The Potsdam Conference was a meeting held in Potsdam (near Berlin), Germany between July 17 and August 2, 1945. The participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, the most powerful of the allies who defeated the Axis powers in World War II. The heads of government of these three nations were the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Harry S. Truman, respectively.
Stalin, Churchill and Truman (as well as Clement Attlee, who succeeded Churchill after winning the 1945 elections) had agreed to decide how they would administer Germany, which had surrendered unconditionally nine weeks earlier, on May 8. The objectives of the conference also included the establishment of a post-war order, matters related to peace treaties and the study of the effects of war.
