Agreement signed in February 11, 1945, by the three main Allied leaders -- U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin -- at Yalta, Crimea, U.S.S.R., at a conference (February 4-11, 1945) convened there in the final months of World War II (1939-45) to discuss strategies for the invasion and final defeat of Nazi Germany and the terms of settlement. The three powers agreed to demand Germany's unconditional surrender and planned to divide Germany into four zones of occupation, with France being the fourth occupying power. The Soviet Union promised to enter the war against Japan after the German surrender. They also finalized the dates of the meeting in San Francisco to draft the United Nations Charter. Only two Soviet republics would be allowed full representation at the United Nations, where veto powers would be vested in the three big powers. The Allies also signed a pledge to help the countries in Europe (referring to Poland under Soviet occupation) settle their political and economic problems by democratic means.
YALTA AGREEMENT
The Defeat of Germany
We have considered and determined the military plans of the three Allied
powers for the final defeat of the common enemy. The military staffs of
the three Allied Nations have met in daily meetings throughout the
Conference. These meetings have been most satisfactory from every point
of view and have resulted in closer coordination of the military effort
of the three Allies than ever before. The fullest information has been
interchanged. The timing, scope, and coordination of new and even more
powerful blows to be launched by our armies and air forces into the
heart of Germany from the East, West, North, and South have been fully
agreed and planned in detail.
Our combined military plans will be made known only as we execute them,
but we believe that the very close working partnership among the three
staffs attained at this Conference will result in shortening the war.
Meetings of the three staffs will be continued in the future whenever
the need arises.
Nazi Germany is doomed. The German people will only make the cost of
their defeat heavier to themselves by attempting to continue a hopeless
resistance.
The Occupation and Control of Germany
We have agreed on common policies and plans for enforcing the
unconditional surrender terms which we shall impose together on Nazi
Germany after German armed resistance has been finally crushed. These
terms will not be made known until the final defeat of Germany has been
accomplished. Under the agreed plan, the forces of the three powers
will each occupy a separate zone of Germany. Coordinated administration
and control has been provided for under the plan through a central
control commission consisting of the Supreme Commanders of the three
powers with headquarters in Berlin. It has been agreed that France
should be invited by the three powers, if she should so desire, to take
over a zone of occupation, and to participate as a fourth member of the
control commission. The limits of the French zone will be agreed by the
four Governments concerned through their representatives on the European
Advisory Commission.
It is our inflexible purpose to destroy German militarism and Nazism and
to ensure that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of
the world. We are determined to disarm and disband all German armed
forces; break up for all time the German General Staff that has
repeatedly contrived the resurgence of German militarism; remove or
destroy all German military equipment; eliminate or control all German
industry that could be used for military production; bring all war
criminals to just and swift punishment and exact reparation in kind for
the destruction wrought by the Germans; wipe out the Nazi Party, Nazi
laws, organizations and institutions, remove all Nazi and militarist
influences from public office and from the cultural and economic life of
the German people; and take in harmony such other measures in Germany as
may be necessary to the future peace and safety of the world. It is not
our purpose to destroy the people of Germany, but only when Nazism and
militarism have been extirpated will there be hope for a decent life for
Germans, and a place for them in the comity of Nations.
Reparation by Germany
We have considered the question of the damage caused by Germany to the
Allied Nations in this war and recognized it as just that Germany be
obliged to make compensation for this damage in kind to the greatest
extent possible. A commission for the compensation of damage will be
established. The commission will be instructed to consider the question
of the extent and methods for compensating damage caused by Germany to
the Allied countries. The commission will work in Moscow.
United Nations Conference
We are resolved upon the earliest possible establishment with our allies
of a general international organization to maintain peace and security.
We believe that this is essential, both to prevent aggression and to
remove the political, economic, and social causes of war through the
close and continuing collaboration of all peace-loving peoples.
The foundations were laid at Dumbarton Oaks. On the important question
of voting procedure, however, agreement was not three reached. The
present Conference has been able to resolve this difficulty.
We have agreed that a conference of United Nations should be called to
meet at San Francisco in the United States on April 25, 1945, to prepare
the charter of such an organization, along the lines proposed in the
informal conversations at Dumbarton Oaks.
The Government of China and the Provisional Government of France will be
immediately consulted and invited to sponsor invitations to the
conference jointly with the Governments of the United States, Great
Britain, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As soon as the
consultation with China and France has been completed, the next of the
proposals on voting procedure will be made public.
Declaration on Liberated Europe
The Premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom, and the President of the United States
of America have consulted with each other in the common interests of the
peoples of their countries and those of liberated Europe. They jointly
declare their mutual agreement to concert during the temporary period of
instability in liberated Europe the policies of their three Governments
in assisting the peoples liberated from the domination of Nazi Germany
and the peoples of the former Axis satellite states of Europe to solve
by democratic means their pressing political and economic problems.
