At the end of World War 2, more than 70 million people perished during those 6 years of war. The majority of the deaths were civilian population. Eight million Germans fled west to British, U.S. territories to escape the path of the Soviet Union war machine. Twelve million Germans and Soviet prisoners of war made their way home. Survivors of camps and three million refugees from the Balkans returned home

The war exhausted many nations economic power and man power which leftre the United States, United Kingdom and Soviet Union as the world powers of post-world war 2. They had a series of meetings from September 4th, 1945 to September 11th, 1945 in Yalta, Ukraine in which they discussed Europe's post war reorganization and re-establishment The United States was represented by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill represented United Kingdom and Joseph Stalin represented the Soviet Union. After the discussions, the three world powers concluded on demilitarization and denazification would in affect on Germany, the three main world powers and France would occupy four zones in Germany and Nazis will be tried for their war crimes during the war.

(Picture above: from left to right: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin)

Even though United States, United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union were allies during the war, they were bitter towards each other. The division of Germany reflected on the growing schism between the two nations. Germany was then divided into two zones, West Germany was occupied by the US, Great Britain and France while East Germany was occupied by Soviet Russia. Winston Churchill referred this division as the "Iron Curtain". To counteract this, the US issued the policy "Truman Doctrine" which supported worldwide democracy and the opposition of communism.

Since Germany was unstable after the war, the United States began the reorganization and creation of a stronger foundation for Western Europe nations and to repel communism. This act was called "The Marshall Plan" of 1948. In response, Soviet Russia established the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) which helped rebuild Eastern Europe nations.

In 1948, the United States and 16 other Euro-Atlantic nations created in alliance to the proposition of maintaining democratic freedom by means of collective defence. The Atlantic Alliance, as it is also known, has been the dominant feature of European security and defence for half a century and remains at bottom a device designed to guarantee continuing US military commitment to western European defence. This Alliance is called NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). In 1955, Soviet Union and other communist countried created the Warsaw Pact in respone to the creation of NATO.

(Picture above: Countries in yellow are under NATO and the countries in red are under the Warsaw Pact.)