Yalta Conference

Group photo after the conclusion of the negotiations; from left: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin

US Department of State, map of January 10, 1945: Germany - Poland Proposed Territorial Changes - Secret (" Proposed Territorial Change - Secret ")

Livadia Palace 2008, site of the Yalta Conference in 1945

Livadia Palace, July 1968

Livadia Palace, September 2013

The Yalta Conference (also Crimean Conference ) was a diplomatic meeting of the Allied heads of state Franklin D. Roosevelt ( USA ), Winston Churchill ( United Kingdom ) and Josef Stalin ( USSR ) in the seaside resort of Yalta in the Crimea from April 4th to 11th February 1945. It was the second of a total of three allied summits of the “Big Three” during or after the Second World War (1939–1945). The main topics of the conference were the division of Germany , the distribution of power in Europe after the end of the war and the war against the Japanese Empire . The conference was held in the Livadija Palace .

background

After the Tehran Conference (November 28 to December 1, 1943) the military and political situation had changed. While the war in Europe was as good as won with the advance of US, British and French troops in the west and the Red Army in the east, those responsible believed that the military conflict with the Japanese Empire would continue for a long time. Churchill and Roosevelt were therefore willing to compromise on Stalin's demands.

In 2020, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary, Russia released some previously unpublished documents.

Minutes of the negotiations at the Crimean Conference

On Sunday, February 11, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Josef Stalin and Winston S. Churchill signed the communiqué, which was to be delivered to the press in Washington, London and Moscow the next day. After that, they signed a secret agreement on the terms of the Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan. The minutes of the negotiations at the Crimean Conference , which the Foreign Ministers ER Stettinius jr. , W. Molotov and Anthony Eden finally signed in the closing session, contained the following fourteen chapters:

• I. World Organization
• II. Declaration on Liberated Europe
• III. Fragmentation of Germany
• IV. Zone of occupation for France and Control Council for Germany
• V. Reparations
• VI. Major war criminal
• VII. Poland
• VIII. Yugoslavia
• IX. Italian-Yugoslav border - Italian-Austrian border
• X. Yugoslav-Bulgarian relations
• XI. Southeast Europe
• XII. Iran
• XIII. Meetings of Foreign Ministers
• XIV. The Montreux Convention and the Straits

Division of Germany

A dismemberment of Germany into several states, a dismembration , which Stalin demanded, but for which he did not present a plan was at issue. Roosevelt had already been of the opinion at the Tehran conference that Germany should be divided (division into five states was his Tehran plan) and was ready to accept the Soviet demand. Churchill and Eden, however, with the support of the American Foreign Minister Stettinius , pushed through an interpretable formulation in the deed of surrender adopted in Yalta. It did not rule out a division, but could also be understood in the sense of mere decentralization. A joint decision could not be reached, the subject was therefore delegated to the European Advisory Commission (EAC), where a proposal should be drawn up. An allied "Dismemberment Committee" of the EAC, which consisted of the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden (as chairman) and the accredited ambassadors of the USA and USSR in London, John G. Winant and Fyodor Tarasovich Gusev , should determine the details. This body was given the option of calling in a French representative at its own discretion.

In March 1945, Stalin corrected his official policy towards Germany and declared that he no longer wanted to adhere to the principle of the division of Germany.

Zone of occupation for France and Control Council for Germany

An area was to be removed from the British and American occupation zones that was to be occupied by French forces. France should be consulted about its size and the decision should be made by the Americans and the British. The Provisional Government of France should be invited to become a member of the Allied Control Council for Germany .

Poland

It was decided to replace the Provisional Polish Government with a "Government of National Unity", which should be obliged to "hold free elections on the basis of universal suffrage and secret voting". This government should be placed on a broader basis, especially democratic leaders from the circle of the Polish government in exile . The three allies undertook to establish diplomatic relations with this new government and to exchange ambassadors with it.

