Results of World War II
Predicting History
So, What does your crystal ball show?
Establishment of two superpowers in:
the United States and the USSR
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US came out better off at the end of
the war
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War production helped overcome the Great
Depression
New advances in science, ex. Atomic bomb
USSR came out as great power despite
the lose of over 20 million & soon would
develop atomic bombs
Defendants At Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
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Perpetrators of Nazi Holocaust & war
crimes would be tried & punished
War Crimes Tribunal, Nuremberg, Germany
– 22 Nazi leaders charged with crimes
against humanity – 12 sentenced to death &
later more were tried
Tokyo Trials – Gen. MacArthur brought 25
Japanese leaders to trial for crimes
against Chinese – 7 sentenced to death &
16 to life in prison
Yalta Conference - February 1945
Wartime meeting b/t the Big 3 – Churchill, Stalin
& FDR
 Stalin agreed to hold free elections & to declare
war on Japan
 agreed to divide defeated Germany into
occupation zones
 Occupied by 4 victorious nations; US, Britain,
France & USSR
 US to occupy Japan
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Potsdam Conference - July 1945
-Truman replaces Roosevelt
-Stalin refuses to keep promise of free elections
How did the Allies promote reconstruction
of the defeated powers?
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Democratic government installed in
West Germany and West Berlin
Germany and Berlin divided among the
four Allied powers (US, France,
Britain & Russia)
Emergence of West Germany as
economic power in postwar Europe
recovered quickly & are today
industrial powers
Japan after WWII
Efforts for reconstruction of Japan
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U.S. occupation of Japan under
MacArthur’s administration
Democracy and economic development
Elimination of Japanese offensive
military capabilities (disarmament);
United States’ guarantee of Japan’s
security
Emergence of Japan as dominant
economy in Asia
The Iron Curtain
March 5,1946
Winston Churchill
delivers his “Iron
Curtain” speech at
Westminster College
in Fulton, Missouri.
The US responded
with the Truman
Doctrine.
The Curtain Iron Speech (Excerpt)
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“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” (Churchill, 1946).
Winston Churchill gave this speech at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri on March
5, 1946
The Truman Doctrine
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Background: British economic support to
the governments of Greece and Turkey in
1947
National Liberation Front (Greece)
Soviet pressure over the Dardanelle Straits
India & Iran (Communism)
U.S. role
The Truman Doctrine
U.S. President Harry Truman
asks:
 Military and economic aid
($400 million)
 Support free peoples who
resist subjugation by
armed force or third-party
pressures
 Policy lasts for 40 years
 Cold War Begins
 U.S. ends pattern of
Isolationism
Dardanelle Straits
A narrow strait in northwestern Turkey, 38 miles (61 km) long,
linking the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara. It is ¾ to 4
miles wide and lies between the peninsula of Gallipoli in Europe
(northwest) and the mainland of Asia Minor (southeast)
The Berlin Airlift
“Iron Curtain”
United Nations
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International peace
keeping organization
1945 - 50 nations
signed UN Charter
Strongest part =
Security Council = US,
Britain, Soviet Union,
France & China
humanitarian work
Has almost 200
members