diff --git a/deepspeed/utils/zero_to_fp32.py b/deepspeed/utils/zero_to_fp32.py
index 6b595ce40add..fd5a2eb8bfdd 100755
--- a/deepspeed/utils/zero_to_fp32.py
+++ b/deepspeed/utils/zero_to_fp32.py
@@ -143,7 +143,11 @@ def parse_optim_states(files, ds_checkpoint_dir):
     total_files = len(files)
     state_dicts = []
     for f in files:
-        state_dicts.append(torch.load(f, map_location=device))
+        state_dict = torch.load(f, map_location=device)
+        # immediately discard the potentially huge 2 optimizer states as we only care for fp32 master weights
+        # and also handle the case where it was already removed by another helper script
+        state_dict["optimizer_state_dict"].pop("optimizer_state_dict", None)
+        state_dicts.append(state_dict)
 
     if not ZERO_STAGE in state_dicts[0][OPTIMIZER_STATE_DICT]:
         raise ValueError(f"{files[0]} is not a zero checkpoint")