The eastern border of Poland should follow the Curzon line with minor deviations . The opinion of this Government of National Unity about the extent to which Poland in the north and west should receive territorial growth must be found out in due course. The final determination of Poland's western border should be left to a peace conference.

German eastern border

In Yalta, Stalin tried to reach an agreement on the question of Germany's eastern border and demanded a commitment to the Oder-Neisse line , but was unsuccessful. The agreement in principle to move Poland to the west , which had been decided at the Tehran Conference in 1943, remained.

Further resolutions

In the resolutions found u. a. Soviet interests in Asia ( Mongolia and Kuril Islands with Sakhalin ) over Japan and China are reflected.

Generalissimo Stalin demanded additional securities for the Soviet Union . The occupied countries from Italy to Czechoslovakia to the Baltic States and practically the entire Balkans were to form a security ring of satellite states around the Soviet Union. Churchill and Roosevelt only partially responded to this. Italy was added to the western sphere of influence , while Czechoslovakia and the Baltic states were left to Stalin. No agreement was reached on the government of Poland and the borderline remained unclear. At their Moscow conference in October 1944 , Stalin and Churchill had already allocated the zones of influence in south-eastern Europe informally on a small piece of paper. Churchill had written:

• Romania: Soviet Union 90% - the other 10%
• Greece: Great Britain 90% - Soviet Union 10%
• Yugoslavia: 50% - 50%
• Hungary: 50% - 50%
• Bulgaria: Soviet Union 75% - the other 25%

According to Churchill, Stalin confirmed the proposal by ticking the page.

In a secret agreement, the Soviet Union undertook to open war against Japan two to three months after the German surrender and to enter into an alliance with China. In return, she received territorial concessions in the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin, as well as political prerogatives in Manchuria, occupation rights in Korea and the autonomy of Outer Mongolia .

Like the earlier Tehran conference, the Yalta conference left a lot of room for interpretation. There was only agreement from the outset on unconditional surrender and denazification and demilitarization of Germany. Definitive agreements, details about the cession of the German eastern territories or the future Polish western border were not made. At most, it was agreed that Poland should receive German territories in the north and west, but not west of the Oder , according to the ideas of the USA and Great Britain . Agreements on the expulsion of millions of Germans were only to follow later at the Potsdam Conference . The Curzon Line was established as the eastern border of Poland .

At the Yalta Conference, Franklin D. Roosevelt , Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin agreed on the last still contentious points of the draft of the United Nations Charter . It was particularly about the voting mode in the most powerful body of the future organization, the Security Council . The permanent members of the Security Council - the USSR, the USA, Great Britain, France and China - were granted a right of veto on all important issues at the instigation of the Soviet Union . Without this admission, no agreement would have been possible.

In addition, an agreement was signed with the Soviet Union that provided for the repatriation of Soviet displaced persons who were in the care of the Western Allies. This affected not only the Soviet forced laborers in Germany, but also former soldiers of the Red Army who had been captured as members of the Vlasov Army in German uniforms. The agreement was neither explained nor published in the final communiqué of the conference.

Three types of reparations were established:

• Extraction of machines, instruments and patents;
• Supplies from ongoing production;
• Use of the labor of German specialists.

On the question of the main war crimes which were to be punished according to the decision of the Moscow Conference in 1943 , no further definition was reached in Yalta. According to the communiqué, the three foreign ministers should continue to investigate it.

