Malta & Crimea Conferences (ARGONAUT)

[NormanStewart]

U.S. State Department (February 11, 1945)

740.0011 EW/2-1145

Communiqué Issued at the End of the Conference

Report of the Crimea Conference

For the past eight days, Winston S. Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, and Marshal J. V. Stalin, Chairman of the Council of Peoples’ Commissars of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have met with the Foreign Secretaries, Chiefs of Staff and other advisors in the Crimea.

In addition to the three Heads of Government, the following took part in the Conference:

For the United States of America:

• Edward R. Stettinius Jr., Secretary of State
• Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, USN, Chief of Staff to the President;
• Harry L. Hopkins, Special Assistant to the President;
• Justice James F. Byrnes, Director, Office of War Mobilization;
• General of the Army George C. Marshall, USA, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army;
• Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, USN, Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet;
• Lieutenant General Brehon B. Somervell, Commanding General, Army Service Forces;
• Vice Admiral Emory S. Land, War Shipping Administrator
• Major General L. S. Kuter, USA, Staff of Commanding General, U.S. Army Air Forces;
• W. Averell Harriman, Ambassador to the USSR;
• H. Freeman Matthews, Director of European Affairs, State Department;
• Alger Hiss, Deputy Director, Office of Special Political Affairs, Department of State;
• Charles E. Bohlen, Assistant to the Secretary of State, together with political, military and technical advisors.

For the Soviet Union:

• V. M. Molotov, People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR
• Admiral Kuznetsov, People’s Commissar for the Navy
• Army General Antonov, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army
• A. Ya. Vyshinski, Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR
• I. M. Maisky, Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR
• Marshal of Aviation Khydyakov
• F. T. Gousev, Ambassador in Great Britain
• A. A. Gromyko, Ambassador in USA

For the United Kingdom:

• Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
• Lord Leathers, Minister of War Transport
• Sir A. Clark Kerr, H.M. Ambassador at Moscow
• Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
• Sir Edward Bridges, Secretary of the War Cabinet
• Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff
• Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff
• Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham, First Sea Lord
• General Sir Hastings Ismay, Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defense,

together with

• Field Marshal Alexander, Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theatre
• Field Marshal Wilson, Head of the British Joint Staff Mission at Washington
• Admiral Somerville, Joint Staff Mission at Washington together with military and diplomatic advisors.

The following statement is made by the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the President of the United States of America, and the Chairman of the Council of Peoples’ Commissars of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the results of the Crimean Conference:

I. 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.

II. 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.

III. 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.

IV. 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 there 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 text of the proposals on voting procedure will be made public.

V. Declaration on liberated Europe

We have drawn up and subscribed to a Declaration on liberated Europe. This Declaration provides for concerting the policies of the three Powers and for joint action by them in meeting the political and economic problems of liberated Europe in accordance with democratic principles. The text of the Declaration is as follows:

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 people; (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 a world order under law, dedicated to peace, security, freedom and the 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.

VI. Poland

We came to the Crimea Conference resolved to settle our differences about Poland. We discussed fully all aspects of the question. We reaffirm our common desire to see established a strong, free, independent and democratic Poland. As a result of our discussions we have agreed on the conditions in which a new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity may be formed in such a manner as to command recognition by the three major powers.

The agreement reached is as follows:

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 and 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 USSR, which now maintains diplomatic relations with the present Provisional Government of Poland, and the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the United States 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 kilometres in favor of Poland. They recognize 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.

VII. 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:

• (i) 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

• (ii) legislative acts passed by the Anti-Fascist Assembly of National Liberation (AUNOJ) will be subject to subsequent ratification by a Constituent Assembly.

There was also a general review of other Balkan questions.

VIII. 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.

IX. 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 continuing and growing co-operation 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.

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT
И. СТАЛИН

February 11, 1945

[NormanStewart]

Protocol of the Proceedings of the Crimea Conference

The Crimea Conference of the Heads of the Governments of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which took place from February 4 to 11 came to the following conclusions.

I. World organisation

It was decided:

1. that a United Nations Conference on the proposed world organisation should be summoned for Wednesday, 25 April, 1945, and should be held in the United States of America.

