The Royal Potsdam Tour
Experience Potsdam on our Glory of Prussia Tour - home to the parks and palaces of the former Prussian and German Imperial royal family.
17 July – 2 August 1945
The Potsdam Conference 1945, day by day.
Between 17 July and 2 August 1945, Harry S. Truman, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill met at Cecilienhof, a former Hohenzollern residence on the edge of Potsdam. It was the last wartime meeting of the Big Three, after Tehran in 1943 and Yalta in February 1945, and it was first called the Berlin Conference.
Much of the agenda had been left open at Yalta: how a defeated Germany should be occupied and governed, what reparations it should pay, where Poland's western frontier should run, and how the war against Japan would be brought to an end. Truman had been president for barely three months. Halfway through the conference the result of the British general election was announced: Churchill had lost, and Clement Attlee took his place at the table.
What was settled, and left unsettled, over those seventeen days divided Germany for 45 years and set the terms of the Cold War. Our account, compiled by Jim McDonough of the Berlin Guides Association, follows the conference one day at a time.
The full account, day by day, is published on our dedicated site, Potsdam Conference 1945.
Day by day
Every day of the account.
July 16th 1945 – Waiting For Stalin16 July 1945 was meant to open the Potsdam Conference, but Stalin had not arrived. In Babelsberg, Truman settled into the 'Little White House' and Churchill into Villa Urbig, homes the Soviets had emptied of their owners only weeks before, and both leaders set off separately to see the ruins of Berlin.
July 17th 1945 – The Big ThreeShortly before noon on 17 July 1945, Stalin appeared at the door of Truman's 'Little White House', a day after the first atomic test in New Mexico. Truman had come to Potsdam above all for Soviet help against Japan. That evening the Big Three sat down in Cecilienhof's Great Room to decide the future of Germany and Europe.
July 18th 1945 – Dividing The SpoilsOn 18 July 1945, Truman walked to Churchill's villa for lunch carrying two telegrams about the atomic bomb, and the question of how to tell Stalin. A second lunch followed at Stalin's villa, where the Soviet leader had news of a Japanese peace feeler, before the Big Three returned to Cecilienhof and the fate of Germany.
July 19th 1945 – The Fate Of EuropeAt 4:05pm on 19 July 1945, Truman opened the third plenary session at Cecilienhof, and Churchill began with sniping on the Bulgarian-Greek frontier. On the agenda were the German navy, Franco's Spain and Tito's Yugoslavia, and the chairman's patience was wearing thin. That evening Truman hosted Churchill and Stalin at a lavish dinner.
July 20th 1945 – Peace In ItalyOn 20 July 1945, Eisenhower and Bradley came to the 'Little White House' to discuss the atomic bomb, and Eisenhower offered an opinion Truman had not asked for. The President then drove through Berlin's ruins to raise the flag that had flown over the White House on the day of Pearl Harbor, before the Big Three turned to Italy.
July 21st 1945 – The Polish QuestionAt 3:30pm on 21 July 1945, Henry Stimson read Truman fourteen double-spaced pages from General Groves describing the Trinity test in the New Mexico desert. Soon afterwards the fifth plenary session opened at Cecilienhof, and observers noticed a changed President. On the table was the thorny question of Poland.
July 22nd 1945 – Poland BetrayedA day after taking the British victory parade in Berlin, Churchill sat down on 22 July 1945 to read General Groves' report on the atomic test, and finally understood what had come over Truman. That evening the sixth plenary session returned to Poland: the Lublin Committee, the London Poles and the Polish-administered zone Stalin had set up on the Oder.
July 23rd 1945 – Königsberg & PrussiaEarly on 23 July 1945, Stimson told Truman that a final ultimatum to Japan was nearly ready, and urged him to soften the demand for unconditional surrender. At Cecilienhof, where each leader entered through his own door of equal size, the seventh plenary session loomed, and the Soviets had their sights on a significant part of Germany.
