Yalta Agreement Signed: Allies Divide Post-War Europe
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at the Livadia Palace in Yalta, Crimea, from February 4-11, 1945, to negotiate the post-war order while Soviet forces stood sixty miles from Berlin. Roosevelt arrived visibly ill, just two months from death, and his critics later argued he conceded too much. Stalin secured Soviet influence over Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Baltic states in exchange for promises of free elections that he never intended to honor. Churchill, who understood Stalin better than Roosevelt, privately mourned the division of Europe but lacked leverage to prevent it. The conference also agreed to divide Germany into occupation zones, established the framework for the United Nations Security Council, and secured Stalin's commitment to enter the war against Japan. The Yalta agreements became synonymous with Western betrayal in Eastern European countries that spent the next four decades under Soviet domination.
February 11, 1945
81 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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