2. the Nations to be invited to this Conference should be:
   (a) the United Nations as they existed on the 8th February, 1945 and

   (b) such of the Associated Nations as have declared war on the common enemy by 1 March, 1945. (For this purpose by the term “Associated Nation” was meant the eight Associated Nations and Turkey). When the Conference on World Organization is held, the delegates of the United Kingdom and United States of America will support a proposal to admit to original membership two Soviet Socialist Republics, i.e. the Ukraine and White Russia.

3. that the United States Government on behalf of the Three Powers should consult the Government of China and the French Provisional Government in regard to the decisions taken at the present Conference concerning the proposed World Organisation.

4. that the text of the invitation to be issued to all the nations which would take part in the United Nations Conference should be as follows:

Invitation

The Government of the United States of America, on behalf of itself and of the Governments of the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the Republic of China and of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, invite the Government of _____________ to send representatives to a Conference of the United Nations to be held on 25 April, 1945, or soon thereafter, at San Francisco in the United States of America to prepare a Charter for a General International Organisation for the maintenance of international peace and security.

The above named governments suggest that the Conference consider as affording a basis for such a Charter the Proposals for the Establishment of a General International Organisation, which were made public last October as a result of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, and which have now been supplemented by the following provisions for Section C of Chapter VI:

C. Voting

1. Each member of the Security Council should have one vote.

2. Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters should be made by an affirmative vote of seven members.

3. Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters should be made by an affirmative vote of seven members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VIII, Section A and under the second sentence of paragraph 1 of Chapter VIII, Section C, a party to a dispute should abstain from voting.

Further information as to arrangements will be transmitted subsequently.

In the event that the Government of _____________ desires in advance of the Conference to present views or comments concerning the proposals, the Government of the United States of America will be pleased to transmit such views and comments to the other participating Governments.

Territorial trusteeship

It was agreed that the five Nations which will have permanent seats on the Security Council should consult each other prior to the United Nations Conference on the question of territorial trusteeship.

The acceptance of this recommendation is subject to its being made clear that territorial trusteeship will only apply to (a) existing mandates of the League of Nations; (b) territories detached from the enemy as a result of the present war; (c) any other territory which might voluntarily be placed under trusteeship; and (d) no discussion of actual territories is contemplated at the forthcoming United Nations Conference or in the preliminary consultations, and it will be a matter for subsequent agreement which territories within the above categories will be placed under trusteeship.

II. Declaration on liberated Europe

The following declaration has been approved:

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 re-building 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 co-operation 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.

III. Dismemberment of Germany

It was agreed that Article 12 (a) of the Surrender Terms for Germany should be amended to read as follows:

The United Kingdom, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics shall possess supreme authority with respect to Germany. In the exercise of such authority they will take such steps, including the complete disarmament, demilitarisation and the dismemberment of Germany as they deem requisite for future peace and security.

The study of the procedure for the dismemberment of Germany was referred to a Committee, consisting of Mr. Eden (Chairman), Mr. Winant and Mr. Gousev. This body would consider the desirability of associating with it a French representative.

IV. Zone of occupation for the French and Control Council for Germany

It was agreed that a zone in Germany, to be occupied by the French Forces, should be allocated to France. This zone would be formed out of the British and American zones and its extent would be settled by the British and Americans in consultation with the French Provisional Government.

It was also agreed that the French Provisional Government should be invited to become a member of the Allied Control Council for Germany.

V. Reparation

The following protocol has been approved:

1. Germany must pay in kind for the losses caused by her to the Allied nations in the course of the war. Reparations are to be received in the first instance by those countries which have borne the main burden of the war, have suffered the heaviest losses and have organised victory over the enemy.

2. Reparation in kind is to be exacted from Germany in three following forms:

   a) Removals within 2 years from the surrender of Germany or the cessation of organised resistance from the national wealth of Germany located on the territory of Germany herself as well as outside her territory (equipment, machine-tools, ships, rolling stock, German investments abroad, shares of industrial, transport and other enterprises in Germany etc.), these removals to be carried out chiefly for purpose of destroying the war potential of Germany.

   b) Annual deliveries of goods from current production for a period to be fixed.

   c) Use of German labour.

3. For the working out on the above principles of a detailed plan for exaction of reparation from Germany an Allied Reparation Commission will be set up in Moscow. It will consist of three representatives—one from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, one from the United Kingdom and one from the United States of America.

