Potsdam Conference in the context of Atomic spies

The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 spans the period of Marxist–Leninist regime in Poland after the end of World War II. These years, while featuring general industrialization, urbanization and many improvements in the standard of living, were marred by early Stalinist repressions, social unrest, political strife and severe economic difficulties.Near the end of World War II, the advancing Soviet Red Army, along with the Polish Armed Forces in the East, pushed out the Nazi German forces from occupied Poland. In February 1945, the Yalta Conference sanctioned the formation of a provisional government of Poland from a compromise coalition, until postwar elections. Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, manipulated the implementation of that ruling. A practically communist-controlled Provisional Government of National Unity was formed in Warsaw by ignoring the Polish government-in-exile based in London since 1940.

During the subsequent Potsdam Conference in July–August 1945, the three major Allies ratified a massive westerly shift of Poland's borders and approved its new territory between the Oder–Neisse line and the Curzon Line. The area of Poland was reduced in comparison to its pre-World War II extent and geographically resembled that of the medieval early Piast dynasty era. Following the destruction of the Polish-Jewish population in the Holocaust, the flight and expulsion of Germans in the west, resettlement of Ukrainians in the east, and the expulsion and resettlement of Poles from the Eastern Borderlands (Kresy), Poland became for the first time in its history an ethnically homogeneous nation-state without prominent minorities. The new government solidified its political power, while the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) under Bolesław Bierut gained firm control over the country, which would remain an independent state within the Soviet sphere of influence. The July Constitution was promulgated on 22 July 1952 and the country officially became the Polish People's Republic (PRL).

The Berlin Declaration (German: Berliner Erklärung/Deklaration) of 5 June 1945, or the Declaration regarding the defeat of Germany, had the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France, acting on behalf of the Allies of World War II, jointly assume de jure "supreme authority" over Germany after its military defeat and asserted the legitimacy of their joint determination of issues regarding its administration and boundaries prior to the forthcoming Potsdam Conference.
Cite error: There are <ref group=n> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=n}} template (see the help page).

The Potsdam Agreement (German: Potsdamer Abkommen) was the agreement among three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union after the war ended in Europe that was signed on 1 August 1945 and published the following day. A product of the Potsdam Conference, it concerned the military occupation and reconstruction of Germany, its border, and the entire European Theatre of War territory. It also addressed Germany's demilitarisation, reparations, the prosecution of war criminals and the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from various parts of Europe. France was not invited to the conference but formally remained one of the powers occupying Germany.

Executed as a communiqué, the agreement was not a peace treaty according to international law, although it created accomplished facts. It was superseded by the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany signed on 12 September 1990.

Western betrayal is the view that the United Kingdom, France and the United States failed to meet their legal, diplomatic, military and moral obligations to the Czechoslovaks and Poles before, during and after World War II. It also sometimes refers to the treatment of other Central and Eastern European states by those three nations.

The concept primarily derives from several events, including British and French appeasement towards Nazi Germany during its 1938 occupation of Czechoslovakia and the perceived failure of Britain and France to adequately assist the Poles during the German invasion of Poland in 1939. It also derives from concessions made by American and British political leaders to the Soviet Union during the Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences and their limited response during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising along with post-war events, which allocated Poland to the Soviet sphere of influence as part of the Eastern Bloc.

The Potsdam Declaration, or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, was a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and President of China Chiang Kai-shek issued the document, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan, as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. The ultimatum stated that, if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction."

The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam, and alternatively internationally as the French Indochina War) was fought in Indochina between France and the Việt Minh, and their respective allies, from 19 December 1946 until 1 August 1954. The Việt Minh was led by Võ Nguyên Giáp and Hồ Chí Minh. The conflict mainly happened in Vietnam.

At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff decided that Indochina south of latitude 16° north was to be included in the Southeast Asia Command under British Admiral Mountbatten. The French return to southern Indochina was also supported by the Allies. On V-J Day, September 2, Hồ Chí Minh proclaimed in Hanoi the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). Also in September 1945, Chinese forces entered Hanoi, and Japanese forces to the north of that line surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. At the same time, British forces landed in Saigon, and Japanese forces in the south surrendered to the British. The Chinese acknowledged the DRV and the communist-led Việt Minh, then in power in Hanoi, even though they also supported pro-Chinese nationalist factions. The British refused to do that in Saigon, and deferred to the French. The DRV ruled as the only civil government in all of Vietnam for a period of about 20 days, after the abdication of Emperor Bảo Đại, who had governed Vietnam since 1926.

