THE COLD WAR Origins: 1945 1949

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THE COLD WAROrigins 1945 - 1949

• Yalta Potsdam
• USSR Occupies Eastern Europe
• The Iron Curtain Speech
• The German Problem
• Truman Doctrine Marshall Plan
• The Czech Coup
• The Berlin Blockade
• The High Cold War
• World War III?

• 1.

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ALLIES U.S. USSR TROOPS, 1945
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1. 1945 YALTA POTSDAM
Yalta 1945 Churchill Roosevelt Stalin
Potsdam
1945 Attlee Truman Stain
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YALTA POTSDAM The General Idea

• Temporarily divide Europe between Western Allies
  Soviets
• Change German-Polish border (weaken Germany,
  expand Polish buffer zone)
• Temporarily divide Germany city of Berlin
• USSR enters war against Japan
• Set up UN
• Hold Free Elections throughout Europe

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Misunderstandings, Confusions, Deceptions

• The West thinks
• Free elections in Eastern Europe
• Keep Germany united
• Rebuild Germany

• Stalin thinks
• Eastern Europe will be a USSR colony
• Keep Germany divided
• Punish Germany

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Among the Western Allies Uncertainty

• WESTERN Assumptions
• You can work with Stalin
• Germany is the danger
• The UK can cover the Mediterranean
• France will be the continents key power
• The US will withdraw from Europe
• Europes Empires will remain strong

• Realities
• Stalin is a Totalitarian Dictator
• The USSR emerges as the enemy
• The UK is exhausted
• France is entangled in colonial wars
• The US stays in Europe for 40 years
• Europes Empires collapse

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2. 1945 SOVIET OCCUPATION OF EASTERN EUROPE
Red Army takes Berlin, 1945
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Klement Gottwald (with Stalin) Czechoslovak
Communist leader
Walter Ulbricht, East German Communist Leader
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3. 1946 CHURCHILLS IRON CURTAIN SPEECH
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4. 1946 The German Problem
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THE IRON CURTAIN DIVIDES GERMANY NOTE THAT WHILE
BERLIN IS IN THE EAST, WEST BERLIN IS OCCUPIED
BY THE U.S., U.K. AND FRANCE BUT GETTING TO AND
FROM WEST BERLIN BECOMES A SERIOUS PROBLEM
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5. 1947 TRUMAN DOCTRINE MARSHALL PLAN
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1946 Greek Civil War Communists
Anti-Communists U.S. West argue that the
USSR is supporting the Greek Communists
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Truman Doctrine Marshall Plan(1947)

• Truman Doctrine
• US will oppose spread of Communism any where in
  the world
• US will provide military aid to anti-communists

• The Marshall Plan

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6. 1948 The Czech Coup
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Feb. 1948 Czechoslovak Communists seize
power Foreign Minister JAN MASYRAK Killed Suicid
e or murder?
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7. 1948-9 The Berlin Blockade
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8. 1949-1953 THE HIGH COLD WAR

• 49 Soviets explode Atomic Bomb
• 49 Communists seize power in CHINA
• 49 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
  Warsaw Pact
• 49 Two German governments
• 50 War in KOREA

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1950-1953 KOREAN WAR
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COLD WAR WEST Konrad Adenauer Alcide DeGasperi
Charles DeGaulle Dwight Eisenhower
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Cold War - East
Stalin The vast Terror Apparatus Ceaseless
Propaganda
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Czech Purge Trials, 1949-1954

• Fear, midnight arrests, secret prisons, torture
• Communist leader RUDOLF SLÁNSKÝ accused by
  Communist Party leaders of being a Trotskyite!
• Anti-Semitism?

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9. WORLD WAR III?
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DIVIDED EUROPE
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COLD WAR MINDS

• BIPOLAR Divisions (us vs. them)
• Constant Vigilance against THE ENEMY
• Fear of SUBVERSION (spies, secret agents,
  surveillance)
• MILITARIZATION of life (huge military budgets
  constant warnings about war)
• APOCALYPTIC Mood Were on the eve of
  destruction

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YET WHY WAS THERE NO WORLD WAR III?
U.S. TROOP WATCHING SOVIET TROOPS IN BERLIN,
EARLY 1960s