A hot start to the Cold War: The order to drop the atomic bomb came from Potsdam
In the midst of negotiations on the post-war order, US President Truman ushered in the era of nuclear weapons. The way he communicated this to Stalin speaks volumes.
One week after British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and US President Harry S. Truman met at Cecilienhof Palace for the Potsdam Conference, the latter issued the order to detonate the first atomic bomb on July 24, 1945, at his Neubabelsberg residence. The decision, made in the villa known as the "Little White House" at Kaiserstraße 2 (now Karl-Marx-Straße 2), had immeasurable consequences for humanity. Its impact extended far beyond the first bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the first nuclear casualties: hundreds of thousands of Japanese died from radiation exposure.
- Access to all B+ content
- Read for €2.00 per month instead of €9.99
- Can be canceled at any time
Berliner-zeitung