See also

• List of Allied Conferences during World War II

Trivia

In 2004 a bronze was cast by Zurab Tsereteli , which was to commemorate the Yalta Conference from 2005. The government of Ukraine renounced the monument. After the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the sculpture was inaugurated in February 2015.

literature

• Henri Chopin : The conference of Yalta , Freeboard, Vienna 1985.
• Arthur Conte: The division of the world - Yalta 1945 , Karl Rauch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1965.
• Jost Dülffer: Yalta, February 4, 1945, the Second World War and the emergence of the bipolar world. dtv 30608, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-423-30606-8 (= Norbert Frei (Hrsg.): 20 days in the 20th century ).
• Karl Dietrich Erdmann: The end of the empire and the emergence of the Republic of Austria, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic , 9th edition, dtv 4222, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-423-04222-2 (=  Gebhardt . Handbook of German history , Vol. 22).
• Günter Ehlen, Karl Gottfried Werner: The Conferences of Malta and Yalta. Department of State USA. Documents from July 17, 1944 to June 3, 1945. Robert Kämmerer Verlag für Politische Bildung, Düsseldorf 1957.
• Gertrude Heinisch, Otto Hellwig (ed. And translator): The official Yalta documents of the US State Department. Wilhelm Frick Verlag, Vienna / Munich / Stuttgart / Zurich 1955.
• EC Kollmann: The Yalta Conference in the Crossfire of Politics and Historiography , in: History in Science and Education , Volume 8 (1957).
• Boris Meissner (Ed.): The German question from Yalta and Potsdam to the state division of Germany in 1949 , Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-428-07851-9 .
• Werner Weidenfeld: Yalta and the division of Germany , Pontes, Andernach 1969 (=  Small European Library , Volume 7).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Conference of Yalta , in: Weltgeschichte der Neuzeit , Federal Agency for Political Education , Bonn 2005, ISBN 3-89331-606-X , p. 304.
2. ^ Yalta Conference 1945 - Russia publishes documents. ZDF.de, February 4, 2020, accessed on February 4, 2020 . 
3. ↑ German translation of the American file publication: The Conferences of Malta and Yalta. Department of State USA, documents from July 17, 1944 to June 3, 1945, Düsseldorf undated
4. ↑ Wilfried Loth : The division of the world. History of the Cold War 1941–1955 , Munich 1980, ISBN 3-423-04012-2 , p. 66.
5. ↑ Wilfried Loth: The division of the world. History of the Cold War 1941–1955 , Munich 1980, pp. 84 f.
6. ^ Wilfried Loth: The Soviet Union and the German question. Studies on Soviet policy towards Germany from Stalin to Khrushchev , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, pp. 40, 57.
7. ↑ The resolution to amend Article 12 (a) of the Conditions of Surrender read: “The United Kingdom, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics will have supreme authority over Germany. In exercising this authority, they will take such steps, including the complete disarmament, demilitarization and division of Germany, as they consider necessary for future peace and security ”, quoted from Arthur Conte: Die Teilung der Welt. Yalta 1945 , Munich 1967, p. 320.
8. ↑ Wilfried Loth: The division of the world. History of the Cold War 1941–1955 , Munich 1980, p. 67.
9. ↑ Quotes from the section after Arthur Conte: The division of the world. Yalta 1945 , Munich 1967, p. 322 f.
10. ↑ Wilfried Loth: The division of the world. History of the Cold War 1941–1955 , Munich 1980, p. 84.
11. ^ Churchill, Second World War, VI., London 1956.
12. ↑ Wolfgang Jacobmeyer: From forced laborers to homeless foreigners. The Displaced Persons in West Germany 1945–1951. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1985, ISBN 3-525-35724-9 , p. 126 f.
13. ↑ Hunt for the brightest minds - Scientists in the Soviet Union , Deutschlandfunk , accessed on October 21, 2016.
14. ↑ Arthur Conte: The division of the world. Yalta 1945 , Munich 1967, p. 322.
15. ↑ Copper Giants : Why Russia Longs for Stalinist Boots , Forbes.ru, February 10, 2015.

Web links

Commons : Yalta Conference  - Collection of Images

Wikisource: Yalta Conference Agreement  - Sources and full texts (English)

• Yalta Agreement (Report on the Crimean Conference from February 3 to 11, 1945) (Source: Herbert Kraus , Kurt Heinze (Ed.): Documents under international law on the European peace order since 1945. Bonn 1953, Document No. 1.)