World War II left Europe in tatters. Millions of people were killed or wounded; millions more simply went missing, with no account of their fates. Millions more were displaced as national boundaries shifted following Germany’s defeat.

The Allies had begun planning for the post-war period in a series of conferences held from 1943 to 1945.

In November-December 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met in Tehran for the first discussion of post-war issues. While this conference primarily involved talks regarding the defeat of the Axis powers, it was the first time anyone mentioned the post-war scenario. The leaders discussed the partition of Germany, Poland’s borders, and a multi-national body with the legitimacy to help avoid future wars.

In August-October 1944, the Americans hosted a conference at the estate of Dumbarton Oaks near Washington, D.C. Delegates from thirty-nine nations, including the major Allied powers, discussed the framework for an international organization that would be called the United Nations. Ideally, the UN would be a place where international disputes would be resolved short of war. The Security Council of the UN would consist of permanent representation by the U.S., Great Britain, France, China, and the Soviet Union, joined by rotating delegations from other nations. The UN would be formalized at the San Francisco Conference in April-June 1945. The U.S. would host the UN in New York City.

In February 1945, the 3 leaders met again at Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula in the Soviet Union. By this time, the Soviets had begun pushing the Germans back and had taken vast stretches of territory in Eastern Europe. The leaders discussed:

• A world peacekeeping organization (the United Nations);
• democracy in Europe;
• a division of Germany between the major powers;
• elections in Poland (already controlled by the Soviets); and
• German reparations for the Soviet Union.

(Source: World Book Encyclopedia, “Yalta Conference)

The Potsdam Conference, held in Potsdam, Germany in July 1945, marked the first appearance of Harry Truman on the scene as the U.S. President following the death of FDR in April 1945. Churchill was replaced by Clement Atlee in late July when Churchill lost the post of Prime Minister.

At the Potsdam Conference, the Soviets received a full one-third of Germany’s ships as reparations; they also received a great deal of Germany’s industrial equipment. The Allies agreed to try the Nazi leadership for crimes committed during the war. While he attended the conference, Truman learned about the atomic bomb that the U.S. had developed during the War. The bomb was too late to be used on Germany, so the Allies decided to use it on Japan instead in the event the Japanese refused to surrender unconditionally. (The Japanese refused, and the bombs fell.)

There was a major theme to these conferences: Soviet security. The Russians had been invaded 3 times in less than 150 years by Napoleon, Wilhelm II, and Hitler, and they had decided enough was enough. Stalin wanted secure borders and a buffer area between Western Europe — especially Germany — and Russian territory.

Borders were re-drawn to reflect both pre-War boundaries and the new realities of Europe. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Romania were restored to their former borders, but with some Romanian and Czech territory going to the Soviet Union. Poland was shifted west, with land in eastern Poland going to the Soviets and receiving German land in return. East Prussia was taken from Germany and divided between Poland and the Soviet Union. As a result of these changes, nearly 12 million German-speaking Europeans were forced to move into the new Germany; nearly 3.5 million Poles moved into new territory received from Germany; and nearly 1.5 million Poles fled newly Soviet-occupied areas.

Germany in particular was in shambles. Nearly 40 percent of German homes were damaged or destroyed, and in Berlin 95% of the city was destroyed. The Russians dismantled more than half of Germany’s remaining factories and shipped them to the Soviet Union. Refugees took disease with them everywhere throughout the Continent.

After the War, Germany was divided into 4 occupation zones: Russian (the eastern section of Germany), British, American, and French. Berlin was also divided into 4 zones, with the Russians receiving East Berlin and the other 3 powers receiving West Berlin.

Serious disagreements formed during these conferences, especially at Potsdam. By this time, the Soviets controlled most of Eastern Europe; The Soviet Union had absorbed the Baltic Republics. Churchill had conceded Romania and Bulgaria to a Soviet “sphere of influence;” Poland was under Soviet occupation, as were Czechoslovakia and Hungary. In Yugoslavia, the resistance group known as the Partisans were mostly Communist. Many resistance groups in Europe during the War were led or supported by Communist parties. The U.S. insisted that free elections be held in Soviet-occupied areas. Stalin was only too happy to agree, but the Soviets rigged the elections to insure their Communist allies won power in these nations. On 5 March 1946, in a speech given in Fulton, Missouri at Westminster College, Winston Churchill declared:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. (Source: Modern History Sourcebook, available online: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/churchill-iron.html, last accessed 28 November 2005).

Where the Communists lost, the Red Army put them in power anyway. By 1950, Communism had gripped Eastern Europe.

The U.S. responded to Europe’s plight and the spread of Communism with the Marshall Plan, named after U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall. Under the Marshall Plan, the U.S. sent $13 billion to Europe to aid in the rebuilding of the continent and the renewal of economic life. Britain received $3.2 billion; the French, $2.7 billion; and Western Germany and Italy received $1.4 billion each. The U.S. offered aid to the Soviets and the Eastern European countries, but Stalin refused aid for the USSR and ordered his satellite nations not to take aid from the U.S. Ironically, Stalin’s rejection of the Marshall Plan insured its passage by Congress. By 1948, Western Europe reached 80% of its pre-war industrial production.

