The Division of Postwar Europe (1945–1949)

Identify the four Allied powers that each occupied a zone of Germany and a sector of Berlin after May 1945.

The United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.

Explain the goal of the 1947 Marshall Plan and state why Eastern European countries did not participate.

The Marshall Plan aimed to rebuild war-torn European economies and stabilize democratic governments against communist influence. Eastern European countries did not participate because Soviet leader Joseph Stalin prohibited them from accepting American aid.

Describe what caused the Berlin Blockade in June 1948 and how the Western Allies resolved it without starting a military conflict.

The Soviets blocked access to West Berlin after the Western Allies introduced a new common currency (the Deutsche Mark) in their zones. The Western Allies avoided ground war by organizing the Berlin Airlift, flying supplies into West Berlin continuously until the blockade ended in May 1949.

Between 1945 and 1950, millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other parts of Eastern Europe. Explain why this occurred.

Postwar leaders redrew borders (such as moving Poland's border westward to the Oder-Neisse line) and sought ethnically homogeneous states to prevent future German territorial claims, leading to the forced transfer of an estimated 12 to 14 million ethnic Germans.

Read the following statement from Winston Churchill in March 1946: 'From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.' Explain how Western leaders and Soviet leaders viewed this barrier differently.

Western leaders viewed the 'iron curtain' as aggressive Soviet expansionism that stripped Eastern European nations of their promised self-determination. In contrast, Soviet leaders viewed control over Eastern Europe as a legitimate and necessary security buffer to prevent future invasions from the West.