![\"Winston](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/4_Victory-Wave.jpg\")
Winston Churchill with the Royal Family on VE Day(Image: Hulton Archive)<\/p>\nThe Second World War left former colonial European powers decimated, setting the stage for two superpowers to emerge, writes Manchester University history lecturer Dr Louise Clare<\/p>\n
06:35, 08 May 2025Updated 06:38, 08 May 2025<\/p>\n
Winston Churchill with the Royal Family on VE Day(Image: Hulton Archive)<\/p>\n
Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler did not agree on many things.<\/p>\n
They were ideological opposites and staunch enemies – serving on opposing sides in World War One before leading their countries in World War Two.<\/p>\n
However, both leaders predicted that, because of World War Two\u2019s impact, there would be two spheres of influence post-1945, two superpowers. And given the state of the major European powers by VE Day, financially and militarily, the economic devastation and loss of life, neither would be European.<\/p>\n
In March 1946, Churchill stated: \u201cFrom Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Iin his Political Testament in April 1945, Hitler wrote: \u201cAfter the collapse of the German Reich, and until there is a rise in nationalism in Asia, Africa or Latin America, there will only be two powers in the world: The United States and Soviet Russia. Through the laws of history and geographical position these giants are destined to struggle with each other either through war, or through rivalry in economics and political ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, following the war, colonial powers Britain and France were facing bankruptcy, decolonised. The conflict had created a clear break with international power dynamics and the 1939 status quo.<\/p>\n
With former colonial European powers essentially out of the game, the new superpowers became the USA and the USSR, just as Hitler predicted. This new international power dynamic would have a profound impact on post-1945 Europe.<\/p>\n
![\"Adolf](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2_CS46492522.jpg\")
Adolf Hitler predicted the rise of the USA and USSR as the two post-war superpowers<\/p>\n
This was not only through the \u2018Big Three\u2019 \u2013 Britain, the USA and the USSR \u2013 carving up Germany at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences, but through power blocs. Eastern European states were under the USSR\u2019s sphere of influence and Western European states under the USA\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Thus, the tone was being set for the ideological and economic struggle between the USSR and the USA, East and West, Capitalism v. Communism, and Europe was becoming the stage where these struggles would be acted out in the Cold War theatre.<\/p>\n
Although relative peace followed VE Day amongst European powers, Europe itself \u2013 especially Germany \u2013 became a focal point of East-West tensions.<\/p>\n
This was from the Cold War\u2019s early days, after Germany\u2019s division into East, (USSR-controlled) and West (initially Britain, France and USA-controlled), and Berlin\u2019s division into East and West. First, there was the Berlin Airlift, 1948 -1949, when Soviet forces blockaded access to the Allied-sector of Berlin and British and US forces airlifted in supplies. Then, in 1961, tensions rose again and Churchill\u2019s \u2018Iron Curtain\u2019 became a physical reality \u2013 with Soviet-controlled forces erecting the Berlin Wall, separating East and West Berlin.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/2_JS119258874.jpg\")
The Berlin Wall, August 6, 1984.(Image: Mirrorpix)<\/p>\n
This reality, as the two superpowers vied for influence in the midst of the Cold War, meant certain Europeans experienced a loss of personal freedoms with their movement restricted.<\/p>\n
Therefore, not only was the peace which VE Day promised being tested, but Europeans became a bigger and bigger part of the superpower ideological struggle.<\/p>\n
This ideological struggle soon became a power struggle and once again World War Two\u2019s impact was instrumental. Facing bankruptcy, many European powers withdrew from Empire, leaving power vacuums, theatres for USA-USSR proxy wars, whilst Europeans focused on their decimated economies and around 9 to 10.3 million European war dead.<\/p>\n
However, the decline of these empires did not exclude the respective European powers from playing a significant Cold War role. Britain and France still held considerable geopolitical influence and experience – attractive attributes to the USA. Thus, France\u2019s and Britain\u2019s economic recovery, alongside West Germany\u2019s, became a key piece in the USA\u2019s Cold War foreign policy jigsaw, vital to their Containment Policy of stemming the tide of Communism.<\/p>\n
With these ongoing ideological, economic and military Cold War tensions dividing Europe, one could be forgiven for assuming the peace which VE Day and the end of World War Two promised was short-lived, the war only creating further division. Yet, with the European continent apparently divided \u2013 a division lasting over 40 years \u2013 the 1957 signing of the Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community (EEC), ushered in a new era of European co-operation, laying the foundations for the European Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite Britain\u2019s initial exclusion from the Community by President Charles de Gaulle\u2019s veto, the Community created a sense of unity amongst European powers as their continent became a Cold War theatre.<\/p>\n This, alongside aid programmes the superpowers offered, helped many European powers such as Britain, France and West Germany to prosper post-1945. In 1948, \u2018GDP per head [\u2026] was 35% higher in real terms than in 1900\u2019 in Britain, historian Peter Clarke noted. World War Two cleared up residual unemployment from the pre-1939 years of recession. Coupled to this, 1948 saw the NHS<\/a>\u2019 formation and many other European nations followed suit. This care \u2018from the cradle to the grave\u2019 in Britain and programmes such as free secondary education for all, brought the promises of a better society, making Churchill\u2019s and the nation\u2019s \u2018blood, sweat and toil\u2019 seemingly worthwhile.<\/p>\n World War Two\u2019s impact therefore ushered in a new geopolitical dynamic, lasting over 40 years, bringing division to a continent, the landscape of which bore the scars of two World Wars. Nonetheless, some Europeans retained some unity and independence through the EEC, maintaining defence rights and improved welfare systems \u2013 many existing still in similar forms today.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/1_GD5432342.jpg\")
The flag of the European Economic Community\/EU<\/p>\n