Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam: The Big Three during the War

During the War, Britain and the USA were allies of the Soviet Union but the only thing that united this so-called 'Grand Alliance' was their hatred of Germany.

The 'Big Three' – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin – held three conferences – at Tehran (1943) Yalta (February 1945) and Potsdam (July 1945) – to try to sort out how they would organise the world after the war.   It was at these conferences that the tensions between the two sides became increasingly obvious. 

Going Deeper

The following links will help you widen your knowledge:

Personalities at the Conferences - especially important if you are doing OCR

Powerpoint:

• The differences between Yalta and Potsdam

Tehran (1943)

It was the first time the three leaders had met.  There were tensions: Churchill was worried that Stalin was manipulating Roosevelt, and he stormed out of the meeting when Stalin proposed executing 50-100,000 German officers so Germany could never go to war again. 

The allies agreed:

• Operation Overlord: that the Western Allies would invade France in 1944.  Churchill was worried by Stalin's insistence that the entire UK-US initiative should be focussed on this, fearing that Stalin was trying to engineer a takeover of eastern Europe; Roosevelt, however, supported Stalin.

• That eastern Poland be given to Russia, and Poland be compensated by receiving land in Germany. 

• That the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) should be allowed to vote on whether they wanted to become part of the USSR; Stalin, however, insisted on organising the elections. 

• That Germany be divided after the war. 

• That a United Nations be formed after the war. 

A map showing the boundary of Poland in the 1930s (in yellow), and Poland as decided after WWII (land coloured brown).

Yalta (Feb 1945)

Held during the war, on the surface, the Yalta conference seemed successful.  The Allies agreed a Protocol of Proceedings to:

• divide Germany into four ‘zones’, which Britain, France, the USA and the USSR would occupy after the war. 

• bring Nazi war-criminals to trial. 

• set up a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity 'pledged to the holding of free and unfettered elections as soon as possible'. 

• help the freed peoples of Europe set up democratic and self-governing countries by helping them to (a) maintain law and order; (b) carry out emergency relief measures; (c) set up governments; and (d) hold elections (this was called the 'Declaration of Liberated Europe'). 

• set up a commission to look into reparations.

At Yalta, the negotiations went very much in Stalin's favour, but this was because Roosevelt wanted Russian help in the Pacific, and was prepared to agree to almost anything as long as Stalin agreed to go to war with Japan.  Therefore, Stalin promised that:

• Russia would join the war in the Pacific, in return for occupation zones in North Korea and Manchuria.

• Russia also agreed to join the United Nations.

Although the Conference appeared successful, however, behind the scenes, tension was growing, particularly about reparations, and about Poland. 

After the conference, Churchill wrote to Roosevelt that ‘The Soviet Union has become a danger to the free world.’  And on their return home both he and Roosevelt were criticised for giving away too much to the Soviets:

Source B

This cartoon by the American cartoonist Paul Plaschke appeared in the Chicago Tribune, shortly after the Yalta Conference.  It shows Stalin playing poker with Churchill and Roosevelt. 

Click here for the interpretation

Yalta Conference - straightforward narrative account of the Conference 

Operation Keelhaul - one of the darker decisions of the Yalta Conference.

Famous picture (and its modern spoof).

Source A

‘How are we feeling today?’ – a British cartoon of 1945 shows Churchill, Roosevelt (USA) and Stalin (USSR) as doctors, working together to heal the world. 

Click here for the interpretation

Potsdam (July 1945)

At Potsdam, the Allies met after the surrender of Germany (in May 1945) to finalise the principls of the post-war peace – Potsdam was the Versailles of World War II.  Three factors meant that the Potsdam Conference was not successful:

1. Relations between the superpowers had worsened considerably since Yalta.  In March 1945, Stalin had invited the non-Communist Polish leaders to meet him, and arrested them.  Things had got so bad that, in May 1945, the British Joint Planing Group had drawn up plans for 'Operation Unthinkable' - a 'total war ...  to impose our will upon Russia'.

2. Meanwhile, Rooevelt had died, and America had a new president, Truman, who was inclined to ‘get tough’ with the Russians.  

3. Also, soon after he had arrived at the Conference, Truman learned (on 21 July) that America had tested the first atomic bomb.   It gave the Americans a huge military advantage over everyone else.  It also meant that Truman didn't need Stalin's help in Japan.  Instead, Truman's main aim at the conference was to find out from Stalin what date the Russians intended to enter the war in the Pacific - something which (unlike Roosevelt) he did NOT want.

So, at Potsdam, the arguments came out into the open. 

The Conference agreed the following Protocols:

• to set up the four ‘zones of occupation’ in Germany.  Germany was not to be allowed any military forces.  The Nazi Party, government and laws were to be destroyed, and 'German education shall be so controlled as completely to eliminate Nazi and militarist doctrines and to make possible the successful development of democratic ideas. 

• to bring Nazi war-criminals to trial. 

• to recognize the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity and hold 'free and unfettered elections as soon as possible'.

• Russia was allowed to take reparations from the Soviet Zone, and also 10% of the industrial equipment of the western zones as reparations.  America and Britain could take reparations from their zones if they wished. 

President Truman presented it as a 'compromise', but in fact the Allies had disagreed openly about:

1. the details of how to divide Germany. 

2. the size of reparations Germany ought to pay. 

3. Russian influence over the countries of eastern Europe.

Source E

This cartoon was published in the Soviet magazine Krokodil on 30 July 1945, three days before the end of the Potsdam Conference. 

Click here for the interpretation

Potsdam Conference - straightforward narrative account of the Conference 

A map of how Germany was divided into zones