The Big Three held three conferences – at Tehran (1943), Yalta (Feb 1945) and Potsdam (Jul 1945) – to try to sort out how they would organise the world after the war.
Cartoons at the time showed Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill working happily together to 'heal the world'. But at the conferences the tensions between the two sides became obvious.
| Tehran |
Yalta |
Potsdam |
| Held before D-Day (1943) |
held during the war (Feb 1945) |
held after the surrender of Germany (May 1945) |
| The first time the three leaders had met; Churchill worried that Stalin was manipulating Roosevelt. Stalin was anxious for the US and UK to mount OPERATION OVERLORD. | Roosevelt (who liked Stalin) was President of America | Truman (who had promised to 'get tough' with the Russians) had become President of America (AND he knew that America had just developed the ATOMIC BOMB, which gave America a HUGE military advantage) |
| A United Nations would be formed after the war | Russia would join the UNITED NATIONS | - |
| Germany to be divided | divided Germany into four ‘zones’ | set up four ‘zones of OCCUPATION’ in Germany, and promised to destroy the Nazi way of life. But the Allies openly disagreed about the details of how to divide Germany |
| Stalin proposed EXECUTING 50-100,000 German officers | promised to bring Nazi war-criminals to trial | promised to bring Nazi war-criminals to trial |
| Eastern Poland be given to Russia, and Poland be COMPENSATED by receiving land in Germany. | promised to set up a Government of NATIONAL UNITY in Poland and hold free elections | promised to recognise up a Government of National Unity in Poland and hold free elections – meaningless, because in March 1945, Stalin had invited the non-Communist Polish leaders to meet him, and ARRESTED them |
| BALTIC STATES to be allowed to vote on becoming part of the USSR; Stalin, however, insisted on organising the elections | promised to help the freed people of Europe set up DEMOCRATIC and self-governing countries | the Allies openly disagreed about Russian policy in eastern Europe |
| set up a commission to look into REPARATIONS | Russia allowed to take reparations from the Soviet Zone, and also 10% of the industrial equipment of the western zones as reparations. But the Allies disagreed about the size of reparations Germany ought to pay |
| tension between Churchill and Stalin | tension was growing behind the scenes | the Allies disagreed OPENLY |
