C
h
r
o
n
c
l
e
1
Wilfried Ranke
Chronicle of 1933 to 1955*/1
1933-44
16.11.33
Sixteen years after the October Revolution the USSR ist formally recognized
by the United States of America.
23.8.39
The signing of the Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact causes a major upset
in relations between the USA and USSR.
11.3.41
The Lend-Lease Act comes into force in the USA.
22.6.41
At 3.15 pm the German Army launches its attack an the USSR ("Operation
Barbarossa").
The threat posed to Anglo-American interests by the Axis Powers increases
the importance of the USSR to the west.
14.8.41
In the Atlantic Charter-a joint declaration by US President Roosevelt
and British Prime Minister Churchill issued after a conference an board
the US battleship Augusta off Newfoundland - the Soviet Union is confronted
with Anglo-American war aims: an open-door policy in a world of equal
sovereign states, the right of national-self determination and free world
trade with unimpeded access to all raw materials.
7.11.41
The USSR receives supplies from the USA under the terms of the Lend-Lease
Act.
7.12.41
Japanese warplanes attack the US Pacific Fleet stationed in the Pearl
Harbor naval base in Hawaii.
The Surprise attack, which also signals the start of Japanese land operations,
extends the war to the Pacific region. The USA and Great Britain declare
war on Japan. On 5 December Hitler had promised Japan support in the event
of war; on 11 December Germany and Italy therefore declare war on the
USA.
6.6.44
Start of the allied Normandy landings
The invasion in western Europe finally creates the "second front"
which Stalin has been calling for since 1942 to relieve the Red Army.
In Soviet eyes it appeared that the Allies had deliberately delayed this
urgently awaited relief action. Suspicion that the burden was split unequally
led to growing mistrust between the partners of the anti-Hitler coalition.
16.10.44
The Red Army reaches German soil.
21.10.44
The US Army occupies Aachen.
1945
3.1.45
Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov hands the American Ambassador a formal
request for capital aid to help rebuild the USSR.
There are extensive discussions within American government circles as
to how the superior financial power of the USA can be used most effectively
against the Soviet Union; no consensus is reached. The commercially-minded
Americans have little sympathy for the desperate plight of the USSR. The
Soviets for their part have to come to terms with the fact that no credit
will be forthcoming from their prosperous and powerful "brothers
in arms" to help them repair the enourmous damage caused to their
country by the war, thus further straining relations with the USA.
4 to 11.2.45
At the Yalta Conference in the Crimea differences in ideas about a new
world order emerge. While the Soviets urge for an agreement an mutually
respected spheres of influence, President Roosevelt propounds an open-door
policy in a unified world clearly governed by free trade interests.
Roosevelt successfully presses for a declaration an a liberated Europe
which makes reference to the right of national seif-determination, as
demanded in the Atlantic Charter. Soviet politicians see the open-door
strategy of the Americans as an excuse for economic aggression.
12.4.45
Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the USA since 1933, dies;
he is succeeded on the same day by Vice President Harry S. Truman.
25.4.45
Units of the Red Army and the US Army meet near Torgau an the
Elbe.
8.5.45
Unconditional surrender of the German Army.
12.5.45
American supplies under the Lend-Lease Act are abruptly halted.
Ships loaded with cargo for the Soviet Union are stopped at sea and ordered
back.
Even if the cessation of shipments were not to be interpreted as a deliberately
anti-Sovietact, its consequences inevitably strained relations between
the Soviet Union and the USA. In the eyes of the Soviets, it confirmed
their fears of aggressive economic imperialism on the part of the USA.
When it emerges that Soviet requests for American credit would also fall
on deaf ears, the possibility of obtaining reparations from vanquished
Germany gains political importance. For the Soviets reparations now represent
the only potential source of material recompense for war losses and the
enormous destruction sustained by their country. American efforts to use
their economic power as a means of forcing concessions from the Soviets
ultimately serve only to exacerbate the conflict.
17.7 to 2.8.45
The Potsdam Conference. During a meeting in the Cecilienhof on 24 July,
President Truman mentions to Stalin the effects of the atom bomb tested
in America.
1946
22.2.46
George F. Kennan sends Washington his "long telegram" from Moscow.
The 8000-word document, which analyzes the main aspects of Soviet behaviour
since the end of the war, is absorbed with great interest by government
circles in the USA.
The telegram triggers intense debate and has a considerable influence
an future US policy. "World Communism is like a malignant parasite
which feeds only an diseased tissue. That is the point at which domestic
and foreign policy meet." The Truman administration uses Kennan's
observations as a legitimation for its continuing hard line against Communism
demonstrated both at home and abroad.
5.3.46
Churchill's speech in Fulton, Missouri in which the British politician
speaks for the first time in public about an "iron curtain"
which divides the European continent from Stettin an the Baltic to Trieste
an the Adriatic.
25.4 to 12.7.46
Second Conference of Foreign Ministers in Paris.