The Tehran Conference (codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of the Allies of World War II, held between Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was the first of the Allied World War II conferences involving the "Big Three" (the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom) and took place at the Soviet embassy in Tehran just over a year after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. The meeting occurred shortly after the Cairo Conference was held in Egypt for a discussion between the United States, the United Kingdom, and China from 22 to 26 November 1943. The Big Three would not meet again until 1945, when the Yalta Conference was held in Crimea from 4 to 11 February and the Potsdam Conference was held in Allied-occupied Germany from 17 July to August 2. Notably, President Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived on the USS Iowa.

Although the three leaders arrived in Tehran with differing objectives, the main outcome of the meeting was a British and American commitment to opening a second front against Nazi Germany, thereby forcing it to pull military assets away from the Eastern Front with the Soviets. In addition to this decision, the Tehran Conference also addressed: the Big Three's relations with Turkey and Iran, as the former was being pressed to enter the conflict and the latter was under Allied occupation; operations in Yugoslavia and against Japan; and the envisaged settlement following the expected defeat of the Axis powers. A separate contract also saw the Big Three pledge to recognize Iranian independence.

The Polish population transfers in 1944–1946 from the eastern half of prewar Poland (also known as the expulsions of Poles from the Kresy macroregion), were the forced migrations of Poles toward the end and in the aftermath of World War II. These were the result of a Soviet Union policy that had been ratified by the main Allies of World War II. Similarly, the Soviet Union had enforced policies between 1939 and 1941 which targeted and expelled ethnic Poles residing in the Soviet zone of occupation following the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland. The second wave of expulsions resulted from the retaking of Poland from the Wehrmacht by the Red Army. The USSR took over territory for its western republics.

The postwar population transfers were part of an official Soviet policy that affected more than one million Polish citizens, who were removed in stages from the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. After the war, following Soviet demands laid out during the Tehran Conference of 1943, Kresy was formally incorporated into the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian republics of the Soviet Union. This was agreed at the Potsdam Conference of Allies in 1945, to which the Polish government-in-exile was not invited.

Bolesław Bierut ([bɔˈlɛswaf ˈbʲɛrut] ; 18 April 1892 – 12 March 1956) was a Polish communist activist and politician, leader of communist-ruled Poland from 1948 until 1956. He was President of the State National Council from 1944 to 1947, President of Poland from 1947 to 1952, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party from 1948 to 1956, and Prime Minister of Poland from 1952 to 1954. Bierut is believed to have worked as an NKVD informant or agent prior to 1945, although his relationship with the Soviet agency has been a subject of debate among historians. As communist leader, he implemented aspects of the Stalinist system in Poland. Together with Władysław Gomułka, his main rival, Bierut is chiefly responsible for the historic changes that Poland underwent in the aftermath of World War II. Unlike any of his communist successors, Bierut led Poland until his death.

Born in Congress Poland on the outskirts of Lublin, Bierut joined the Polish Socialist Party in 1912. Later he became a member of the Communist Party of Poland and spent some years in the Soviet Union. He was sentenced to a prison term in 1935 for conducting illegal labor activity in Poland by the anti-communist Sanation government and was later released in 1938. During World War II, Bierut was an activist of the newly founded Polish Workers' Party (PPR) and subsequently the chairman of the State National Council (KRN), established by the PPR. Trusted by Joseph Stalin, Bierut participated in the Potsdam Conference, where he successfully lobbied for the establishment of Poland's western border at the Oder–Neisse line.

The expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II was part of a broader series of evacuations and deportations of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during and after World War II.

During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Czech resistance groups demanded the deportation of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia. The decision to deport the Germans was adopted by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile which, beginning in 1943, sought the support of the Allies for this proposal. However, a formal decision on the expulsion of the German population was not reached until 2 August 1945, at the conclusion of the Potsdam Conference.

Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov (2 October 1907 – 6 July 1977) was the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union from January 1946 to March 1953 and again from June 1953 until February 1956. He held the military rank of Colonel General. He was involved in several brutal actions of the Soviet security forces. These actions occurred in the 1940s and were carried out alongside his comrade-in-arms General Ivan Serov.

Kruglov was fluent in several foreign languages, including English, and was awarded the Legion of Merit and created an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for organizing the security of the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference during World War II.

After World War II, both the Federal Republic and Democratic Republic of Germany were obliged to pay war reparations to the Allied governments, according to the Potsdam Conference. Other Axis nations were obliged to pay war reparations according to the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947. Austria was not included in any of these treaties.

Substantial debate exists over the ethical, legal, and military aspects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August 1945 respectively at the close of the Pacific War theater of World War II (1939–45), as well as their lasting impact on both the United States and the international community.

On 26 July 1945 at the Potsdam Conference, United States president Harry S. Truman, British prime minister Winston Churchill and President of China Chiang Kai-shek issued the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan. This ultimatum stated if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction". Some debaters focus on the presidential decision-making process, and others on whether or not the bombings were the proximate cause of Japanese surrender.

The Eastern Neisse, also known by its Polish name of Nysa Kłodzka (German: Glatzer Neiße, Czech: Kladská Nisa), is a river in southwestern Poland, a left tributary of the Oder, with a length of 188 km (21st longest) and a basin area of 4,570 km (3,742 in Poland).

Prior to World War II it was part of Germany. During the Yalta Conference it was discussed by the Western Allies as one possible line of the western Polish border. Attempts were made to negotiate a compromise with the Soviets on the new Polish-German frontier; it was suggested that the Eastern Neisse be made the line of demarcation. This would have meant that (East) Germany could have retained approximately half of Silesia, including most of Wrocław (formerly Breslau). However the Soviets rejected the suggestion at the Potsdam Conference and insisted that the southern boundary between Germany and Poland be drawn further west, at the Lusatian Neisse, in some way reintroducing the border to the place from the beginnings of Polish statehood, i.e. west of Legnica Town, important for Bolesław IV the Curly and Henry the Bearded, two Polish Princepses.

The subdivisions of the Polish People's Republic changed several times from the Republic's inception in 1946 to the latest revision in 1999. The first subdivisions of the Republic involved the territories that were acquired in the west after World War II. They were subsequently reformed in 1946, 1950, 1957 and 1975. The 1975 division survived the fall of communism in 1990. The current administrative subdivisions were finalised in 1999. While they closely resemble the 1945–75 scheme, they have different names since the Communists tended to simply name the voivodeships after their capitals, whereas the current ones use more historical names. In some cases, there were border adjustments.

After World War II, Poland lost 77,000 km (30,000 sq mi) of eastern regions (Kresy), gaining instead the smaller but much more industrialized so-called "Regained Territories" east of the Oder–Neisse line. This annexation of German territory was agreed by the Allied Powers at the Potsdam Conference in 1945.

The formation of the European Advisory Commission (EAC) was agreed on at the Moscow Conference on 30 October 1943 between the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Anthony Eden, the United States, Cordell Hull, and the Soviet Union, Vyacheslav Molotov, and confirmed at the Tehran Conference in November. In anticipation of the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies this commission was to study the postwar political problems in Europe and make recommendation to the three governments, including the surrender of the European enemy states and the machinery of its fulfillment. After the EAC completed its task it was dissolved at the Potsdam Conference in August 1945.

The Geneva Summit of 1955 was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. Held on July 18, 1955, it was a meeting of "The Big Four": President Dwight D. Eisenhower of the United States, Prime Minister Anthony Eden of Britain, Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin of the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister Edgar Faure of France. They were accompanied by the foreign ministers of the four powers (who were also members of the Council of Foreign Ministers): John Foster Dulles, Harold Macmillan, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Antoine Pinay. Also in attendance was Nikita Khrushchev, de facto leader of the Soviet Union.

This was the first such meeting since the Potsdam Conference ten years earlier.