July 24th 1945 – The Nuclear Age BeginsOn 24 July 1945, a week into the conference, Stimson brought word that the bomb could be ready from 1 August, and the Combined Chiefs projected a war with Japan lasting until November 1946. At the eighth plenary session Stalin pressed hard over Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. Truman had decided it was time to tell Stalin.
July 25th 1945 – Churchill DepartsOn 25 July 1945, the ninth plenary session opened at the unusually early hour of 11:30am, because Churchill and Attlee were flying to London for the election count. Churchill raised the millions of Germans being expelled from Czechoslovakia and Poland, while the ultimatum to Japan waited on Chiang Kai-shek's approval somewhere across the Yangtze.
July 26th 1945 – The Potsdam DeclarationWith the plenary sessions paused on 26 July 1945 while the British were in London, Truman flew to Frankfurt to meet Eisenhower. That morning the USS Indianapolis had delivered 'Little Boy' to Tinian. Two cables awaited the President's return to Babelsberg: one from London about the election, the other the final text of an ultimatum to Japan.
July 27th 1945 – The Price Of PeaceOn 27 July 1945, with the British still away, Molotov arrived at the 'Little White House' to confront Jimmy Byrnes over the Potsdam Declaration, released without Soviet consultation. Behind it lay a harder question: how the Soviet Union would justify entering the war against Japan. Then came reparations, and the $20 billion figure first raised at Yalta.
July 28th 1945 – The New Big ThreeOn the evening of 28 July 1945, Clement Attlee returned to Potsdam as Britain's new Prime Minister, with Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary. Before the tenth plenary session they called on Truman, and a map of East Prussia and Poland was soon on the table. Two issues remained, Truman wrote, 'but they are the hardest'.
July 29th 1945 – Stalin Takes IllOn 29 July 1945, Truman expected Stalin at the 'Little White House' for a meeting he believed would break the deadlock over Poland's western frontier and German reparations. At 11:30am, Molotov arrived without him. Byrnes pressed ahead anyway, with an American proposal on the Oder and Neisse that he considered a very large concession.
July 30th 1945 – The Little ThreeOn 30 July 1945, Stalin was again too unwell to leave his villa, and the plenary sessions stayed on hold. In his place, the foreign ministers met under Ernest Bevin's chair at Cecilienhof to push on with reparations, the German fleet, Yugoslavia and a new item: Nazi war crimes. Just how ill was Stalin?
July 31st 1945 – Settling The Polish QuestionEarly on 31 July 1945, a top-secret cable at the 'Little White House' told Truman that his statement on the atomic bomb was needed by 1 August, and the decision could wait no longer. That afternoon, after two days without Stalin, the eleventh plenary session opened with reparations, Poland's frontier and United Nations membership on the table.
August 1st 1945 – The Long Last DayOn 1 August 1945, Truman opened the twelfth plenary session at Cecilienhof at 3:30pm, eager to go home after seventeen days. Byrnes raised German gold and external assets, Attlee asked for a plan to feed Berlin, and the question of which Nazi leaders should face trial was still open. The session would run past midnight.
August 2nd 1945 – The Conference EndsOn 2 August 1945, after seventeen days at Potsdam, the Big Three turned to the final wording of their communiqué. Truman wanted Europe's waterways mentioned, Stalin guarded every position the Red Army held, and Byrnes wondered whether Britain, not Russia, would prove the harder partner. What had Potsdam really settled?Explore in person
Walk the ground with a historian.
Our Potsdam tour visits Schloss Cecilienhof, where the conference sat, along with Sanssouci and the Bridge of Spies.
Go deeper
More on our history websites.
Potsdam Conference 1945Potsdam Conference 1945 A day-by-day record of the conference that settled postwar Germany.Potsdam Conference 1945The Protocol of the Proceedings on Potsdam Conference 1945 The full text of what the Big Three agreed.Potsdam Conference 1945Cecilienhof on Potsdam Conference 1945 The palace where Truman, Stalin, Churchill and Attlee met in July 1945.