Transcript Super Powers

Superpowers
Quick Write
• In your own words, what was the Cold War?
Potsdam
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The last of the conferences between the
Allied leaders during World War II, the
Potsdam Conference was held in Potsdam,
Germany in the summer of 1945.
The resulting agreements dealt with such
issues as how to rule a conquered Germany
and prevent it from rising as a military threat
in Europe again.
Among the provisions adopted was:
An agreement to try former Nazis as war
criminals for crimes against humanity, which
occurred that year at the Nuremberg Trials.
The Potsdam agreements also laid the
foundations for the developing cold war by
specifying for the division of Germany into
spheres of influence, ruled over by the
United States, the United Kingdom, France,
and the Soviet Union.
Iron Curtain
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After WWII ended, Joseph Stalin insisted
that Eastern Europe come under the Soviet
sphere of influence.
However, the United States was unwilling to
let Stalin dictate the shape of the postwar
world, and U.S. president Harry Truman
emerged as a more determined opponent of
communism.
Between 1945 and 1947, Stalin ensured the
installation of pro-Soviet communist
regimes in Eastern European countries
heavily dependent on the Soviet Union.
Those actions alarmed the United States and
other Western governments, prompting
Winston Churchill's "iron curtain" speech
(1946).
Primary Source
• Using supporting detail, please answer the question
below in 2-3 complete sentences.
What is Winston Churchill suggesting in his speech?
Post-WWII Germany
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Germany had been divided into four
occupation zones, with Great Britain, the
United States, France, and the Soviet Union
each governing their own sectors.
As hostility between the Soviet Union and
the West grew, Stalin decided to establish
the Soviet zone in the East as a separate
communist state with the Berlin occupation
zone at the center.
The situation escalated in 1948, when Stalin
set up a blockade of the western half of
Berlin; Truman responded with the Berlin
airlift.
By 1949, Stalin had lifted the blockade. Yet
Germany remained definitively divided into
two separate nations.
Truman Doctrine
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On March 12, 1947, in a message to the U.S.
Congress, U.S. president Harry Truman laid
out a foreign policy doctrine for the United
States in the early days of the Cold War that
subsequently became known as the Truman
Doctrine.
At heart, the policy was one that mandated
an active role for the United States in
containing the spread of communism around
the world.
The Truman Doctrine laid the groundwork
for the Marshall Plan, which extended
similar aid to all of Western Europe.
It also formed the backbone of America's
Cold War policy and led to both financial and
military entanglements throughout the
world, including the Korean War and the
Vietnam War.
Marshall Plan
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On June 5, 1947, in a speech for the
commencement ceremony at Harvard
College, U.S. secretary of state George C.
Marshall proposed that the United States
grant financial aid to countries in need to
prevent them from succumbing to
communism.
U.S. president Harry Truman later dubbed
the proposal the Marshall Plan, and it came
to form the basis of U.S. international policy
during the Cold War. Congress debated the
Marshall Plan throughout 1948 and
eventually enacted a series of laws to put the
plan into action.
Introduced by the United States in 1947, the
massive financial aid program allowed
Germany not only to rebuild but to surpass
its prewar industrial production level.
1949
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In Cold War politics, 1949 proved to be a
pivotal year, which began with the creation
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) to counter any Soviet threat.
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In August, the Soviet Union successfully
tested its first nuclear device, thus ending
the American monopoly on such weapons
and it’s military superiority.
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By the end of that year, the Chinese
Communist Revolution came to an end, and
the following year, the Soviet Union and
China entered into an alliance.
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Summary: The Cold War was a period of
hostility between the United States and
Soviet Union.