“THE UNITED NATIONS FIGHT FOR FREEDOM”

(USA, 1943):FDR hoped to continue this

alliance after the defeat of Hitler.

The Big Three at Yalta, February 1945: Churchill, FDR, & Stalin agreed on occupation zones but quarreled over

Poland….

Red Army conquests in

January 1945:The Overture to

Yalta.

U.S. and Soviet troops link up on the ruins of a bridge over the Elbe River at Torgau, April 25,

1945

Soviet troops hoist the Red Flag over the Reichstag, 2 May 1945

The Occupation Zones Agreed Upon at Yalta for Germany, Berlin, and

Austria

At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the Big Three founded an International Military Tribunal to “destroy” Nazism (Stalin dealt with the inexperienced Truman &

Clement Attlee)

THE DETONATION OF THE ATOMIC BOMBOVER HIROSHIMA ON AUGUST 6, 1945:

About 70,000 died that day, and 70,000 more within 6 months

Border revisions and streams of refugees in 1945:Soviet rule was undoubtedly most brutal….

Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, & Patton view the bodies of camp inmates in Ohrdruf on April 12, 1945

“26 million dead are

accusing! In Nuremberg there is a

reckoning!”

Opening session of the Nuremberg Trial, November 20, 1945

EXPANDING THE SCOPE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW:THE INDICTMENT AT NUREMBERG

Defendants at Nuremberg were charged with the following crimes:

1. Conspiracy to wage a war of aggression (which was forbidden by the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, but no individual had ever been tried for this).

2. Crimes of war, as defined by the Hague Convention of 1907 and Geneva Convention of 1929.

3. Crimes against humanity, including the mass murder of unarmed civilians, slave labor, and the violent persecution of religion (an unprecedented charge).

Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death and seven to prison, while three were acquitted.

Defendants’ benches at the Nuremberg Trial, September 1945

FROM VICTORY TO CONFRONTATION: THE ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR

The following developments persuaded most U.S. officials that Stalin posed as great a threat as Hitler and must be “contained”:

1. The Greek Civil War, which inspired the proclamation of the “Truman Doctrine” in March 1947.

2. Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1948.

3. The Communist takeover of democratic Czechoslovakia in February 1948.

4. The Soviet blockade of West Berlin in 1948, to which the U.S. responded with the Berlin Airlift.

[Stalin really had nothing to do with cases 1 & 2….]

Communist strongholds in Greece, 1946/47

The Greek civil war began under German occupation. …

Marhsal Josip Broz TITO (1892-

1980),the Communist

leader of Yugoslavia who broke openly with Stalin in

1948.He was the

actual patron of the Greek

Communists…

Harry S. Truman announces the “Truman Doctrine”

to the U.S. Congress on March 12, 1947

Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposes the

European Recovery Program at Harvard in June 1947

(below) and finalizes the plan for implementation with the British and French foreign

ministers in Paris in October 1948

The Marshall Plan as the wind in Europe’s sails(FRG, 1950):

Over $11 billion was provided in

grants to promote the revival of

Western Europe’s economy

“No Nonsense!”(USSR, 1948)

Klement Gottwald led the Czech Communists to a plurality in 1946 with 38% of the popular vote and became premier of a Popular Front government.

Jan Masaryk and all other non-Communist ministers were replaced with Communists in

February 1948.

Soon thereafter Masaryk was found dead beneath the window of his Prague apartment

The German currency reform in

“Bizonia,” 21 June 1948:

Every West German citizen received 40 new Deutschmarks.

The Berlin Airlift, October 1948:Grateful West Berliners greet an American transport plane

The “People’s Liberation Army” enters Beijing, January 1949

Mao Zedong, leader of the People’s Republic of

China,1949-1976

Dean Acheson signs the NATO

treaty in Washington on April 4, 1949, as Harry Truman

and British Foreign

Secretary Ernest Bevin look on

Konrad Adenauer (CDU) was sworn in as the first Chancellor of the “Federal Republic of Germany” in September 1949

The pro-Soviet “German Democratic Republic”

was founded in October

An “Iron Curtain” descended across Europe by 1949

All debate in Washington about

Soviet intentions ended when North Korea

invaded South Korea in June 1950. But Dean Acheson had declared

publicly in January 1950 that the U.S.

“defensive perimeter” did NOT include South

Korea.

When U.S. troops reached the Yalu River in October 1950, 300,000 Chinese troops intervened; the US lost 36,515 killed.

Time Magazine devoted itself to raising awareness of Soviet expansionism with these

maps published on March 10, 1952