4. With regard to the fixing of the total sum of the reparation as well as the distribution of it among the countries which suffered from the German aggression the Soviet and American delegations agreed as follows:

The Moscow Reparation Commission should take in its initial studies as a basis for discussion the suggestion of the Soviet Government that the total sum of the reparation in accordance with the points (a) and (b) of the paragraph 2 should be 20 billion dollars and that 50% of it should go to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The British delegation was of the opinion that pending consideration of the reparation question by the Moscow Reparation Commission no figures of reparation should be mentioned.

The above Soviet-American proposal has been passed to the Moscow Reparation Commission as one of the proposals to be considered by the Commission.

VI. Major war criminals

The Conference agreed that the question of the major war criminals should be the subject of enquiry by the three Foreign Secretaries for report in due course after the close of the Conference.

VII. Poland

The following Declaration on Poland was agreed by the Conference:

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 the Western part of Poland. The Provisional Government which is now functioning in Poland should therefore be reorganised 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 authorised 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 reorganisation 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 and 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 USSR, which now maintains diplomatic relations with the present Provisional Government of Poland, and the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the USA 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 kilometres in favour of Poland. They recognise 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.

VIII. Yugoslavia

It was agreed to recommend to Marshal Tito and to Dr. Subasic:

(a) that the Tito-Subasic Agreement should immediately be put into effect and a new Government formed on the basis of the Agreement.

(b) that as soon as the new Government has been formed it should declare:

• (i) that the Anti-Fascist Assembly of National Liberation (AUNOJ) will be extended to include members of the last Yugoslav Skupstina who have not compromised themselves by collaboration with the enemy, thus forming a body to be known as a temporary Parliament and

• (ii) that legislative acts passed by the Anti-Fascist Assembly of National Liberation (AUNOJ) will be subject to subsequent ratification by a Constituent Assembly; and that this statement should be published in the communique of the Conference.

IX. Italo-Yugoslav frontier, Italo-Austria frontier

Notes on these subjects were put in by the British delegation and the American and Soviet delegations agreed to consider them and give their views later.

X. Yugoslav-Bulgarian relations

There was an exchange of views between the Foreign Secretaries on the question of the desirability of a Yugoslav-Bulgarian pact of alliance. The question at issue was whether a state still under an armistice regime could be allowed to enter into a treaty with another state. Mr. Eden suggested that the Bulgarian and Yugoslav Governments should be informed that this could not be approved. Mr. Stettinius suggested that the British and American Ambassadors should discuss the matter further with M. Molotov in Moscow. M. Molotov agreed with the proposal of Mr. Stettinius.

XI. South-Eastern Europe

The British Delegation put in notes for the consideration of their colleagues on the following subjects:
(a) the Control Commission in Bulgaria
(b) Greek claims upon Bulgaria, more particularly with reference to reparations.
(c) Oil equipment in Roumania.

XII. Iran

Mr. Eden, Mr. Stettinius and M. Molotov exchanged views on the situation in Iran. It was agreed that this matter should be pursued through the diplomatic channel.

XIII. Meetings of the three Foreign Secretaries

The Conference agreed that permanent machinery should be set up for consultation between the three Foreign Secretaries; they should meet as often as 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.

XIV. The Montreux Convention and the Straits

It was agreed that at the next meeting of the three Foreign Secretaries to be held in London, they should consider proposals which it was understood the Soviet Government would put forward in relation to the Montreux Convention and report to their Governments. The Turkish Government should be informed at the appropriate moment.

The foregoing Protocol was approved and signed by the three Foreign Secretaries at the Crimean Conference, February 11, 1945.

E R STETTINIUS JR
В МОЛОТОВ
ANTHONY EDEN

[NormanStewart]

Protocol on the Talks Between the Heads of the Three Governments at the Crimean Conference on the Question of the German Reparation in Kind

The Heads of the three governments agreed as follows:

1. Germany must pay in kind for the losses caused by her to the Allied nations in the course of the war. Reparation are to be received in the first instance by those countries which have borne the main burden of the war, have suffered the heaviest losses and have organised victory over the enemy.

2. Reparation in kind are to be exacted from Germany in three following forms:

   a) Removals within 2 years from the surrender of Germany or the cessation of organised resistance from the national wealth of Germany located on the territory of Germany herself as well as outside her territory (equipment, machine-tools, ships, rolling stock, German investments abroad, shares of industrial, transport and other enterprises in Germany etc.), these removals to be carried out chiefly for purpose of destroying the war potential of Germany.

   b) Annual deliveries of goods from current production for a period to be fixed.

   c) Use of German labour.

