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Potsdam Conference: When the WWII Allies Declared Japan Must Surrender

The Potsdam Conference, held from 17 July to 2 August 1945 in Potsdam in eastern Germany, decided how the Allies would deal with a defeated Germany and how they could best conduct the ongoing campaign against Japan as the Second World War (1939-45) drew to a close. With victory in Europe achieved, US President Harry S. Truman, UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and then his successor, Clement Attlee, and the Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin issued a surrender ultimatum to Japan, known as the Potsdam Declaration. The ultimatum was ignored until US aircraft dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on 14 August.

Agreement at Yalta

In February 1945, as victory seemed imminent for the Allies in the Second World War, the leaders of 'the Big Three' met at Yalta in the Crimea: President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the Russian Premier Joseph Stalin. On the discussion table were such topics as how to deal with a defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and how to set up the United Nations, successor to the League of Nations. Poland's borders were to be shifted westwards, giving the USSR the eastern slice while acquiring a new western slice from Germany. It was agreed in principle to allow democratic elections in countries Nazi Germany had occupied. This sentiment was expressed in the Declaration on Liberated Europe.

Germany and Austria, in contrast, were to be divided into four zones of occupation (US, French, British, and Russian) with a joint military government established in each, the Allied Control Council in Germany and the Inter-Allied Council in Austria. Berlin and Vienna were similarly divided into zones of control. In addition, it was decided that each power had the right to conduct war crimes trials within its zone of occupation. Including France as an occupying power of Germany and Austria was a Western 'victory' at Yalta, as was the decision to allow France a permanent seat on the UN's governing Security Council.

Another major agreement at Yalta concerned the still ongoing fighting with Japan. In return for Russia's entering the war against Japan, certain Soviet demands would be met. These demands included control of the Kuril (aka Kurile) Islands, the southern part of Sakhalin Island (both of these are in the Sea of Okhotsk and had been occupied by Japan), and retaining the status quo regarding Mongolia, which had been a Russian client state since 1924. There were many issues still unresolved, and so the 'Big Three' planned to meet again in July, this time at Potsdam, in Germany, an area then under Soviet military control.

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