The U.S. also responded to Soviet attempts to spread Communism with the Truman Doctrine. In 1947, President Truman announced that the U.S. would “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” The doctrine was first tested in Greece and Turkey. When Greek Communists attempted a coup that sparked civil war, the Americans openly supported the Greek government under the Truman Doctrine. The U.S. supported the Turks in their refusal to grant military bases to the Russians during this time as well.

The ultimate application of the Truman Doctrine occurred in 1948-49 in Berlin. The British and Americans merged their zones in West Berlin; in protest, the Soviets blockaded the city to force the Allies out. Instead, the U.S. flew supplies into West Berlin to support the 2 million citizens there. American planes delivered more than 8,000 tons of food and supplies on a daily basis, with planes landing on the average of every 3 minutes, 24 hours a day. The Soviets gave up and lifted the blockade in May 1949.

The Truman Doctrine was part of the American policy called “containment” of the Communist threat. Containment’s origins can be traced to American diplomat George Kennan. Kennan was stationed in Moscow at the U.S. Embassy from 1933 to 1939 and again from 1944 to 1946. In April 1946, Kennan sent the “Long Telegram” (8,000 words long) to U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes. Kennan’s evaluation of Soviet policy led him to warn that the Soviets were serious about spreading Communism throughout the world, by military means if necessary. According to Kennan, Stalin needed conflict to legitimize his brutal dictatorship; without military conflict, Stalin could not maintain power. Therefore, Kennan wrote in an article for Foreign Affairs in 1947,

the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies... Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be constrained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvres of Soviet policy. (Source: wikipedia.org)

Stalin and the Soviets were furious with the article, but there was little they could do. Containment became the American policy in dealing with the Soviets for the next half-century.

The Americans and west European nations realized that military might must accompany economic aid to confront the Soviet threat. In March 1948, Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg signed a defensive treaty. This organization expanded into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 when Italy, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, and the U.S. joined. The British saw NATO as a way to “keep the Russians out, keep the Americans, in, and keep the Germans down.” West Germany — formed from the British, American, and French zones of the nation — joined NATO in 1955. West Germany’s entrance into NATO led the Soviets to form the Warsaw Pact with Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania.

For the next 45 years, NATO and Warsaw Pact armies faced each other across the Iron Curtain. Regardless of questions regarding the policy, containment prevented a major war from erupting in Europe for the rest of the century. This period was known as the “Cold War” because of the military engagement of the two sides; fortunately, no “hot war” ever occurred. Instead, the two sides adopted a policy of “peaceful coexistence” in the 1950’s and 1960’s. For most of the Cold War, both sides maintained nuclear weapons in Europe (the Soviets tested their first bomb in 1949).

In spite of the Truman Doctrine and the containment policy, there were limits to America’s willingness to confront the Soviets. When Hungary’s new leader tried to leave the Warsaw Pact in 1956 and declare neutrality, the Red Army invaded and restore Soviet rule. The leader, Imre Nagy, and roughly 2,000 other Hungarians were executed, and over 200,000 Hungarians fled to the West.

Although conflict was prevented in Europe, wars broke out throughout Africa and Asia with the breakup of the European empires. World War II left every European nation in such a weakened condition that no nation could maintain an overseas empire.

The British began their decolonization with the election of Atlee in 1945. India was granted independence in 1947 when Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan were created from British India.

Britain gave up control of Palestine in 1947 to the UN. The UN called for a partition of the land between the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs, but instead, Jewish settlers proclaimed the state of Israel in 1948. The Arab states immediately attacked the new nation but were beaten back. Israel would defeat the Arabs again in wars in 1956, 1967, and 1973.

British decolonization was more violent in Africa. Rebellions broke out in Kenya from 1948 to 1957. Still, aside from Kenya, the British granted independence peacefully to Ghana, Nigeria and other African colonies. Kenya received its independence in 1963. Britain’s last colony, Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe) received independence in 1980.

The French were not so wise. Rather than admit they could no longer afford an empire, the French declared the doctrine of assimilation: All French colonies would join France in a French civilization in an indissoluble French Union. The Fourth Republic, formed after the War, contained the French Union in its constitution. The results were violent and bloody. The Vietnamese under Ho Chi Minh kicked the French out of Vietnam after the disastrous defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Algeria’s war for independence caused the Fourth Republic itself to collapse in 1962. In the process, millions of north Africans migrated to France looking for employment. These immigrants were mainly Muslim, leading to major conflicts as Muslim values intersected with French secularism in the latter half of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st century.

Other colonies also won independence in the decades after the War. By the end of the century, no European nation possessed major colonies.