3. For the working out on the above principles of a detailed plan for exaction of reparation from Germany an Allied Reparation Commission will be set up in Moscow. It will consist of three representatives – one from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, one from the United Kingdom and one from the United States of America.

4. With regard to the fixing of the total sum of the reparation as well as the distribution of it among the countries which suffered from the German aggression the Soviet and American delegations agreed as follows:

The Moscow Reparation Commission should take in its initial studies as a basis for discussion the suggestion of the Soviet Government that the total sum of the reparation in accordance with the points (a) and (b) of the paragraph 2 should be 20 billion dollars and that 50% of it should go to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The British delegation was of the opinion that pending consideration of the reparation question by the Moscow Reparation Commission no figures of reparation should be mentioned.

The above Soviet-American proposal has been passed to the Moscow Reparation Commission as one of the proposals to be considered by the Commission.

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT
И. СТАЛИН

February 11, 1945

[NormanStewart]

Agreement Regarding Entry of the Soviet Union into the War Against Japan

Top secret

Agreement

The leaders of the three Great Powers – the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain – have agreed that in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe has terminated the Soviet Union shall enter into the war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condition that:

1. The status quo in Outer-Mongolia (The Mongolian People’s Republic) shall be preserved;

2. The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored, viz:

   (a) the southern part of Sakhalin as well as all the islands adjacent to it shall be returned to the Soviet Union,

   (b) the commercial port of Dairen shall be internationalized, the preeminent interests of the Soviet Union in this port being safeguarded and the lease of Port Arthur as a naval base of the USSR restored,

   (c) the Chinese-Eastern Railroad and the South-Manchurian Railroad which provides an outlet to Dairen shall be jointly operated by the establishment of a joint Soviet-Chinese Company it being understood that the preeminent interests of the Soviet Union shall be safeguarded and that China shall retain full sovereignty in Manchuria;

3. The Kuril Islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union.

It is understood, that the agreement concerning Outer-Mongolia and the ports and railroads referred to above will require concurrence of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek. The President will take measures in order to obtain this concurrence on advice from Marshal Stalin.

The Heads of the three Great Powers have agreed that these claims of the Soviet Union shall be unquestionably fulfilled after Japan has been defeated.

For its part the Soviet Union expresses its readiness to conclude with the National Government of China a pact of friendship and alliance between the USSR and China in order to render assistance to China with its armed forces for the purpose of liberating China from the Japanese yoke.

И. СТАЛИН
FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT
WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

February 11, 1945

[NormanStewart]

Agreement Relating to Prisoners of War and Civilians Liberated by Forces Operating Under Soviet Command and Forces Operating Under U.S. Command

February 11, 1945

The Government of the United States of America on the one hand and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the other hand, wishing to make arrangements for the care and repatriation of United States citizens freed by forces operating under Soviet command and for Soviet citizens freed by forces operating under United States command, have agreed as follows:

Article 1

All Soviet citizens liberated by the forces operating under United States command and all United States citizens liberated by the forces operating under Soviet command will, without delay after their liberation, be separated from enemy prisoners of war and will be maintained separately from them in camps or points of concentration until they have been handed over to the Soviet or United States authorities, as the case may be, at places agreed upon between those authorities.

United States and Soviet military authorities will respectively take the necessary measures for protection of camps, and points of concentration from enemy bombing, artillery fire, etc.

Article 2

The contracting parties shall ensure that their military authorities shall without delay inform the competent authorities of the other party regarding citizens of the other contracting party found by them, and will at the same time take the necessary steps to implement the provisions of this agreement. Soviet and United States repatriation representatives will have the right of immediate access into the camps and points of concentration where their citizens are located and they will have the right to appoint the internal administration and set up the internal discipline and management in accordance with the military procedure and laws of their country.

Facilities will be given for the despatch or transfer of officers of their own nationality to camps or points of concentration where liberated members of the respective forces are located and there are insufficient officers. The outside protection of and access to and from the camps or points of concentration will be established in accordance with the instructions of the military commander in whose zone they are located, and the military commander shall also appoint a commandant, who shall have the final responsibility for the overall administration and discipline of the camp or point concerned.

