The Cold War, Integration, and Globalization (^) ‹ 197
The Development of Nuclear Weapons
In 1944, German physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman published a paper (based on
work they had done with Lise Meitner, a Jewish physicist who was forced to emigrate due
to increasing anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany) that purported to show that vast amounts
of energy would be released if a way could be found to split the atom. As World War
II raged, the American government secretly funded an effort, known as the Manhattan
Project, to build an atomic bomb. In 1945, the project’s international team of physicists,
led by American physicist Robert Oppenheimer, succeeded in building two atomic bombs.
Those bombs were dropped on two Japanese cities: Hiroshima (on August 6, 1945)
and Nagasaki (on August 9, 1945). The advent of these nuclear weapons forced Japan’s
unconditional surrender and created a nuclear arms race between the United States and
the Soviet Union.The Settlement Following World War II
There was no formal treaty at the conclusion of the Second World War. The postwar shape
of Europe was determined by agreements reached at two wartime conferences in Tehran,
Iran (in December 1943), and Yalta, Crimea, then part of the Soviet Union (in February
1945), and, where agreement could not be reached, by the realities of occupation at the
war’s end. These were the primary results of the eventual settlement:
• Germany was disarmed and divided into sectors, with Western powers controlling the
western sector and the Soviet Union controlling the eastern sector.
• Berlin, which lay in the eastern sector, was itself divided into West Berlin (controlled by
the Allies) and East Berlin (controlled by the Soviet Union).
• Poland’s border with Germany was pushed westward.
• The United Nations (U.N.) was created with 51 members to promote international
peace and cooperation.
• Although the United States and Great Britain called for free elections in the Eastern
European nations that were under the control of the Soviet Army, pro-Soviet govern-
ments were quickly installed by Stalin.
• By 1946, the world was speaking of an “Iron Curtain” that had descended over Eastern
Europe (the phrase was first uttered by Winston Churchill in a speech given in the
United States), stretching from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Adriatic Sea in the
south and dividing Europe between a communist East and a capitalist West.The Cold War
The Cold War in Europe
The phrase Cold War refers to efforts of the ideologically opposed regimes of the United
States and the Soviet Union to extend their influence and control of events around the
globe, without engaging in direct military conflict with one another. The first showdown
between the superpowers occurred from June 1948 until May 1949, when Soviet troops cut
off all land traffic from the west into Berlin in an attempt to take control of the whole city.
In response, the Western Powers, led by the United States, mounted what has come to be23_Bartolini_Ch23_195-206.indd 197 27/04/18 1:56 PM