This note is apparently widely debated, especially now that once closed archives are now open to historians (I have related this before). There are those who see the note as a ruse so as to keep East Germany in the Soviet sphere of influence and that it was the West that kept Germany split.
That was hardly a secret, Stalin wanted to secure friendly regimes on the borders of the Soviet Union. So clearly not some big revelation or trigger for the Cold War, just a realistic foreign policy goal.
Yes, although Truman also started making the choice of adopting a hostile stance towards the USSR, when it could have been avoided. Letting hawkish diplomats getting more influence and sidelining those favourable to cordial relations meant tensions increased.
The Potsdam declaration guaranteed Germany remaining united. The monetary reform and constitution of a government in the occupation zones of France, the UK and the US weren't done out of charity or to "help" in any way. It was done to minimise Soviet influence and to guarantee Western alignement. It was clearly a part of the US containment strategy.
You are exclusively putting the blame on the Soviet Union. The US and the UK also pushed for their agendas. Your narrative is far too one-sided here.
Since Brest-Litovsk 1918, actually. The USSR abandoned its allies in WW1 while various Western powers intervened in the Russian civil war. The lack of trust between them was a big factor in Hitler's diplomacy in the 1930s and he was sorely disappointed when it didn't work anymore in the early days of WW2. Both Soviet and Western leaders expected the animosity to resume after they dealt with the greater or more immediate threat.
Note that in the interwar context the USSR felt abandoned by France and the UK with which it had attempted to negotiate a treaty of mutual military assistance against Nazi Germany prior to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet Union also criticised the two powers for having abandoned their ally Czechoslovakia in the Munich Agreement.
The Soviet Union also criticised all the capitalist nations for being capitalist, spoke out for the overthrow of their political and social systems, and ran a border control and public relations system based on total secrecy, lies, and violent repression. Mistrust didn't come out of nowhere.
Of course that in the eyes of the Conservatives in power in the UK at the time, the Soviet Union might have been a great danger and threat, for them such concerns were certainly grounded in a reality. That being said, I tend to think that they could have overcome such considerations to unite against the common enemy that was Nazi Germany and defend countries like Czechoslovakia. Stalin was seemingly ready to abandon the previous declarations about capitalism and fascism being the two different facets of the same coin and pursue that alliance, which several figures, both on the right and left, publicly defended in France at the time. On the other hand, seeing how some of the elites in the UK preferred Hitler to the Soviet Union does show that the USSR's mistrust was not unfounded either.The Soviet Union also criticised all the capitalist nations for being capitalist, spoke out for the overthrow of their political and social systems, and ran a border control and public relations system based on total secrecy, lies, and violent repression. Mistrust didn't come out of nowhere.
Ach Loup. Revolution, civil war and revolutionary terror were not just bugbears for the UK tories, they were scary to anyone.
The question isn't our personal sympathy for one side or the other. I personally condemn the reign of terror imposed by Stalin and the dictatorship in the hands of a privileged nomenklatura, but that isn't the subject of historical analysis. That being said, the Soviet Union did not exclusively inspire fear, the improved working conditions and social reforms also inspired sympathy amongst a part of the working movements. I'm putting the emphasis on the UK Tories because of the Germanophilia and Russophobia that existed within a part of the British elite at the time, I did not mean to reduce or minimise the scale of Stalinist terror.
In part it was a reversal of policy, away from the narrative of the two equal evils, but it was a progressive transition. Had it come as a surprise out of the blue and had no credibility a French Foreign Minister like Louis Barthou would never have pushed for a such option publicly. The UK and France accepted contacts with the Soviet Union, which indicated this option might be feasible. Afterwards they made it more or less clear that the option was not on the table, which in part lead to turn of events we know.
Care to address what I post before accusing me of "counterfactual pet peeves" or comparing me with a "Nazi apologist"? Where in this thread have I made any counterfactual statement? What "apologia" is there I stated? Maybe quote the posters directly before accusing everyone in this thread collectively.
West-Germany had 51 million people and was well in progress of rebuilding with Western help, while East-Germany had 18 million people and Soviets were still hauling away everything valuable. Obviously if both get integrated to respective power blocks the West gains a lot more. So in that context Stalin starts offering some great stuff like free, democratic, neutral Germany, what is there not to love? Surely gotta start negotiations pronto! But lets be realistic. People in democracy can vote in unexpected ways, Soviets have "perfectly reasonable" security needs for some safeguards to make sure that the "neutral" part sticks around, Germans aren't exactly trustworthy folks in less than a decade after the war! Options for additional demands then negotiations are on the way are quite endless, maybe some direct Soviet military presence for safeguard, maybe insisting for structure of government where "democratic" East-Germany maintains veto power to derail all developments they don't like etc. etc.
The issue in this post is that you write as if the Potsdam declaration did not exist. That was a prior engagement which the Soviet Union had respected with regards to Germany. Furthermore, you seem to presume that the SED were already in government in Eastern Germany, when no such government existed at the time. What would later become East Germany was simply the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. On the other hand, Stalin had a lot to lose from a neutral Germany, he would no longer dispose of an area under direct occupation in the region and three fourths of the new Germany would not have been occupied by the USSR. That being said, if he accepted to give that up he avoided a division of Germany which he did not seek and prevented a Western-aligned Germany which advanced US positions with Europe.
Which Potsdam treaty, Loup?
I did indeed mean the conference, my bad, I will edit that. Thank you for correcting me. It does not have the same value as a treaty, sorry for any confusion caused by that.
You're doing something that persons interested in studying history should generally not do. You are formulating a preconceived notion about what a specific event was about, entirely circumstantial, without referring to substantial evidence. I don't think it's useful for gaining insight to do that.
The people who ran the GDR during the forty years of its existence were all part of the founder generation who were of age and already politically active when the GDR was founded. They had mostly one of two possible backgrounds:
