Joseph Stalin

=== 1945: Victory ===
[[File:USA C-1860 (26246410746).jpg|left|thumb|British Prime Minister [[Clement Attlee]], U.S. President [[Harry S. Truman]] and Joseph Stalin at the [[Potsdam Conference]], July 1945]]

In April 1945, the Red Army [[Battle of Berlin|seized Berlin]], [[Death of Adolf Hitler|Hitler killed himself]], and Germany surrendered in May.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2004|1p=474|2a1=Khlevniuk|2y=2015|2p=247}} Stalin had wanted Hitler captured alive; he had his remains brought to Moscow to prevent them becoming a relic for Nazi sympathisers.{{sfn|Service|2004|pp=479–480}} Many Soviet soldiers engaged in looting, pillaging, and rape, both in Germany and parts of Eastern Europe.{{sfnm|1a1=Conquest|1y=1991|1pp=265|2a1=Service|2y=2004|2p=473|3a1=Khlevniuk|3y=2015|3p=234}} Stalin refused to punish the offenders.{{sfn|Service|2004|p=473}}

With Germany defeated, Stalin switched focus to the [[Soviet–Japanese War|war with Japan]], transferring half a million troops to the Far East.{{sfn|Service|2004|p=474}} Stalin was pressed by his allies to enter the war and wanted to cement the Soviet Union's strategic position in Asia.{{sfnm|Glantz|1983|p=xvii}} On 8 August, in between the U.S. [[atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]], the Soviet army [[Soviet invasion of Manchuria|invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria]] and defeated the [[Kwantung Army]].{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2004|1p=476|2a1=Khlevniuk|2y=2015|2pp=248–249}} These events led to the [[Japanese surrender]] and the war's end.{{sfnm|1a1=Conquest|1y=1991|1p=268|2a1=Khlevniuk|2y=2015|2p=248}} Soviet forces continued to expand until they occupied all their territorial concessions, but the U.S. rebuffed Stalin's desire for the Red Army to take a role in the Allied [[occupation of Japan]].{{sfnm|1a1=Conquest|1y=1991|1p=267|2a1=Khlevniuk|2y=2015|2p=249}}

At the [[Potsdam Conference]] in July–August 1945, Stalin repeated previous promises that he would refrain from a "Sovietization" of Eastern Europe.{{sfn|Roberts|2006|pp=274–275}} Stalin pushed for reparations from Germany without regard to the base minimum supply for German citizens' survival, which worried [[Harry Truman]] and Churchill who thought that Germany would become a financial burden for Western powers.{{sfn|Wettig|2008|pp=90–91}} 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.{{sfn|Wettig|2008|pp=90–91}} Germany was divided into four zones: Soviet, U.S., British, and French, with Berlin itself—located within the Soviet area—also subdivided thusly.{{sfn|Service|2004|p=506}}