Yalta Conference

Yalta Conference, World War II meeting (February 4-11, 1945), of United States President Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain, and Premier Joseph Stalin of the USSR. The conference was held in the vicinity of Yalta, Crimea, in what is now Ukraine. It marked the high point of Allied unity and followed a similar meeting held in Tehrān (Teheran), Iran, 14 months earlier (see Tehrān Conference); it was devoted to the formulation of Allied military strategy and to negotiations on a variety of political problems.

A communique, known as the Yalta Declaration, was issued by the conference on February 11. It declared the Allied intention to “destroy German militarism and Nazism and to ensure that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world”; to “bring all war criminals to just and swift punishment”; and to “exact reparation in kind for the destruction wrought by the Germans.” Reference was made to a decision to divide Germany into three zones of occupation and to govern it through a central control commission, situated in Berlin; however, provision was made to invite France “to take over a zone of occupation, and to participate ... [in] the control commission.” Provision was made for a reparations commission to work in Moscow. The declaration also announced that a “conference of United Nations” would be held in San Francisco in April 1945.

With respect to the “establishment of order in Europe,” the declaration stated the intention of the signatories to assist liberated countries or former satellites of the Axis powers in Europe in the formation of democratic interim governments through free elections. It confirmed the possession of eastern Poland by the USSR, declaring that by way of compensation, “Poland must receive substantial accessions of territory in the north and west,” that is, at the expense of Germany.

An important agreement reached at Yalta but not disclosed until later provided for a Soviet declaration of war on Japan within 90 days of the end of the war in Europe. After the defeat of Japan, the USSR was to receive the southern half of Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, and special privileges on the Chinese mainland. Text of the Yalta agreement was released in 1947.