The
war in Europe was
over when Allied leaders
gathered in
Potsdam, a Berlin suburb, during July of 1945.
Meeting to
talk about Germany’s future, the decision-makers - Winston
Churchill, Joseph
Stalin and Harry
Truman - had differing points of view on a number of issues.
Discussing how to govern the defeated nation, and divide power in that ravaged country, the "Big Three" leaders were also thinking about the rest of Europe. Just two months before, in a May 14th speech in London, Churchill rhetorically asked what Europe had become. In light of the estimated statistics - 55 million people who died, 45 million who were homeless and countless more who were suffering from starvation - he gave a grim answer:
It
is a
rubble-heap, a charnel house, a breeding ground of pestilence and
hate. (Quoted in
Truman, by David McCullough, page 562.)
How could three men, and their staff personnel, really determine what was best for countries in which they neither lived nor ruled? What did they consider as they made decisions impacting all of Europe?
What the negotiators
decided would change the world for decades to come.
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