Cold War, Germany, The Long Telegram, and the Iron Curtain

Cold War Intro

  • Conflict between US and Soviet Union
  • 1945-1989
  • Known as Cold War bc it never turned into an actual war, although it came close
  • Two basic differences between the US and the Soviet Union
      * US was a democracy and Soviet Union was a totalitarian regime (dictatorship)
      * US was capitalist (self owned business) and Soviet Union was communist (gov owned business)

Germany

  • At the end of WWII, US, Great Britain, and France had control over W Germany because of D-Day
  • Soviet Union controlled E Germany
  • FDR could have ended war on Germany sooner
      * March 1945, US was in prime position to take over all Germany
      * FDR deferred to Stalin and halted American + British progress and allowed Soviets to get to Berlin
  • After the war (Fall 1945), US, Great Britain, France, and Soviets had talks about how to rebuild Germany
      * Capitalist or socialist? Democracy?
      * US and Soviet Union couldn’t agree
  • Cold War started because of their inability to unify Germany
      * These talks showed the fundamental differences that alienated the two countries and made it impossible to reunify Germany

The Long Telegram and the Iron Curtain

  • The US and the Soviet Union treated their parts of Germany differently
      * US made sure to rebuild Germany and Japan after the war, avoiding the mistakes of WWI
      * Soviets raped and pillaged
        * Treated E Germany horrifically and took as much as they could (factory parts, etc) back to Russia
  • Two things happened that let the US know that the Soviet Union was bad
  1. Long Telegram: 8000 word telegram sent by a student of the Soviet Union, George Kennen
       * Became the basis for how the US treated the Soviet Union
       * Argued that the Soviets were paranoid and that they needed their space
         * Couldn’t be allowed to gain more land bc they’d be reckless
         * US needed to treat Stalin like a caged animal: give just enough space 
  2. Winston Churchill gives Iron Curtain speech
       * Made the argument that we couldn’t trust anything the Soviets said because they had a closed society
         * West had free press + journalists
         * Soviet Union had no transparency
         * Behind the “iron curtain” we had no idea what they were really getting up to
  • By beginning and middle of 1946, there is a growing weariness in the US towards the Soviet Union that only grew as the Cold War progressed