Editing Potsdam Conference (section)

=== Poland ===
{{See also|Western betrayal|Territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II}}
[[Image:Curzon line en.svg|thumb|[[Second Polish Republic|Poland]]'s old and new borders, 1945. The territory previously part of Germany is identified in pink.]]
* A [[Provisional Government of National Unity]], created by the Soviets and known as the Lublin Poles, was to be recognized by all three powers. The Big Three's recognition of the Soviet-controlled government effectively meant the end of recognition of the London-based [[Polish government-in-exile]].
* The British and the Americans governments took measures for the Polish Provisional Government to own property in the territories of Poland and to have all the legal rights to the property so that no other government could have it.<ref name="Bevans page 1234">{{Harvnb|Bevans|1968|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=lM8WAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1224 1234]}}</ref>
* Poles serving in the British Army would be free to return to Communist Poland but with no guarantee of their security upon their return.{{Dubious|date=July 2020}}
* All Poles who returned to Poland would be accorded personal and property rights.<ref name="Bevans page 1234" />
* The Polish Provisional Government agreed to hold, as soon as possible, free elections with widespread suffrage and secret ballots. Democratic and anti-Nazi parties would have the right to take part, and representatives of the Allied press would have full freedom to report on developments during the elections.<ref name="Bevans page 1234" />
* The Soviet Union declared that it would settle the reparation claims of Poland from its own share of the overall reparation payments.<ref name="State Dept" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, Volume II - Office of the Historian |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945Berlinv02/d972 |access-date=2020-04-15 |website=history.state.gov}}</ref>
* The provisional western border would be the [[Oder–Neisse line]], defined by the Oder and Neisse Rivers. Silesia, Pomerania, the southern part of East Prussia, and the former [[Free City of Danzig]] would be under Polish administration. However, the final [[delimitation]] of the western frontier of Poland would await the peace settlement, which would only take place 45 years later, in 1990, during the [[Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany]].<ref name="State Dept" />

The Soviet Union proposed to the Conference for the territorial questions to be resolved permanently after peace was established in those regions. More specifically, the proposal referred to the section of the western Soviet border near the Baltic Sea. The area would pass from the eastern shore of the Bay of Danzig to the east, north of Braunsberg and Goldap, to the meeting point of the frontiers of Lithuania, the Polish Republic, and East Prussia.

After the conference considered the Soviet recommendation, it agreed for the city of [[Königsberg]] and the area next to it to be transferred to the Soviet Union.

Truman and [[Winston Churchill]] guaranteed that they would support the proposals of the conference when peace was eventually ensured.<ref>{{Harvnb|Bevans|1968|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=lM8WAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1224 1232–1233]}}</ref>