### Clue: Heading west, bats halt, reaching German conference venue (7)
### Answer: POTSDAM 
 ### Explanation: Definition: German conference venue
A reversal ('heading west') of MAD ('bats') plus STOP ('halt'). Potsdam was the site of the 1945 conference at which Churchill, Truman and Stalin met to lay out the post-war future of Germany and the rest of Europe.