As World War II drew to a close, the Allied Powers met first at Yalta, then at Potsdam, to plan the postwar world with of the United Nations and a divided Germany. The Allies took into account the fact that Germany had been the aggressor in three major wars in Europe over the past 70 years and they wanted this to end. The Allies (Britain, France, the United States, and Russia) had four goals that they attempted to achieve by dividing Germany: (1) demilitarization; (2) Denazification; (3) Democratization; and finally (4) Disarmament. In one of those twists of fate that seem to occur on the world stage, the Allies achieved their stated objectives, but through a completely different process than they had anticipated. After the war ended in 1945, while politicians and diplomats debated whether the deal had been made at Potsdam, people on the ground in the occupied areas did what they thought was best for leading to a process that saw Germany, and the world, firmly divided between East and West. The Allied project of creating a unified Germany and a united world seemed, on the contrary, to reinforce the division between Soviet Russia and the West. The Potsdam Conference was held from July 17 to August 2, 1945 in Potsdam, a small town on the outskirts of Berlin. , Germany. This conference, held between the Allied forces, would determine Germany's punishment for the devastating war they had provoked. Britain, France, America and the Soviet Union all decided to divide Germany; Britain to the northwest, France in a small area to the west, America to the southwest, and finally the Soviet Union to the east. This division will affect Germany in ways that three of the four Allied forces did not expect. The plan was presented as...... middle of paper ...... it included light reparations and support for Germany to become self-reliant. -sufficient but not too industrial. It also anticipated that the Soviets would exercise unfettered control over their sector. This open approach and the equal treatment of Russia (which, it should not be forgotten, cooperated with Germany during the partition of Poland at the start of the Second World War) have on the contrary contributed to the cold war, creating a conflict but not an open war. The high cost of this conflict and the difference in economic productivity of the two isolated systems (communism versus capitalism) in turn led to the collapse of Soviet Russia and the creation of a unified, peaceful and economically prosperous country. Over a long, winding path, the structure put in place to avoid conflict actually provoked it, but ultimately resulted in the achievement of the goals set at the outset: a unified, peaceful, democratic Germany...