A.     Potsdam

1.     The last meeting between the Big Three (Truman replaced Roosevelt, Clement Attlee replaced Churchill) in July 1945

2.     Germany had been defeated and atomic bombs dropped on Japan

3.     Territorial adjustments

a.Russia’s western frontier pushed further into Poland and included most of German East Prussia.

b.Poland was moved about 100 miles west, at the expense of Germany, to accommodate the Soviet Union.

c.Allies agreed to divide Germany into spheres of occupation until a final peace was negotiated.

d.Germany remained divided until 1990.

4.     The Russians were not satisfied with the agreements between the US and Japan and later signed their own agreements with Japan.

B.     The Holocaust

1.     The Nazi nightmare did not stop on the battlefields of Europe. Hitler ordered the systematic killing of Jews and other allegedly inferior peoples. This horrible destruction of life known as the Holocaust.

2.     The following factors contributed to the Holocaust:

a.     Jews were a small and vulnerable minority.

b.     Hitler’s propaganda convinced German’s that Jews were an inferior race that should be eliminated.

c.      Hitler’s secret police successfully stifled dissent.

d.     The Nazis successfully secured collaborators in occupied territories. 

J. The Cost of War

                                             1.     Military deaths in World War II are estimated at 15 million.

                                             2.     When deaths that resulted from disease, hunger, and other causes, the numbers total nearly 40 million.

                                             3.     Most of Europe and large parts of Asia were devastated.

                                             4.     The war ended on an anxious notes as the world feared the potential of atomic weapons and conflicts among the victors seemed inevitable.