The establishment of order in Europe and the rebuilding of national
economic life must be achieved by processes which will enable the
liberated peoples to destroy the last vestiges of Nazism and Fascism and
to create democratic institutions of their own choice. This is a
principle of the Atlantic Charter -- the right of all peoples to choose
the form of government under which they will live -- the restoration of
sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been
forcibly deprived of them by the aggressor Nations.
To foster the conditions in which the liberated peoples may exercise
these rights, the three Governments will jointly assist the people in
any European liberated state or former Axis satellite state in Europe
where in their judgment conditions require (a) to establish conditions
of internal peace; (b) to carry out emergency measures for the relief of
distressed peoples; (c) to form interim governmental authorities broadly
representative of all democratic elements in the population and pledged
to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of
governments responsive to the will of the people; and (d) to facilitate
where necessary the holding of such elections.
The three Governments will consult the other United Nations and
provisional authorities or other Governments in Europe when matters of
direct interest to them are under consideration.
When, in the opinion of the three Governments, conditions in any
European liberated state or any former Axis satellite state in Europe
make such action necessary, they will immediately consult together on
the measures necessary to discharge the joint responsibilities set forth
in this declaration.
By this declaration we reaffirm our faith in the principles of the
Atlantic Charter, our pledge in the declaration by the United Nations,
and our determination to build in cooperation with other peace-loving
Nations world order under law, dedicated to peace, security, freedom,
and general well-being of all mankind.
In issuing this declaration, the three powers express the hope that the
Provisional Government of the French Republic may be associated with
them in the procedure suggested.
Poland
A new situation has been created in Poland as a result of her complete
liberation by the Red Army. This calls for the establishment of a
Polish provisional government which can be more broadly based than was
possible before the recent liberation of western Poland. The
provisional government which is now functioning in Poland should
therefore be reorganized on a broader democratic basis with the
inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles
abroad. This new government should then be called the Polish
Provisional Government of National Unity.
M. Molotov, Mr. Harriman, and Sir A. Clark Kerr are authorized as a
commission to consult in the first instance in Moscow with members of
the present provisional government and with other Polish democratic
leaders from within Poland and from abroad, with a view to the
reorganization of the present government along the above lines. This
Polish Provisional Government of National Unity shall be pledged to the
holding of free and unfettered elections as soon as possible on the
basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot. In these elections all
democratic anti-Nazi parties shall have the right to take part and to
put forward candidates.
When a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity has been properly
formed in conformity with the above, the Government of the U.S.S.R.,
which now maintains diplomatic relations with the present provisional
government of Poland, and the Government of the United Kingdom and the
Government of the U.S.A. will establish diplomatic relations with the
new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity, and will exchange
ambassadors by whose reports the respective Governments will be kept
informed about the situation in Poland.
The three heads of government consider that the eastern frontier of
Poland should follow the Curzon line with digressions from it in some
regions of five to eight kilometers in favor of Poland. They recognized
that Poland must receive substantial accessions of territory in the
North and West. They feel that the opinion of the new Polish
Provisional Government of National Unity should be sought in due course
on the extent of these accessions and that the final delimitation of the
western frontier of Poland should thereafter await the peace conference.
Yugoslavia
We have agreed to recommend to Marshal Tito and Dr. Subasic that the
agreement between them should be put into effect immediately, and that a
new government should be formed on the basis of that agreement.
We also recommend that as soon as the new government has been formed it
should declare that:
1. The anti-Fascist Assembly of National Liberation (Avnoj) should be
extended to include members of the last Yugoslav Parliament (Skupschina)
who have not compromised themselves by collaboration with the enemy,
thus forming a body to be known as a temporary Parliament; and,
2. Legislative acts passed by the anti-Fascist Assembly of National
Liberation will be subject to subsequent ratification by a constituent
assembly.
There was also a general review of other Balkan questions.
Meetings of Foreign Secretaries
Throughout the Conference, besides the daily meetings of the heads of
governments and the Foreign Secretaries, separate meetings of the three
Foreign Secretaries, and their advisers have also been held daily.
These meetings have proved of the utmost value and the Conference agreed
that permanent machinery should be set up for regular consultation
between the three Foreign Secretaries. They will, therefore, meet as
often as may be necessary, probably about every three or four months.
These meetings will be held in rotation in the three capitals, the first
meeting being held in London, after the United Nations Conference on
World Organization.
Unity for Peace as for War
Our meeting here in the Crimea has reaffirmed our common determination
to maintain and strengthen in the peace to come that unity of purpose
and of action which has made victory possible and certain for the United
Nations in this war. We believe that this is a sacred obligation which
our Governments owe to our peoples and to all the peoples of the world.
Only with the continuing and growing cooperation and understanding among
our three countries and among all the peace-loving Nations can the
highest aspiration of humanity be realized -- a secure and lasting peace
which will, in the words of the Atlantic Charter, "afford assurance that
all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from
fear and want."
Victory in this war and establishment of the proposed international
organization will provide the greatest opportunity in all history to
create in the years to come the essential conditions of such a peace.
Signed: Winston S. Churchill
Franklin D. Roosevelt
J. Stalin