The Yalta Conference, February 1945
In February 1945 the Allied leaders met at the Alta at Yalta in the Ukraine to plan what would happen to Europe after the war ended. An extract from President Roosevelt’s report to the US Congress on the Yalta conference claims that that they although they argued freely and frankly, an animus agreement was reached. It said ‘We argued freely and frankly across the table. But at the end on every point unanimous agreement was reached... We know, of course, that it was Hitler’s hope and the German war lords’ hope that we would not agree-that some slight crack might appear in the solid wall of allied unity…But Hitler has failed. Never before have the major allies been more closely united- not only in their war aims but also in their peace aims.’
In this essay I will discuss how accurate Roosevelt’s report was.
In reality the conference went well, but although there were many things were agreed at the Yalta Conference, there were some areas of disagreement.
They mostly agreed with what to do about Germany, it was to be divided into four zones; British, French, American and Soviet, and as Berlin, the German Capital was deep in the soviet zone, it too was also to be divided into four zones. They also agreed that criminals would be punished, they agreed to hunt down and punish war criminals who were responsible for the genocide. Although they disagreed over the issue of reparations to be paid to Germany.
Extent of Soviet over Eastern Europe was completely agreed. As the Soviet Union had suffered terribly in the war, an estimation of 20 million people had died. Stalin was therefore concerned about the future security of the USSR. They Big three agreed that Eastern Europe was to be seen ‘a soviet sphere of influence’. They agreed that, as counties were liberated from occupation by the German army, they would be allowed to hold free