Yalta Conference (1945)

We explain what the Yalta conference was and how important it was at the end of World War II. In addition, its main resolutions.

What was Yalta's conference?

Yalta's conference was a meeting held during the final stage of World War II (1939-1945) Among the three leaders on the side of the allies: Winston Churchill (United Kingdom), Franklin D. Roosevelt (United States) and Iosif Stalin (Soviet Union). It took place between February 4 and 11, 1945 in the city of Yalta, in the Crimea Peninsula.

At the Yalta Conference Details about the final attack against Nazi Germany were agreed and decisions were made about the partition of Germany and the borders of Europe after the war. In addition, some pending points were resolved to The creation of the United Nations Organization (UN)which led to the San Francisco conference in which the United Nations Charter was signed in June 1945.

After the undertaking of Germany in May 1945, the leaders of the three allied powers met again, this time in the German city of Potsdam between July and August 1945, to finish defining the postwar order.

In Potsdam, Churchill was replaced during the conference by the new British prime minister, Clement Attlee, and Harry S. Truman represented the United States after assuming the presidency due to Roosevelt's death in April 1945.

• See also: End of World War II

The historical context

During World War II, allies faced the powers of the axis (Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan and, until 1943, fascist Italy). In the last years of the war, the main allied countries (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union and, in some cases, China) celebrated a series of meetings in which they talked about the military decisions of the last phases of war and about the organization of the postwar world.

In January 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt resolved in Casablanca (Morocco) that The “undertaking without conditions” of Germany and Japan should be demanded. As the war progressed in a favorable way to the allies, the conferences of Moscow and Tehran in 1943 were held.

The so -called “three great” (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin) participated in the Tehran Conference, who agreed to the imminent invasion of France, Germany's partition when the war ended and the foundation of an international organization to guarantee peace and security.

In the Dumbarton Oaks conference of 1944 the principles of the future international organization that would be the UN were set but some important aspects were pending. In the Yalta conference held in February 1945 this issue was discussed and The agreements on the postwar order were deepened.

• See also: Tehran Conference (1943)

Yalta's conference

The “Grandes” (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin) held a conference in Yalta (In the Crimean Peninsula, at that time part of the Soviet Union) between February 4 and 11, 1945. This conference was one of the most important diplomatic facts of the twentieth century, to the point that, during the Cold War, the idea was installed that in Yalta there had been a distribution of the world between the Western powers and the Soviet Union.

The “great three” gathered to coordinate their war plans at a time when operations against the axis powers had entered into a decisive moment. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin They tried to reach an agreement as wide as possible on the voltage points that separated them in relation to the future of Europe once Adolf Hitler's Germany was definitely defeated.

The situation at the time of the conference favored Stalin. After the offensives of the Red Army in 1944, The Soviet troops were 70 kilometers from Berlin and occupied practically the entire central and eastern Europe.

At the same time, the neutrality pact with Japan allowed the Soviet government to maintain a position of force in terms of the borders of Poland and the occupation of Germany, as it could negotiate with the other allied governments in exchange for its entry into the Pacific War against Japan.

General Charles de Gaulle, president of the provisional government of France after the allied entrance to the French territory in 1944, tried unsuccessfully that France was included in the conference. Roosevelt refused to include a country that had been released by the Anglo -Saxons and argued that his leader, Gaulle General, had not been chosen by his people.

• Can serve you: consequences of World War II

Yalta Conference Resolutions

In the Yalta conference five main resolutions were agreed:

• Germany would be demilitarized and divided into four occupancy zones corresponding to the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France (including by demand of Churchill). It would be subject to strong financial repairs and lose oriental Prussia and part of Pomerania, so its eastern border would be fixed on the line marked by the Oder and Neisse rivers. It was established that an international court would judge the main Nazi war criminals, which subsequently led to Nuremberg's trials.
• Regarding the United Nationsa commitment on the voting formula in the Security Council was reached and the emphasis on the role of the great winning powers (United States, the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, China and France) was placed in the future organization of international peace and security. In addition, it was admitted that Ukraine and Belarus were considered full members of the organization and a new conference to be held in San Francisco was convened to write the United Nations Charter.
• The so -called Declaration of the released Europe in which the “three great” committed themselves to the reconstruction of Europe being made by democratic means, with representative governments of all non -fascist sectors of each nation. These governments should call free elections as soon as possible that allow the creation of governments emanating from the popular will.
• Regarding Oriental Asia and the Pacifica secret protocol was agreed by which, in exchange for the entrance of the Soviet Union in the War against Japan within two or three months after the German defeat, The Soviet Union would occupy the Kuriles and recover all the lost territories after the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905.
• Poland would be “displaced” to the west: The territories that Germany lost in the east would be annexed but would lose the territories that had remained under the Soviet domain after the Pact of German-Soviet aggression of 1939. The Lublin Committee, essentially formed by communists and that formed a provisional government in Poland, It would lead to free elections that would allow participation in the future Polish government of members of the Pro-Western Polish Provisional Government in exile.

The borders of Poland: Curzon Line and Oder-Neisse line. During the first half of the twentieth century, Poland came into conflict with neighboring states because of their borders on different occasions. At the end of World War II, with the occupation of Germany by the allied powers, the limits of Poland were defined again. During the Yalta conference the “displacement to the west of Poland” was agreed.

The Curzon line established the new border between Poland and the Soviet Union, and meant the Soviet appropriation of a large portion of the Polish territory. At the same time, it was agreed that the boundary between Poland and Germany would follow the Oder-Neisse line, so the Polish territory saw its loss of oriental territories with the annexation of German territories on its western border.

The Republicans of the United States (contrary to the Democrat Roosevelt and his legacy) and the Frenchman Charles de Gaulle (who had been marginalized from the conference) They encouraged the idea that the Europe's division had been agreed in Yalta in two spheres of influence: Western and Soviet.

However, The division that led to the “steel curtain” began after the Soviet breach of agreements on the establishment of democratic governments in central and eastern Europe.

Between July and August, 1945, the Potsdam Conference was held, which ended up defining the postwar order after the surrender of Germany that occurred in May and It was decided to convene a new conference to sign the peace treaties with the expired powers.

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References

• Britannica, Encyclopaedia (2023). Yalta Conference. Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com/
• Fomerand, J. et al. (2022). United Nations. Britannica Encyclopedia. https://www.britannica.com/
• Kennedy, PM (2007). The Parliament of Humanity: History of the United Nations. Debate.
• United Nations (SF). United Nations History. Official United Nations Site. https://www.un.org/