The two sessions of the conference are devoted to the situation in Germany.
On 11 July US Secretary of State Byrnes calls for the economic merger
of the four zones of occupation and invites the other occupying powers
to join the American zone in an economic union; only the British show
any interest in this offer, while Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov persists
in calls for Soviet reparations and criticizes the occupation policy.
25.5.46
General Clay announces the end of reparations from the American
occupied zone to the USSR.
6.9.46
In Stuttgart's Staatstheater US Secretary of State Byrnes outlines the
principles of American occupation policy in Germany to members of US military
government and the minister-presidents of states in the American occupied
zone.
Particular significance attaches to his statement that the USA could maintain
a presence in Europe for a considerable time.
1947
12.3.47
President Truman goes before Congress to ask congressmen to approve aid
totalling 400 million dollars for Greece and Turkey and the dispatch of
American military and civilian personnel to these countries.
Since the political feelng at home has become clearly anti-totalitarian
and anti-Soviet, his political aims, which come to be known as the "Truman
Doctrine", are accepted: 'I believe we must assist free people to
determine their own fate in their own way".
22.3.47
President Truman issues the Loyalty Act which makes it legal to
scrutinize the political views and allegiances of all US federal employees.
3.5.47
Despite protests from the US military government, the Deutsche Theater
in the Soviet sector of Berlin stages the first German performance of
the anti-American play "The Russian Question" by Konstantin
Simonov.
5.6.47
In a speech to Harvard University, US Secretary of State Marshall
announces a program of aid for the reconstruction of Europe.
16.6.47
Pravda carries an article containing the first negative reaction to US
Secretary of State Marshall's speech on 5 July.
Referring to America's involvement in Greece and Turkey announced shortly
before by President Truman, the Soviet commentator regards Marshall's
proposals as an extension of the Truman plan of intervention in the internal
affairs of other countries.
18.6.47
Bidault and Bevin, the foreign ministers of France and Great Britain,
invite their Soviet colleague Molotov to take part in consultations on
the Marshall Plan.
The talks take place shortly afterwards in Paris but the parties come
no closer to agreement. On 1 July Molotov receives a telegram from Moscow
instructing him to reject Franco-British ideas an the reconstruction of
Europe under the terms of the Marshall Plan. Because of Soviet anxieties
over the economic superiority of the USA, he rejects a common recovery
program an the grounds it would threaten economic independence and was
therefore irreconcilable with the preservation of national sovereignty.
4.7.47
The governments of all the European states with the exception
of the Soviet Union and Spain receive invitations from Paris to a conference
to discuss a European recovery program based an the US aid proposals.
July 1947
George F. Kennan publishes an analysis in the American journal "Foreign
Affairs" entitled "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" in which
he argues for a strategy of "containment" to counter what he
calls Soviet expansionism. The highly regarded and much discussed article
strikes a chord in the west.
20 to 24.9.47
Second SED Party Congress in Berlin. At the opening of the Congress,
Colonel Tulpanov, representing the Soviet military administration, talks
of two Germanys, one "a country of progressive forces" and one
"a country of people who, with the a id of foreign - in particularly
American - capital, are intent on driving the German people once more
into the bloody carnage of the imperialist war being prepared by the
capitalists."
30.9.47
In a small town in Silesia in Poland C0MINFORM, the Information Bureau
of Communist and Workers' Parties, is founded, its permament seat located
in Belgrade. The Bureau remains in existence until 17 April 1956. During
the foundation conference, Andrei A. Zhdanov, the head of the Soviet delegation,
expounds the "two camp theory" for the first time.
The meeting of Communist Party leaders in Poland, which also includes
delegates from the French and Italian Communist Parties, gives Zhdanov,
the Soviet's chiefideologist, the opportunity to condemn the Marshall
Plan as a scheme to enslave Europe and an expression of an "aggressive,
nakedly expansionist course," pursued by the USA, "the main
force within the imperialist camp", in Europe.
The new resolution to reject the "expansionist appetites" of
the capitalists leads to criticism of the conduct hitherto of the large
Communist Parties in France and Italy. Whereas in the immediate postwar
period they had pursued a popular front policy of mutual recovery, rejected
demands for nationalization and contributed to internal stability through
participation in govemment, they were now called an to remember the revolutionary
foundations of the Communist movement and oppose US control of policymaking
in their countries.
Zhdanov uses COMINFORM's foundation conference as a platform to clarify
the Soviet-Communist position, claiming the "peace camp" representing
the community of socialist states, is threatened by "aggressive American
capitalism".
1.10.47
At a press conference General Clay condemns Colonel Tulpanov's welcoming
address to the Second SED Party Congress.
Clay calls the speech the first public attack in front of a German audience
by an official representative of one occupying power against another,
he demands a public apology, but this is not forthcoming in the desired
form the Soviet military administration.
