Stalin attended the Potsdam Conference in July – August 1945 , alongside his new British and U.S. counterparts , Prime Minister Clement Attlee and President Harry Truman . At the conference , Stalin repeated previous promises to Churchill that he would refrain from a " Sovietization " of Eastern Europe . Stalin pushed for reparations from Germany without regard to the base minimum supply for German citizens ' survival , which worried Truman and Churchill who thought that Germany would become a financial burden for Western powers . He also pushed for " war booty " , which would permit the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations without quantitative or qualitative limitation , and a clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations . Germany was divided into four zones : Soviet , U.S. , British , and French , with Berlin itself — located within the Soviet area — also subdivided thusly
Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
Joseph Stalin