The Potsdam Declaration was issued in Potsdam, Germany, in July 1945.
The declaration was released on July 26, 1945, during the Potsdam Conference near Berlin. The United States, the United Kingdom, and China called on Japan to accept terms leading to unconditional surrender. The text warned that the alternative would be “prompt and utter destruction,” while also stating that Japan would not be destroyed as a nation or enslaved as a race.
The declaration followed earlier Allied statements, including the Cairo Declaration of 1943. It outlined conditions involving disarmament, occupation, war-crimes trials, democratic development, and limits on Japanese sovereignty. The Soviet Union was not yet at war with Japan when the declaration was first released and did not sign the initial version.
Japan’s leaders debated the terms rather than immediately accepting them. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet declaration of war, Emperor Hirohito supported acceptance. Japan’s surrender announcement on August 15 and the formal signing on September 2 followed this sequence of Allied demands and Japanese decisions.