Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp, better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet, and worked in other media such as torn and pasted paper. He was known as Dadaist and abstract artist.

Hans-Georg von Friedeburg was a German admiral, the deputy commander of the U-boat Forces of Nazi Germany and the second-to-last Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine. He was the only representative of the armed forces to be present at the signing of the German instruments of surrender in Luneburg Heath on 4 May 1945, in Reims on 7 May and in Berlin on 8 May 1945. Generaladmiral von Friedeburg committed suicide shortly afterwards, upon the dissolution of the Flensburg Government.

The Potsdam Conference was held in Potsdam, Germany, from 17 July to 2 August 1945. The participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, represented respectively by Premier Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman.

They gathered to decide how to administer Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier on the 8th of May. The goals of the conference also included the establishment of postwar order, peace treaty issues, and countering the effects of the war.

Additionally, the Foreign Secretaries of the three Governments, James F. Byrnes, V. M. Molotov, and Anthony Eden, the Chief of Staff, with other advisers also participated in the Conference. From July 17 to July 25 there were held nine meetings. After that, the Conference was interrupted for two days, as the results of the British general election were being announced.