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During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union had joined forces to fight against Germany. Soviet and American relations began to deteriorate due to disagreements over military plans in WWII. A fear of the spread of communism and an aggressive American foreign policy in response to that fear. By 1947, the United States and the Soviet Union would be involved in the Cold War. In March 1946, former British Minister Winston Churchill spoke of the dangers to basic liberties posted by…

Communist spies rated on other spies and people were accused of giving nuclear codes to the Soviet. Throughout the search for Soviet spies, a few people were found. An example was Alger Hiss. Alger Hiss was accused of espionage in 1948, and was sent to jail because of the pursuit of Richard Nixon. The Rosenbergs case rocked the nation, partially because of the international…

Swastika’s and Nazi eagles were often relatively easy to be removed. But in a state of chaos with shortages on every aspect of life, tearing down buildings did not have priority and would have been a waste, especially when they could still be used. Most of the still standing Nazi-structures therefore were reused after the war. The Olympia stadium and Tempelhof Airport in Berlin kept their original function. The enormous Reichsluftwaffeministerium, Europe’s biggest office building, survived the…

When did NATO fail? For over 40 years NATO has been an organization focused mainly on keeping the status quo in Europe, following the Second World War. But, with the fall of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, NATO had to find a now role. With the rise of terrorism and power struggles in the Near East, this role turned out to be a never ending cycle of repressing local anti-democratic uprisings, movements, terroristic organizations and trying to strenghten the position of…

Solidarity played a critical role in Poland’s ability to have a peaceful transfer of power in 1989, and escort Poland into a new era of a successful democracy. This democracy had its roots in a legacy of nonviolent civil resistance to communism. I. Pre-Solidarity The Soviet forces that liberated Poland from Nazi occupation after World War II instituted a government whereby workers could not organize or represent themselves. During the 1970s, frustration with the one-party system grew and by…

When Hitler came to power in 1935, his ultimate ambitions was to one day conquer the world. That pipe dream came to a halt when in 1945, as the Allied powers closed in on Berlin and Hitler died by a self inflicted gunshot wound. However, to say that even though Hitler did not have an influence on the world after World War II, one is surely mistaken. The whole reason why the Cold War existed was because of Adolf Hitler. To trace this, one has to go to the moment before Hitler invaded Poland in…

Nationalism was hardly a new phenomenon in the 20th century, stemming all the way back to the days of the Enlightenment. By the 1900s, though, it’s reach had captured the attention of the globe. By 1914, these feelings of superiority — while hardly new in Europe — were at a boiling point, with ethnic minorities demanding freedom from multinational empires, especially the Austro-Hungarian Empire; such demands culminated in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the immediate cause of the…

Canada and its Allies finally celebrated triumph over the loss of Germany in 1945, during the second world war. What Canada did not know the danger from the Nazis will soon be taken over by a threat to the U.S. and the USSR’s cold war. The Cold War happened between the western allies and the Soviet Union after the second world war due to having a very different political system and beliefs. Unfortunately, Canada geographically happened to be just in between the U.S. and the USSR. Thus, Canada…

At the end of the second world war, the relations between the Soviet Union (also known as U.S.S.R.) and the United States of America, was at loss. The two powers were rivals and the tension only built between them as time went on. This era was then quickly known to and referred to as, The Cold War. An event that took place in 1954, only caused the tension to grow. It especially grew when the Allies of the United States during the second world war, (Britain & France) acted without acknowledging…

to the Soviet Union and the western part to the United States, Great Britain and France. Berlin, the capital of Germany was located within the soviet part of the country, but still it was divided in four. This seemed like a problem to the communist bloc, because capitalist influence was within communist Germany. Nikita Khrushchev, a soviet leader, when referring to the capitalist side of berlin he said “stuck like a bone in the soviet throat” ("Berlin Wall"). The Russians wanted to drive the…