IshaanBilala
Banned
Russians left Berlin’s U.S. sector in July of 1945. Not long thereafter, people who did not wish to live under communist rule in East Germany also left (or tried to leave).
Many cities and towns in the German states of Saxony and Prussia were no longer German after Potsdam. Most of the territorial shift was in favor of Poland - depicted in grey - then under Soviet occupation. The USSR did more than occupy one of its western neighbors. It also annexed a significant portion of Poland’s eastern lands.
George Keenan, one of Truman’s advisors who lived for 101 years, became very suspicious - and extremely worried - about Soviet intentions in the occupied territories, including Berlin. In February of 1946, just seven months after the Potsdam conference, he wrote a detailed telegram expressing his concerns.
The following month, as the Soviet grip tightened on Berlin (and other major European cities), Churchill gave a famous speech (on the 5th of March, 1946) at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri (Truman’s home state). He observed that “an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent.”
At Potsdam, the Allies decided each occupying country had to agree on all important decisions impacting Germany. An impossibility from the start, the various governments were soon at complete odds with each other. By the summer of 1948, Berlin was caught in the cross hairs.
Attempting to control the entire capital, by starving the people and disrupting their businesses, Soviet forces cut-off ground traffic to and from West Berlin. The Allies responded with the “Berlin Airlift” which provided supplies to the people inside the encircled city.
As the years passed, hundreds of thousands of people fled East Germany, thereby depriving the GRD and Berlin - its capital - of human and financial resources.
Many cities and towns in the German states of Saxony and Prussia were no longer German after Potsdam. Most of the territorial shift was in favor of Poland - depicted in grey - then under Soviet occupation. The USSR did more than occupy one of its western neighbors. It also annexed a significant portion of Poland’s eastern lands.
George Keenan, one of Truman’s advisors who lived for 101 years, became very suspicious - and extremely worried - about Soviet intentions in the occupied territories, including Berlin. In February of 1946, just seven months after the Potsdam conference, he wrote a detailed telegram expressing his concerns.
The following month, as the Soviet grip tightened on Berlin (and other major European cities), Churchill gave a famous speech (on the 5th of March, 1946) at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri (Truman’s home state). He observed that “an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent.”
At Potsdam, the Allies decided each occupying country had to agree on all important decisions impacting Germany. An impossibility from the start, the various governments were soon at complete odds with each other. By the summer of 1948, Berlin was caught in the cross hairs.
Attempting to control the entire capital, by starving the people and disrupting their businesses, Soviet forces cut-off ground traffic to and from West Berlin. The Allies responded with the “Berlin Airlift” which provided supplies to the people inside the encircled city.
As the years passed, hundreds of thousands of people fled East Germany, thereby depriving the GRD and Berlin - its capital - of human and financial resources.