4 to 8.10.47
The First Congress of German Authors, staged by the Association for the
Protection of German Authors in conjunction with the Cultural Federation
for the Democratic Revival of Germany, meets in Berlin.
A paper given by the American Melvin Lasky on "Cultural Freedom"
in which he calls the USSR a totalitarian dictatorship provokes an angry
response from the Soviet delegates.
28.10.47
General Clay, the American military governor in Germany, announces that,
in view of the controversy surrounding Colonel Tulpanov's speech an 20
September, the US military government is to launch "Operation Talk
Back".
The plan involves an information campaign to improve understanding of
American policy and democratic ideas and to counter Soviet propaganda
in Germany.
13.11.47
RIAS starts broadcasting a series on "Freedom against Totalitarianism"
which opposes Soviet Communist policy with the official propaganda of
the American military government.
25.11 to 15.12.47
The Fifth Conference of Foreign Ministers in London ends inconclusively
and is adjourned with no date set for a future meeting since there seems
no prospect of reaching agreement an policy on Germany.
1948
7 to 8.1.48
In Frankfurt-am-Main the American and British military governors
inform the minister-presidents of the Anglo-American bizone states of
their decisions regarding a reform of the bizone.
The proposals for reforming the administration of the bizone come under
heavy fire in SMAD's "Tägliche Rundschau": In response,
General Hay, the deputy US militarygovernor, makes it clear that Berlin
is not a city in the Soviet occupied zone; the USA, he emphasizes, will
always regard Berlin as the capital of Germany and remain in the city
on a four-powerbasis until such time as Germany is unified.
25.2.48
In Prague the Communists engineer a government reshuffle which secures
all the key positions for them and the left-wing of the Social Democrats.
17.3.48
"Gangsters at work", a brochure published by the SED with the
approval of the Soviet military administration, is used by the deputy
US military governor as grounds to accuse the SED before the coordinating
committee of the Allied Control Council of waging psychological warfare
involving Nazi methods against the US occupying power.
12.5.48
The US military government issues new denazification guidelines which
apply to a more limited circle of people.
7.6.48
After the close of the Six-Power Conference in London, the London
Recommendations, which propose the convening of a constituent assembly
for a west German state, are published.
16.6.48
Following a dispute about the behaviour of Colonel Howley, the US commandant
in Berlin, the Soviet delegation withdraws from the Allied Kommandatura,
ending allied cooperation at commandant level in Berlin.
19.6.48
The "German People's Council", which exists only in
the Soviert zone of occupation, declares that it represents the whole
of Germany.
20.6.48
Currency reform in the three western zones.
On 18 June the military governors of France, Great Britain and the United
States announce the introduction of a new currency in the Western zones
of occupation administered by them. They inform the Soviet Commander-in-Chief
in Germany, Marshall Sokolovsky, of the reform and declare that it does
not extend to Berlin. On the following day Marshall Sokolovsky describes
the currency reform in the Western zones as the final act which divides
Germany and imposes wide-ranging restrictions an traffic between the zones.
23 to 24.6.48
Warsaw Conference of foreign ministers of eight eastern European states.
The conference endorses the rejection of the Marshall Plan; in a closing
declaration the foreign ministers protest against the creation of an imperialist
"Western bloc".
24.6.48
Currency reform in the Soviet zone of occupation; beginning of
the blockade of West Berlin.
In the night of 23/24 June all communications by land or water with the
Western sectors of the city are cut off. In addition the Soviet military
govemment orders a halt to deliveries of food and energy supplies from
the Soviet zone to the Western sectors. On the following day new money
coupons marked with a "B" are issued in the Western part of
the city.
27.6.48
The COMINFORM Conference in Bucharest excludes Yugoslavia and the COMINFORM
states impose an economic blockade on it.
An SED declaration an the Yugoslav issue is published on 4 July on the
front page of all the party newssheets. In the declaration the Unity Party
indicates it is falling in with the change of course set by the Communist
Party in the Soviet Union, condemning Tito and rejecting the thesis of
"different paths" to socialism. The SED becomes involved in
the process of Stalinization taking hold of the entire eastem bloc.
The stage is set to cleanse the party of "Titos agents" and
other "hostile and degenerate elements".
3.7.48
In the Soviet zone of occupation the "Kasernierte Volkspolizei"
(KVP or People's Police Force stationed in barracks) is formed.
21.8.48
Because of a growing number of incursions by police from the Soviet sector,
the border between the British and Soviet sector at Potsdamer Platz in
Berlin is secured with barbed wire.
1.9.48
In Bonn the Parliamentary Council is constituted.
19.10.48
At a meeting of the UN Security Council representatives of the three western
powers call the blockade of Berlin a threat to peace.
22.10.48
The "German People's Council" unanimously accepts the draft
for a "constitution of the German Democratic Republic".
*(extract from catalog: Germany in the cold war; 1945-1963, Berlin 1962)
Impressum :: Further information :: Guestbook :: Shop :: Home