The removal of camps as well as the transfer from one camp to another of liberated citizens will be effected by agreement with the competent Soviet or United States authorities. The removal of camps and transfer of liberated citizens may, in exceptional circumstances, also be effected without preliminary agreement provided the competent authorities are immediately notified of such removal or transfer with a statement of the reasons. Hostile propaganda directed against the contracting parties or against any of the United Nations will not be permitted.

Article 3

The competent United States and Soviet authorities will supply liberated citizens with adequate food, clothing, housing and medical attention both in camps or at points of concentration and en route, and with transport until they are handed over to the Soviet or United States authorities at places agreed upon between those authorities. The standards of such food, clothing, housing and medical attention shall, subject to the provisions of Article 8, be fixed on a basis for privates, non-commissioned officers and officers. The basis fixed for civilians shall as far as possible be the same as that fixed for privates.

The contracting parties will not demand compensation for these or other similar services which their authorities may supply respectively to liberated citizens of the other contracting party.

Article 4

Each of the contracting parties shall be at liberty to use in agreement with the other party such of its own means of transport as may be available for the repatriation of its citizens held by the other contracting party. Similarly each of the contracting parties shall be at liberty to use in agreement with the other party its own facilities for the delivery of supplies to its citizens held by the other contracting party.

Article 5

Soviet and United States military authorities shall make such advances on behalf of their respective governments to liberated citizens of the other contracting party as the competent Soviet and United States authorities shall agree upon beforehand.

Advances made in currency of any enemy territory or in currency of their occupation authorities shall not be liable to compensation.

In the case of advances made in currency of liberated non-enemy territory, the Soviet and United States Governments will effect, each for advances made to their citizens necessary settlements with the Governments of the territory concerned, who will be informed of the amount of their currency paid out for this purpose.

Article 6

Ex-prisoners of war and civilians of each of the contracting parties may, until their repatriation, be employed in the management, maintenance and administration of the camps or billets in which they are situated. They may also be employed on a voluntary basis on other work in the vicinity of their camps in furtherance of the common war effort in accordance with agreements to be reached between the competent Soviet and United States authorities. The question of payment and conditions of labour shall be determined by agreement between these authorities. It is understood that liberated members of the respective forces will be employed in accordance with military standards and procedure and under the supervision of their own officers.

Article 7

The contracting parties shall, wherever necessary, use all practicable means to ensure the evacuation to the rear of these liberated citizens. They also undertake to use all practicable means to transport liberated citizens to places to be agreed upon where they can be handed over to the Soviet or United States authorities respectively. The handing over of these liberated citizens shall in no way be delayed or impeded by the requirements of their temporary employment.

Article 8

The contracting parties will give the fullest possible effect to the foregoing provisions of this Agreement, subject only to the limitations in detail and from time to time of operational, supply and transport conditions in the several theatres.

Article 9

This Agreement shall come into force on signature.

Done at the Crimea in duplicate and in the English and Russian languages, both being equally authentic, this eleventh day of February, 1945.

For the Government of the United States of America
JOHN R DEANE, Major General, USA

For the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Генерал-Лейтенант ГРЫЗЛОВ

[NormanStewart]

Log of the Trip

Sunday, February 11, 1945

1130: The President, accompanied by Mrs. Boettiger, took a jeep ride through the grounds and gardens of Livadia. Before he returned to his quarters he also inspected the U.S. Naval seaman guard which was drawn up outside the palace at the time.

1200: The Eighth Formal Meeting of the Crimea Conference was convened in the grand ballroom of Livadia. Present:

For the U.S.	For Great Britain	For the USSR
The President.	The Prime Minister.	Marshal Stalin.
Mr. Stettinius.	Mr. Eden.	Mr. Molotov.
Admiral Leahy.	Mr. Cadogan.	Mr. Vyshinski.
Mr. Hopkins.	Mr. Clark Kerr.	Mr. Maisky.
Mr. Harriman.	Mr. Jebb.	Mr. Gousev.
Mr. Matthews.	Mr. Bridges.	Mr. Gromyko.
Mr. Bohlen.	Mr. Wilson.	Mr. Pavlov.
Mr. Hiss.	Major Birse.
Mr. Foote.	Mr. Dixon.

The conference recessed at 1250.

1300: The President was host at luncheon at Livadia to the Prime Minister, Marshal Stalin, Mr. Stettinius, Mr. Eden, Mr. Molotov, Mr. Harriman, Mr. Clark Kerr, Mr. Cadogan, Major Birse, Mr. Bohlen and Mr. Pavlov.

