The End of the Second World War Flashcards
All 18 cards in this deck
What did the Big Three agree about Germany at the Yalta Conference (February 1945)?
That Germany would be divided into four zones of occupation, run by the USA, the USSR, Britain and France.
What did Truman tell Stalin at the Potsdam Conference (July 1945)?
That the USA had a powerful new weapon (it had just tested an atomic bomb), which made the negotiations at Potsdam far more tense.
What was the main ideological difference between the USA and the USSR?
The USA was a capitalist democracy with free elections and private business; the USSR was a one-party communist state with a state-controlled economy.
How was Berlin divided after the Second World War?
Into four zones — American, British, French and Soviet — even though the whole city lay deep inside the Soviet zone of Germany.
Which two German states were created in 1949?
The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany, May 1949) from the three western zones, and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, October 1949) from the Soviet zone.
True or false? Churchill represented Britain for the whole of the Potsdam Conference (July 1945).
False. Churchill was replaced partway through by Clement Attlee, who became Prime Minister after Britain's 1945 general election.
What did the Big Three agree at Yalta (February 1945) about the countries of Eastern Europe liberated from Nazi rule?
That they would be allowed to hold free elections. Stalin's Red Army stayed in occupation, which he claimed was needed for Soviet security.
What was the main disagreement about Germany at the Potsdam Conference (July 1945)?
Reparations: Stalin wanted heavy reparations and Germany kept weak, while the USA wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes made after the First World War. It was agreed each power would take reparations from its own zone.
What effect did the successful testing of the first atom bomb have on relations between Truman and Stalin?
It made Truman less inclined to compromise with Stalin, and made Stalin more suspicious of America's post-war ambitions; the USSR had developed its own nuclear weapon by 1949.
True or false? Tension between the USA and the USSR only began once the USA used the atom bomb.
False. Their opposing ideologies of communism and democracy already caused tension; the bomb created a new and more dangerous level of it.
True or false? At the Potsdam Conference (July 1945) Truman had replaced Roosevelt as the US representative.
True. Roosevelt died in April 1945 and his successor Truman took a far tougher line with Stalin.
What was Stalin's main aim at the Yalta Conference (February 1945)?
To gain control or influence over the countries of Eastern Europe, as a buffer zone to protect the USSR from any future attack from the West.
What did Roosevelt want from the Yalta Conference (February 1945)?
A new United Nations organisation to keep the peace, so US troops could leave Europe, and a Soviet promise to join the war against Japan.
What did Churchill want from the Yalta Conference (February 1945)?
To stop the USSR dominating Europe, especially Poland, and to keep Britain a great power; he also opposed treating Germany so harshly that it could not recover.
What did the Big Three accept at Yalta (February 1945) about which power would hold sway in Eastern Europe?
In effect, that Eastern Europe would be a Soviet 'sphere of influence', where the USSR's interests came first.
Why did Poland cause tension at the Potsdam Conference (July 1945)?
Stalin had set up a communist-dominated government in Poland, which Britain and the USA said broke his Yalta promise of free elections.
Where and when did the USA drop atom bombs in 1945?
On the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August 1945.
Give one way the atom bomb reduced the USA's need to co-operate with the USSR in 1945.
Japan could be defeated without Soviet military help, so Truman refused to let the USSR share in the occupation of Japan.