Transcript Occupation of Germany and Japan

The Cold War
Post WWII Occupation
of Germany and Japan
Chapter 25
Occupation of Germany
• Allied leaders meet in Potsdam, Germany, in
July of 1945 to decide how to handle postwar
Germany.
• This is known as the Potsdam Conference.
• Truman, Churchill, and Stalin discussed
occupation of Germany.
• During this time Britain’s new prime minister,
Clement Attlee replaced Churchill.
Occupation of Japan
• Allied supreme commander Douglas
MacArthur, his staff, and a new Japanese
congress ran the country.
• This new government made important
economic reforms, allowed labor unions to
organize and broke up the zaibatsu.
• The zaibatsu were huge corporations run
by single families that had monopolized
the Japanese economy.
Emperor Hirohito
Hirohito and MacArtur
War Crimes
• Nuremberg Trials
• Former rallying place of
Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party.
• Witnesses gave accounts
of Nazi atrocities.
• Germans were blamed
for the planning the war,
committing war crimes,
and other crimes against
humanity.
• Hermann Goring
• Commander of the
German Air Force.
• Was 2nd in line to Hitler.
Heinrich Himmler
• Chief of German Police, overseer of
camps.
Joeseph Goebbels
• Nazi Propaganda leader.
Rudolph Hess
• Hitler’s Deputy.
Adolph Eichmann
• Architect of the holocaust.
The United Nations
• In 1945, 50 nations met in San Francisco
to draw up a charter for the United
Nations.
• Headquarters are in New York City.
The Founding of Israel
• After WWII, European Jews settle in
Palestine.
• The UN creates a partition plan for
Palestine.
• British forces withdraw from Palestine.
• State of Israel is proclaimed.
• 1949 UN plan divides Jerusalem.