Conference discussions continued at the lunch table under 1545, at which time the Crimea Conference formally adjourned.

1555: Marshal Stalin, after having bade the President and members of his party goodbye, left Livadia by motor for Koreiz Villa. Before the Marshal left Livadia the President presented to him for further delivery the following decorations that had been awarded by the United States to officers of the Soviet Forces:

• Legion of Merit (Degree of Chief Commander) for Marshal Vasilevsky, Chief of Staff of the Red Army;
• Legion of Merit (Degree of Chief Commander) for Marshal Novikov, Commanding General of the Red Air Force;
• Legion of Merit (Degree of Commander) for Colonel General Repin;
• Legion of Merit (Degree of Commander) for Lieutenant General Grendall;
• Legion of Merit (Degree of Commander) for Lieutenant General Krolenko;
• Legion of Merit (Degree of Commander) for Major General Levandovich;
• Legion of Merit (Degree of Commander) for Major General Slavin; and
• Legion of Merit (Degree of Commander) for Colonel Byaz.

As we were leaving Livadia the President was presented numerous gift packages by the Soviet Authorities at the palace, as also were various other members of the party. These packages contained vodka, several kinds of wine, champagne, caviar, butter, oranges and tangerines.

General Comment
The weather at Livadia was most pleasant during our visit. The average temperature was 40. The Russians accredited the good weather to the President and called it “Roosevelt weather.” For several days preceding our arrival the weather had been anything but favorable. At exactly the “right time,” however, it cleared and remained so generally throughout our stay at Yalta.

During the period 4-11 February, daily meetings of the three Foreign Secretaries were held in addition to their attendance at the major conferences. Livadia, Vorontsov and Koreiz shared these Foreign Secretary meetings.

Our mail was brought to Yalta by Joint Chief of Staff couriers who used the regular Air Transport Command facilities from Washington to Cairo and the shuttle service from Cairo to Saki. The average time employed for the journey from Washington to Conference Headquarters was four days.

The British party had daily mail service. Their mail was flown directly from London to Saki in “Mosquito” type aircraft, the flights following a direct course between the two points involved.

Our radio communications were handled by a two-way high-speed circuit set up between Radio Washington and the Catoctin (at Sevastopol), using Navy Radio Oran as an intermediate relay station. The messages were broadcast over the Washington “FOX” schedules and when necessary rebroadcast by Radio Oran. Communication between the Catoctin and Livadia was by a land line or by telephone.

A number of U.S. Naval personnel who speak Russian were assembled by Admiral Hewitt and sent to Yalta in the Catoctin. This team proved most helpful in working with the Soviets to complete the preparations for our visit and they were also very helpful to us as interpreters during our eight days at Livadia. They were:

• Lieut. George Scherbatoff, USNR
• Lieut. Dimitri P. Keusseff, USNR
• Lieut. C. Norris Houghton, USNR
• Lieut. Michael Kimack, USNR
• Lt (jg) John Cheplick, USNR
• Lt (jg) John P. Romanov, USN
• Andrew M. Bacha, Chief Yeoman, USNR
• Andrew Sawchuck, Yeoman 2/c, USNR
• Harry Sklenar, Yeoman 2/c, USNR
• Alexis Nestoruk, Yeoman 2/c, USNR
• Nickolas Korniloff, Yeoman 3/c, USNR
• Russel Koval, Yeoman 3/c, USNR

1600: The President and members of his party left Livadia by motor for Sevastopol. Mr. Harriman and Miss Harriman accompanied the President. Mr. Early remained behind at Livadia to iron out several details concerning the joint communiqué that had been agreed to by the President, the Prime Minister and Marshal Stalin at the final meeting of the Crimea Conference. Mr. Hopkins, Sergeant Hopkins, Mr. Bohlen, Colonel Park, Major Putnam, Lieutenant Kloock, Chief Warrant Officer Stoner, Agents Deckard, Hastings and Wood left Livadia by motor for Simferopol where they spent the night on a special sleeper-train that had been parked there by the Soviets for our convenience.

The drive to Sevastopol was over high and winding mountain roads along the Black Sea coast. It took us over the battlefield, nearly a century old, where the historic Light Brigade made its famous charge in the Crimean War of 1854-1856, and for many miles led through territory bitterly contested by the Russians and Germans in the recent Crimean campaign.

