American policy towards Germany, 1945

The wartime alliance between the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union reached its climax with the collapse of the national-socialist regime on 8 May I945. Even before Germany's defeat, however, this alliance had shown such rifts that genuine postwar collaboration between the USSR and the Western powers was to prove impossible. With the mounting pressure of the Soviet Union in Eastern and Central Europe, and her determination to establish Soviet hegemony there, President Roosevelt's optimistic goal of peaceful cooperation between the United States, Britain, and the US SR after the war was abandoned, and American foreign policy had to be adjusted to the changing power constellation in Europe.* In contrast to the school of thought which holds that a reassessment of American foreign policy did not come about until the announcement of the Truman Doctrine in March 1947, it can be shown that this had in fact already been accomplished by I945.1 One of the major reasons requiring a revision of American foreign policy towards Europe was the rise of Soviet imperialism. The United States, having fought to liberate Europe from German domination, could not tolerate a renewed subjugation of the

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