Potsdam and the establishment of the Soviet zone

Question 1

What was decided at the Yalta conference in February 1945?

Answer 1

-The Allies agreed to divide Germany into four zones

Question 2

Who attended Potsdam in July 1945?

Answer 2

• US President: Truman
• British Prime Ministers: Churchill and Attlee
• Soviet Leader: Stalin

Question 3

What was agreed at Potsdam?

Answer 3

• Germany was to be administered under joint Allied control and was divided into four zones of occupation, as was Berlin
• Germany was to be demilitarised, de-Nazified and democratised
• Elections were to be held
• Poland gained much former German land
• Each occupying force was to take reparations from their zone of occupation
• The Soviet zone was allowed an extra 25% of reparations from the British and American zones as it had fewer resources

Question 4

How was the Soviet zone demilitarised?

Answer 4

• German forces disbanded after their surrender in May 1945
• As there was no German government, there could be no independent German military force
• This remained the case until 1955

Question 5

How was the Soviet zone de-Nazified?

Answer 5

• The Nazi Party was disbanded and major war criminals were tried at Nuremberg
• The Soviet zone interned large numbers of former Nazis
• ‘Normal’ Nazis who committed themselves to communism returned to political life

Question 6

How did Soviet leaders try to destroy capitalism in the Soviet zone of Germany?

Answer 6

• Large landed estates were confiscated and redistributed among landless agricultural labourers
• Former Nazis’ property was taken; some was kept by the state
• A similar process was later adopted for banks and factories
• Some equipment was dismantled and taken back to Russia as reparations
• Russia also removed experts to reconstruct technical equipment in Russia

Question 7

What did communist leadership do to make the Soviet zone appear as a democracy?

Answer 7

• German communists, led by Walter Ulbricht, arrived in Berlin at the end of April 1945; they planned to gain control in Berlin but give the appearance of a democracy
• The Soviet Military Administration issued Order Number 2 in June 1945 which licensed to formation of political parties who were brought together in an anti-fascist bloc in July

Question 8

What was the SED?

Answer 8

• The SED was the leading communist party in the East led by Walter Ulbricht
• It claimed to be a liberator from fascism and argued that ordinary workers and peasants were innocent of Nazism and war guilt
• Property belonging to absentee factory workers, Nazis, war criminals and Junkers was confiscated, this helped the SED win popular support

Question 9

How did the communists dominate the Eastern zone?

Answer 9

• Having gained popular support, the communist SED gradually eliminate other political groups and views after allowing them before
• The Soviet military command suppressed political party activity in Berlin
• Free expression was severely limited and political dissent was restrained
• The military government determined appointments and dismissals

Question 10

How was democracy formally abandoned?

Answer 10

• At first it appeared as if the communist party would adopt a democratic approach, but by 1948 it had formally abandoned democracy
• The SED announced a Marxist-Leninist ‘Party of a New Type’ based on the principal of democratic centralism
• It also established ‘mass organisations’ under communist control of youth, women and unions in the Soviet zone