616Chapter 31Postwar Europe
No peace conference was held at the end of World
War II, no treaty drawn up with the Axis powers. The
map of postwar Europe was the consequence of Allied
wartime conferences at Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam and
the political realities of the military situation in 1945
(see map 31.1). Germany was reduced in size and
partitioned into four zones of military occupation. East
Prussia, the isolated exclave of prewar Germany that
had been cut off by the Polish Corridor, was taken from
Germany and divided by Poland and the USSR; the
Soviet annexation converted the Prussian city of
Königsberg into the Soviet city of Kaliningrad and thePolish annexation included the former free city of
Danzig, now the Polish city of Gdansk. The eastern
frontier of Germany was moved westward, to a line
defined by the Oder and Neisse Rivers, giving Poland
thousands of square miles of Prussia (roughly historic
Silesia and Pomerania) and converting the German
cities of Stettin and Breslau into the Polish cities of
Szczecin and Wroclaw. In the west, France reacquired
Alsace and Lorraine; in the north, Denmark recovered
Schleswig. The initial division of Germany was into
three zones of military occupation, under the British,
American, and Russian armies. In the west, Britain and
the United States shared their zones with France
(which Stalin had refused to do), creating a four-powerAmsterdamBrusselsMilan TriesteBernMunichBelgradeTirane SofiaBucharestIstanbulBudapestViennaPragueWarsawKaliningrad
(Königsberg)BrestGdansk
(Danzig)CopenhagenOslo StockholmHelsinki
LeningradRomeBremen
BerlinStettinAthensCZECHOS
LOVAKIAZoneCorsica
(Fr.)Sardinia
(Italy)DENMARKSOVIET
UNIONNORWAY
SWEDENFINLANDEAST
GERMANY
WEST
GERMANYAUSTRIA
HUNGARY
ROMANIABULGARIAYUGOSLAVIAALBANIAGREECEITALYSWITZERLANDBELGIUMNETHERLANDSESTONIALATVIALITHUANIAWHITE
RUSSIAUKRAINEBESSARABIAPOLANDLUXEMBOURG
CRIMEATURKEYU. S. ZoneBritish
Zone
FrenchZoneZone U. S.
U. S.
British ZoneSoviet ZoneSoviet Zoneto USSR, 1940to USSR, 1940to USSR, 1940From Poland,
1940–1947
From Czechoslovakia,1940–1947
From Romania,1940–1947Incorporated intoPoland, 1945Incorporated intoUSSR, 1945Finland,From
1940–1956From Italy, 1945 19491946194419451949 19471947Black SeaBaltic
SeaMediterranean SeaDanu
beR.Od
er
R.PoR.0 300 600 Miles0 300 600 900 KilometersFrench
sectorBritish sectorU.S. sectorSoviet
sectorEASTBERLINWESTBERLINEAST
GERMANY
EAST
GERMANYPotsdamNational boundaries in 1949
Allied occupation of Germany
and Austria 1945–1955
Territory lost by Germany
Territory gained by Soviet Union
"Iron Curtain" after 1955
Year communist control of
government was gained1945MAP 31.1
The European Territorial Settlement after World War II