AP Euro Cold War Notes

5/2/11

v Cold War

¨     Civil war in Greece à Truman Doctrine

Ø  US will help free peoples who were threatened by armed minorities or outside pressures (military support)

Ø  Eco aid à stability (eco and political)

¨     Marshall Plan (European Recovery Program)

Ø  Economic aid to all the countries in Europe to help them rebuild

Ø  $13 billion à economic miracle

Ø  Soviet reaction- Marshall Plan = capitalist imperialism.  They didn’t allow communist countries to accept aid and be dependent on the west

¨     Containment- George F. Kennan

Ø  Leave Communism where it is already, but stop it where it is and prevent further spread of Communism

¨     Germany

Ø  German Communist Party under Walter Ulbrecht led the Soviet zone

Ø  In US and British zones, they tried thousands of Nazis.  The Soviets and French decided only to try the “big guys” of the Nazis

Ø  Unification of the Western zones

 Economic union and a planned political union into the West German Federal Government à Soviets were furious à Soviet blockade of Berlin à Berlin Air Lift

Ø  West German Federal Republic was created in September 1949

Ø  German Democratic Republic (Democratic Republic = communist) was created in October

v Cold War gets colder… It’s downright frozen!

¨     Soviet A bomb in 1949 à arms race, “mutual deterrence” (both sides refused to strike first, because they both had the ability to attack and the other retaliate and fight back)

¨     Alliances

Ø  NATO (everyone in Europe who was non-Communist + US and Canada)

Ø  COMECON (economic cooperation among the Communist states)

Ø  Warsaw Pact (military alliance of Communist countries)

¨     Korea

Ø  North Korea- Communist, help from Soviets

Ø  South Korea- non-Communist, help from US

Ø  Korean War, but there was basically no change (except a lot of people died)

Ø  “Containment works”- CENTO and SEATO

¨     Escalation and co-existence- simultaneously

Ø  Eisenhower threatened massive retaliation with nuclear war in the event of a ground attack in Europe

Ø  Coexistence

 Stalin died in 1953- people were more optimistic that the Cold War would end

 Summit meeting between Eisenhower and Bulganin (head of USSR) à no real benefits (however, the fact that they met shows that they were trying to coexist)

Ø  1956 Soviets crushed the Hungarian uprising (democratic forces did not help the Hungarians.  Helping them would go against containment, because Communism already existed in Hungary)

Ø  1957 Sputnik- Soviets launched the first space satellite… this scared the US à US increased importance of science in schools

Ø  Berlin

 West Berlin’s economic prosperity embarrassed the Soviets

 November 1958 Khrushchev threatened to turn over access routes to the East Germans unless West pulled its troops

¶ West stood firm à Khrushchev backed down

 1961 East Germans built the Berlin Wall to stop escapes

¨      

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