NATO Declassified
End of Second World War
The Yalta conference
On 4-11 February 1945, the Big Three - The United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet
Union, represented respectively by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin - met at Yalta in the Crimea
where they planned the last stages of the war and how to deal with defeated Germany and liberated
Europe.
More concretely, they discussed key issues such as the creation of a United Nations Organization
and the post-war administration of Germany, reparations and the status of Poland and Yugoslavia.
The Soviet Union pledged to declare war against Japan six months after the capitulation of
Germany, and the Allies agreed that all vestiges of Nazism and Fascism would be destroyed.
Poland, however, remained a major source of contention. The capitulation of Germany followed on 8
May 1945.
The Potsdam conference
Five months later, from 16 July to 2 August 1945, the three same powers met again. With the
exception of Stalin, they were represented by different statesmen: the President of the United States
Roosevelt - died on 12 April 1945 and was succeeded by Harry S. Truman; and Churchill who was
defeated in parliamentary elections, handed over authority to the first ever Labour Prime Minister,
Clement Attlee, during the conference.
The leaders tackled many issues such as how to deal with eventual peace settlements, the future of
Germany and immediate concern about Eastern Germany, the vital question of reparations and the
surrender of Japan. It transpired with time, however, that the vagueness of the terms of the Potsdam
Agreement allowed for varying interpretations, and led to mutual accusations of breaches of the
agreements.
The first atomic weapons
By then, Japan was the only Axis country that had not capitulated and it refused to. On 6 August
1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima to force the Japanese generals
to accept defeat. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on 8 August.
On 9 August 1945, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, bringing Japan
to officially capitulate on 2 September, therefore ending the Second World War.
The creation of the UN
Meanwhile, on 26 June 1945, 50 countries signed the United Nations Charter. It effectively came
into existence on 24 October 1945 once the Charter had been ratified by the five permanent
members of the Security Council: The main victors of the Second World War China, France, the
United Kingdom, the United States and the USSR and by most of the other 45 signatories.
The United Nations was formed in a spirit of co-operation with the hope of providing a body to the
international community which would help prevent future wars. It aimed to succeed where the
League of Nations had failed.
Agreeing on peace treaties
It should be noted that neither Yalta nor Potsdam were peace treaties. The task of drawing up such
treaties fell to the Council of Foreign Ministers created at the Potsdam Conference. It met for the first
time in London in September 1945 to draft peace treaties with Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Italy and
Romania. They were eventually signed in February 1947 (Paris Peace Treaties). However, so many
disputes emerged during these negotiations that unity among the Allies was effectively lost.
