Film & collections
The conference on film
43 minutes of it, shot by the US Army Signal Corps and the War Department and public domain because of it. Played from the Internet Archive, which serves it better than this site could.
Potsdam Conference
The conference filmed by the Army's own cameramen: the delegations arriving at Cecilienhof, the Big Three seated at the round table, the handshakes staged for the press.
Truman, Churchill, Stalin at the Potsdam Conference
The three leaders together in the Cecilienhof garden, filmed on 19 July.
Potsdam Conference, 1945
Silent footage: Truman deplaning, reviewing US armoured troops, and greeting Churchill and Stalin.
Aerial views, Potsdam Conference
Cecilienhof and the Neuer Garten from the air, a week after the conference closed.
Japan Surrenders
The outcome the Potsdam Declaration demanded, six weeks after it was issued.
Where the rest of it is
Everything this record could still draw on, with its licence position stated. Two of these are blocked, and saying so is more useful than quietly leaving them out.
documents
- FRUS: The Conference of Berlin, 1945 — Volume IOffice of the Historian, US Department of StateThe preparatory papers: briefing books, position papers and the correspondence leading up to the conference. Volume II is already partly ingested.Public domainNot yet harvested~1,000 documents
- FRUS: The Conference of Berlin, 1945 — Volume IIOffice of the Historian, US Department of StateThe proceedings themselves. All thirteen plenary sittings are ingested; the foreign ministers' meetings, the delegation papers and the bilateral conversations are not.Public domainPartly ingested~1,400 documents
- Planning for the Postwar World: Truman at PotsdamHarry S. Truman Presidential Library & MuseumCurated by the Library's archivists as the most important documents on the conference. Includes the Potsdam diary, correspondence and oral history transcripts.Public domainNot yet harvested500–1,000 pages
- Wilson Center Digital Archive — Soviet documentsWoodrow Wilson International Center for ScholarsTranslated Russian and East European archival material. The one source that addresses the site's biggest gap: everything here is currently told from the Anglo-American side.Varies by itemNot yet harvestedvaries
- The Avalon ProjectYale Law SchoolThe Protocol of the Proceedings is ingested. The wider WWII menu holds Yalta, Tehran and the surrender instruments, which give Potsdam its before and after.Public domainPartly ingestedsmall, high value
- Hansard — the Commons on PotsdamUK ParliamentWhat Churchill and Attlee told Parliament about Potsdam, verbatim, under the Open Parliament Licence. A rare openly-licensed British source for this conference.Open Parliament LicenceNot yet harvestedseveral debates
photographs
- Truman Library photograph collectionHarry S. Truman Presidential Library & MuseumIncludes the conference room and the round table itself. Individual records are addressable, e.g. photograph-records/63-1321-01.Public domainNot yet harvestedhundreds of Potsdam images
- US National Archives catalogNational Archives and Records AdministrationAlready the single largest credited source on the site — 46 of 88 existing images. The catalog has a public API, so this is the most tractable large harvest available.Public domainNot yet harvestedSignal Corps series 111-SC
- Library of Congress — Potsdam photographsLibrary of CongressRights vary by item and must be read from each record. The site blocks scripted requests, so this is a manual harvest.Varies by itemNot yet harvestedtens of items
- Bundesarchiv BildGerman Federal ArchivesGerman photography of Potsdam and Berlin in 1945. Attribution and share-alike required; two images are already in use.CC BY-SA 3.0 DEPartly ingestedlarge
- Imperial War MuseumsImperial War MuseumsThe best British delegation photography. The IWM Non-Commercial Licence conflicts with the tour link in this site's footer, so it cannot be used without written permission. Worth asking for.Non-commercial onlyBlockedlarge
newspapers
- Chronicling America — the conference as it was reportedLibrary of CongressAmerican front pages for each day of the conference — what the public was told, against what was actually said at the table. One of the strongest additions available, because it is a second voice rather than more of the same.Public domainNot yet harvestedcoverage through 1963
institution
- Schloss CecilienhofStiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-BrandenburgThe custodians of the room. Floor plans, the memorial's own scholarship and photography of the table sit here. This is a relationship to build, not a source to scrape.Rights reservedBlockedthe building itself
Nothing on this page is hosted here except the metadata. Film stays at the Internet Archive; collections stay with the institutions that hold them. See the image archive for what the site does hold, and the rights position on each image.