Tag Archives: Yalta

yaltaWinston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at Yalta, Crimea February 1945

The Yalta Conference.

Seventy years ago this week.

Ironically, one of the main aims of the Yalta conference got turned on its head and has shown the extraordinary turns of history. This was the aim of all the participants to punish Germany and split it into four military zones and possibly into two or three separate ‘agricultural’ Germanies, to prevent it ever coming back as one big power again, to dominate and disrupt the world.

However, with a Cold War growing, the West realised that it needed a strong Germany, and the Soviets followed suit by building up Eastern Germany. Seventy years later, and with the two Germanies united, the country is at the absolute centre of Europe, running the EU and acting as economic powerhouse for the entire continent.

…many Poles never forgave the way that they were sold into Communism by the British, having seen Britain enter the war to save them from Hitler. It is interesting that Churchill, who made much of Chamberlain’s appeasement and trust in Hitler, should himself suffer the same with the Soviet leader.

The port of Yalta and the great global carve-up (Eamon Delaney, Independent.ie)