Following the end of WWII, the Allies assigned themselves the task of purging all traces of Nazism from both German government and society, the first large-scale attempt at lustration in the modern era.  The Big Three Allies (the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States) agreed on a plan of action to denazify Germany at the Tripartite Conference in Potsdam. The Potsdam Agreement, released on August 2, 1945, set the groundwork for Allied efforts at purging Nazism and its adherents from Germany. The Potsdam Agreement required the Control Council (comprised of the four Allied Military Governors in occupied Germany) to