the first major operations of the cold diplomatic war with Russia".  [244•4 

p The political speculation i&f the US delegation, by virtue of the monopoly possession of atomic arms, began at the Potsdam Conference. President Truman told Stalin elatedly that the United States had these super-bombs.  [244•5  While he did so, Churchill intently watched Stalin’s face. But the game proved abortive. The Soviet delegation comported itself in Potsdam with calm assurance and dignity. And its behaviour secured the success of the Potsdam talks, although some points of interest to the Soviet Union, such as that of the procedure in occupying Japan, could not be settled due to the posture of the US representatives.

p The Potsdam Conference set up the Council of the Foreign Ministers of the USSR, USA, Britain, France and China, authorising it to prepare peace treaties with countries of the fascist bloc. It stipulated, too, that in discussing the details of particular treaties, the Foreign Ministers’ Council would include representatives of the Great Powers that had concluded 245 the armistice with the enemy state in question. Only one exception was made: it was ruled that France be regarded as a country that had signed the Italian surrender.

p The German question was the main one discussed in Potsdam. The view that German dismemberment was impermissible, consistently advocated by the Soviet Union, won the day. Stalin said, "there has been a change of view on this question. Germany remains a united state."  [245•1  The Conference decided to preserve and develop Germany as a single democratic, peace-loving state. It proclaimed the inalienable right of the German people to independent national existence and reconstruction on a democratic and peace-loving basis.

p An agreement was concluded on The Political and Economic Principles to Govern the Treatment of Germany in the Initial Control Period. This set out the guidelines for denazification, democratisation and demilitarisation. The aims of the occupation were laid down as follows: total disarmament and demilitarisation, removal of all industry capable of war production, measures to convince the German people that they had suffered a total military defeat, destruction of the nazi Party and nazi institutions, prevention of all nazi and military activity or propaganda, and reconstruction of German life along democratic lines, with subsequent peaceful co-operation of Germany on the international scene.

p The agreement also envisaged measures facilitating revival of German agriculture and peace industries. A decision was passed to liquidate the German monopolies and amalgamations. Measures were laid down to assure Germany’s integrity despite her division into zones of occupation. The Potsdam negotiators coped with the difficult question of reparations, drawing up a just plan acceptable to all concerned. The fundamental proposition was that reparations be exacted from the respective occupation zones, with a specified share to be placed at the Soviet Union’s disposal by the Western part of the country.

p The Potsdam Conference re-examined the question of the major war criminals and reaffirmed the principle of swift and just trials. A decision was passed to constitute the International Military Tribunal.

p The Potsdam decisions on the German question were prompted by concern for peace and the security of nations. That was why they were concentrated against militarism and revanchism, and consequently resented by advocates of aggression in West Germany. The savage fury of the German militarists is illustrated by the following passage: "Stalin and Truman met and sanctioned... hasty and violent solutions... forcible partition and artificial restriction of the greatest European nation and the subjugation of all East European peoples to foreign domination."  [246•1  The style betrays its authof as a follower of hitlerism.

p The Conference drew the border between Germany and Poland in compliance with historical justice along the rivers Oder and Western Neisse. The decision said the frontier would be reaffirmed by the peace conference, this being regarded as a pure formality, for a decision was also passed in Potsdam on evicting the German population not only from Czechoslovakia and Hungary, but also from Poland in her new frontiers.

p Prominence was given to the fulfilment of the Yalta Conference Declaration On Liberated Europe. The US President suggested that in pursuance of that declaration the democratic governments of Rumania and Bulgaria should be reorganised without delay. "We cannot resume diplomatic relations with these Governments,” he said, "until they are reorganised as we consider necessary."  [246•2  The Soviet delegation objected, countering with its own proposal: "In Rumania and Bulgaria, just as in Finland and Hungary, due order exists and lawful authority is exercised, enjoying prestige and trust among the populations of,these states in the time since the signing of the armistice by their governments."  [246•3  It stressed the absence of any grounds for interference in the internal affairs of Rumania and Bulgaria. The Soviet delegation favoured resumption of diplomatic relations in the earliest future, because further delay was unjustified. The Conference decided that each of the three Allied Governments would examine the question of establishing diplomatic relations with Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania and Finland.

p The Potsdam Conference examined a number of other issues and found acceptable solutions. Speaking at the closing session, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee voiced the hope that "this Conference will be an important milestone on the road which our three nations are taking together towards a stable peace, and that the friendship between the three of us who have met here will be strong and enduring".  [247•1  Stalin and Truman joined in this wish.

"The results of the Conference,” wrote Pravda on this score, "are evidence of a further consolidation and growth of co-operation among the three Great Powers, the war alliance of which secured military "victory against the common enemy.”  [247•2