The train station in Potsdam was cleared of people when Stalin, the military victor, arrived, much like an ancient conqueror, with no public announcements or crowds. He was out to make history and needed no applauding masses, much less to be reminded of the human suffering all around. He had not the slightest interest in touring the defeated capital. It suited his ascetic tastes to have the lush carpets and fancy furniture removed from his quarters.6
On July 17 he met Truman informally for a brief chat and begged forgiveness for his tardiness. He said he had been negotiating with the Chinese—which was true. What he managed on that front was to get them to accept the concessions granted the Soviet Union at Yalta. It was crucial that the Chinese agree to the Red Army’s march on their country and Manchuria in the war to come against Japan. Stalin immediately pledged to Truman that the Soviet Union would enter the war in mid-August.7
Stalin has left little evidence of his thoughts during most of these gatherings; he wrote no diary; he never confided much to those in his delegation or let his true emotions show. Throughout, however, he conveyed a sense that the Western powers were out to rob the Soviet Union of its victory. To follow Marshal Zhukov, the Soviets were yet more cynical. Zhukov wrote in his (later uncensored) memoirs that they felt Churchill and Truman “more than ever demonstrated their desire to capitalize on the defeat of Nazi Germany to strengthen their position and dominate the world.”8
Truman’s attitude was sunny and accommodating, as can be gathered from the fact that he brought along none other than Joseph Davies, the former ambassador who favored appeasing the Soviet Union. In a letter to his wife after the first day’s meetings at Potsdam, the president was pleased to have been made chairman of the conference, though he found the role tricky. “Anyway a start has been made and I’ve gotten what I came for—Stalin goes to war on August 15 with no strings on it.” That would mean, he wrote, that “we’ll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won’t be killed! That is the important thing.”9 In his diary he added: “I can deal with Stalin. He is honest—but smart as hell.”10
A new factor was about to intrude into the discussions and into world history, for the first successful atomic test took place at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16 at 5:29 in the morning (1:29 afternoon time in Potsdam). A brief coded message had reached Secretary of War Stimson at 7:30 that evening, and he had rushed over to inform the president.11 Therefore Truman knew about the success of the bomb, albeit with no details, before he first met Stalin the next day, but he did not mention it. The president, who very much looked forward to ensuring the support of the USSR in the war against Japan, did not want to say anything that might be cause for Soviet concern. The two leaders agreed that Japan would likely fold soon; the president confided to his diary that it most certainly would “when Manhattan”—that is, the atomic bomb—“appears over their homeland. I shall inform Stalin about it at opportune time.”12 Churchill, who was given the latest news by Stimson, was decidedly against sharing the information.13
The fifth session of the conference on July 21 has been examined minutely because at 11:35 that morning Stimson received an important memorandum. It described, with frightening exactitude, the measurable effects of the first successful full-scale atomic bomb test. The words made the horror of its destructive power somewhat imaginable. The secretary read the report aloud to Truman and Byrnes. “The president was tremendously pepped up by it” and said “it gave him an entirely new feeling of confidence.”14 Historians have pointed to these reactions and ascribed a variety of ulterior motives to the president for wanting to use the bomb, including most recently his “personal dislike of the Japanese emperor.”15 Granted, Truman viewed the bomb coldly, and numerous writers have since been troubled by that attitude.
Meanwhile events on July 21 at Potsdam continued as if nothing of great significance had happened. The conference turned to the thorny issue of Poland’s western frontier; thousands of Poles already had moved into (formerly) eastern Germany. Truman observed that Yalta had agreed to the occupation of Germany by four powers, but that now “it appears another occupying government” had been given a zone. Although he concurred with Stalin on the principle of compensating Poland in the west for what it lost in the east to the Soviet Union, he objected to Germany’s being sliced off in strips. How would the diminished country ever pay the reparations demanded by Stalin?
The president claimed that Poles were in effect taking over formerly German lands. He asked Stalin where the nine million or so former German residents (of the new Poland and new Czechoslovakia) were living. He knew they had either fled for their lives or been forced out. According to Churchill, Poland was claiming “vastly more territory than she gave up” in the east, and he refused to “concede that such an extravagant movement of populations should occur.” All the while behind the scenes, Stalin had egged on the Poles and the Czechs to oust the hated minority. The British worried about being faced with countries in chaos.16
Truman thought the border question between Poland and Germany should be settled at a later peace conference. Stalin was craftier and brazenly pronounced the issue already decided. He agreed that the land “vacated” in the east was once part of Germany as it existed in 1937 (before expansion) but maintained that, since the native population had left and new inhabitants moved in, the area was now Polish.17
Churchill said that while the Allies had agreed to compensation for Poland, that did not give it the right “to create a catastrophic situation in Germany’s food supply.” Stalin’s straight-faced rebuttal was that Germany could buy its food from the Poles. That remark left Truman wondering what would be left of that country, given how much it was losing in the east and with France wanting the Saar and Ruhr areas. “The Poles,” he said, “have no right to seize this territory now and take it out of the peace settlement. Are we going to maintain occupied zones until the peace or are we going to give Germany away piece-meal?”18
Truman closed the session on a combative note, which changed nothing: “I shall state frankly what I think. I cannot consent to the removal of formerly eastern Germany from contributing to the economy of the whole of Germany.” The expulsions of the Germans, Stalin retorted, were already under way and, moreover, had the advantage of further weakening their defeated enemy. Churchill answered that nevertheless he did not want to be confronted with “a mass of starving people.”19
At the next session and undaunted as usual in the face of criticism, Stalin returned to the question of the Polish-German border. He wanted it to follow the Oder River and the western Neisse River in the south. There had been consensus at Tehran that the frontier should extend to the Oder River, which runs north from Czechoslovakia and drains into the Baltic Sea. The River Neisse had been mentioned, but it was left unclear whether reference was being made to the Eastern (Glatzer) or Western (Lausitzer) Neisse, both of which flow north to south and drain into the Oder. Stalin wanted to shift the boundary line westward as far as possible to Germany’s disadvantage, and that was what he eventually got. The difference was no mere quibble, because it meant that Germany would lose the great riches of the Silesian industrial area.