Origins of the Cold War

1. TYP2. Geopolitics3. Iron Curtain

4. NATO5. GDR6. GFR

7. Warsaw

TYP

• Tehran (November-December 1943)

o Was the first of the World War Two conferences, held at the Soviet Embassy in Iran.

• Yalta (February 1945)

o Leaders of Grand Alliance, Stalin, Rooseveldt and Churchill met in the USSR.

• Potsdam (July-August 1945)

o After Germany was defeated in 1945, relationships between the West and the USSR were tense and for this reason a meeting was held in Germany 1945.

Geopolitics

• Land Divisions

Allied leaders decided that there would be four zones of occupation

The Nazi government was to be destroyed and German education controlled as to completely eliminate the Nazi ideas.

Iron Curtain

• Winston Churchill expressed the West’s disapproval of the USSR’s expansions in 1946.

• Warned of the division of East and West Europe, otherwise known as the “Iron Curtain”.

Iron Curtain

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949The organization constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.Headquarters are in BrusselsTreaty of Brussels was precursor to NATOParticipation of the US was thought necessary both to counter the military power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism

German Federal Republic

• 1949 (West Germany)

• Created French, British and

American zones

• Konrad Adenuaer

• The legal existence of GDR

German Democratic Republic

• 1949 (East Germany)

• Soviet Union (East Berlin)

• West Berlin part of West Germany(Capital)

• Walter Ulbricht(1946-1971) General Secretary of the Social Unity Party

• 1955 GDR signed a Warsaw Treaty (was created in response to allow GFR to join the NATO)

Warsaw Pact

Formally the Treaty of Friendshipwas a collective defense treaty among eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold WarThe Warsaw Pact was in part a Soviet military reaction to the integration of West German into NATOAfter the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, the alliance was transformed into the subsequent Collective Security Treaty Organization