Potsdam hosted the 1945 conference where the Allied terms for Japan’s surrender were finalized.
The Potsdam Conference took place near Berlin from July 17 to August 2, 1945. It brought together leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss postwar Europe and the continuing war against Japan. China was not physically represented at the meetings, but Chiang Kai-shek joined the Japan declaration through a message.
The conference produced the Potsdam Declaration, issued on July 26. That document called for Japan’s armed forces to surrender and outlined occupation, disarmament, territorial, and political conditions.
The conference is sometimes confused with the Yalta Conference, held earlier in 1945, or with the later surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay. Potsdam was the location associated with the ultimatum; the formal Japanese surrender was signed in September aboard USS Missouri.