The War's Close
American G.I.s and Russian soldiers shake hands across the Elbe River, in Germany, April 26, 1945.
Stalin to FDR over the Bern Affair, the secret German negotiations for the potential surrender of the forces in Italy, March-April, 1945
An angry FDR responds to Stalin's assertion that the Allies are seeking a separate peace with Germany.
FDR to Stalin, April 12, 1945, closing the Bern affair and sent from Warm Springs, Georgia, less than one hour before FDR died.
The last photograph of Franklin Roosevelt, taken at the Little White House in Warm Springs Georgia, April 11, 1945.
Tears stream down the cheeks of Graham Jackson, playing "going home" as FDR's body is tranported from Warm Springs, Georgia, to a waiting train to take him back to Hyde Park, NY.
The Chief of Staff of the German Army, signing the documet of unconditional surrender for all German forces bringing the war in Europe to an end, May 7, 1945.
A Russian technician sits next to RDS-1, the first nuclear weapon built outside of the United States.
As battle-hardened American GIs and Russian soldiers shook hands for the first time on the ruined bridge over the Elbe River on April 26, 1945, rising tensions between the two great powers already overshadowed their wartime collaboration. The Soviet’s willingness to ignore or contravene the agreements reach on Poland at Yalta deeply exasperated Churchill and Roosevelt in the weeks following the Crimean summit. In March 1945, the revelation that the German high command in Italy had broached the idea of surrender to the British and American governments via secret talks in Switzerland (often referred to as the Bern Affair), convinced Stalin that the Western Allies were seeking a separate peace with Germany. This accusation led to the most heated exchange between FDR and Stalin of the entire war. By early April, the two men were finally able to put this issue behind them. But the suspicions this incident generated on both side of the US-Soviet divide would not be curbed so easily. FDR’s sudden death on April 12, 1945, added another layer of uncertainly as Hitler’s regime finally collapsed. By May 1945, the sight of Soviet IS-3 (Josef Stalin) heavy tanks trundling down the streets of Berlin on parade represented the presence of an incredibly formidable and ambitious new world power. It was this post-war environment that Vice President Harry Truman would inherit, a man who had been much more distant from the wartime collaboration than his predecessor. In 1949, just four short years after the end of the war, the Soviets carried out the "First Lightning" detonation in the first instance of a successful nuclear fission device designed outside the United States. This would stoke the flames of what was now a nuclear arms race between East and West, throwing up a wall of fear that put the nail in the coffin of US-Russian collaboration for decades. Soon physical divides and various proxy conflicts would define what became known as the Cold War.