1840: The President and his party arrived in Sevastopol and proceeded to the USS Catoctin, a naval auxiliary moored at the Soviet naval base.

It was dusk when we arrived in Sevastopol but the President saw scenes of stark destruction there wrought by the Germans. The city was virtually leveled to the ground except for the walls of homes and other buildings which the mines, bombs and shells in recent battles left standing like billboards – mute testimony of the horrorful wanton Nazi vengeance. Of thousands of buildings in the city, the President was told that only six were left in useful condition when the Germans fled.

Distance traveled, Livadia to Sevastopol, 80 miles.

1855: The President and his party went on board the Catoctin where they spent the night. The Catoctin manned the rail and accorded the President full honors as he went on board.

The Catoctin served a delicious steak dinner to us, which was a real treat for us after eight days of Russian fare.

After dinner Admiral McIntire, Admiral Brown, Mrs. Boettiger and Miss Harriman attended a concert given in Sevastopol by the members of the band of the Black Sea Naval Base.

2130: Mr. Early arrived on board the Catoctin from Livadia and the encoding and radio transmission of the Conference communiqué was started. The communiqué was to be released simultaneously in Washington, London, and Moscow at 1630 tomorrow, February 12. Lieutenant Bogue and Mr. Cornelius and the communication force of the Catoctin are to be commended for the expeditious manner in which this communiqué was encoded and transmitted to Washington. See Annex A for complete text of the communiqué.

Captain C. O. Comp, USN, commanded the Catoctin. Her Executive Officer was Lieutenant Commander W. S. Dufton, USN, and her Supply Officer Lieutenant Commander E. C. Laflen, (SC), USN.

[NormanStewart]

Oberdonau-Zeitung (February 12, 1945)

Stalin hat volle Freiheit in ganz Europa

Hinter den Kulissen der Konferenz – Polen und Balten ans Messer geliefert

Lissabon, 11. Februar – „Sowjetrussland kann nach dem Kriege den Balkan, Ungarn, Österreich, die Tschechoslowakei, Polen und Deutschland beherrschen,“ so heißt es in dem Artikel einer Neuyorker Zeitung über die gegenwärtigen Verhandlungen der Dreimächtekonferenz. Stalin habe bereits Tausende von Kommissaren ausbilden lassen, die die Verwaltung in Deutschland übernehmen sollten. Der größte Teil Europas werde infolgedessen von ihm abhängen.

Die Selbstverständlichkeit, mit der hier der größte Teil Europas den Bolschewisten ohne weiteres zu Füssen gelegt wird, kommt in den übrigen Streitfragen zum Ausdruck, die in dem Artikel erwähnt werden. So wird zur Lösung der polnischen. Frage als einzige Bedingung vorgeschlagen, dass ein Londoner Pole, und zwar der nicht mehr der Londoner Schattenregierung angehörige Mikolajczyk, in den Lublin-Ausschuss polnischer Bolschewisten übernommen werde, worauf die angelsächsischen Mächte bereit sein würden, die übrigen Londoner Polen aufzugeben und den Lublin-Ausschuss als polnische Regierung anzuerkennen.

Noch einfacher gedenkt man es sich mit den baltischen Staaten zu machen, deren Vertreter in England und den Vereinigten Staaten noch einen gewissen diplomatischen Rang einnehmen. Der Artikel schlägt als einseitiges Zugeständnis der angelsächsischen Mächte vor, dass diese Estland, Lettland und Litauen als Teil der Sowjetunion anerkennen möchten.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 12, 1945)

Big Three agrees on plan to rule ‘doomed’ Germany

Poland to receive government based on national unity

WASHINGTON (UP) – The Big Three has agreed on plans for enforcing unconditional surrender terms on Germany, the calling of a United Nations’ conference on world security organization problems, and future quarterly meetings of their foreign secretaries.

This was announced in a communiqué issued by the White House. It said the meeting lasted eight days and was held in the Russian Crimea. The meeting has now been concluded.

President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Marshal Joseph Stalin also agreed to form a new government for Poland to be called the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity.

Their joint communiqué declared that in the future the Big Three powers will “immediately consult” on problems arising in any European liberated state or former Axis satellite.

The plans for occupation and control of Germany were agreed upon.

They provide control of the Big Three powers, but France will be invited to take over a zone of occupation and become a fourth member of a Central Control Commission.

The commission will have headquarters in Berlin and will include representatives of all the big powers.

The communiqué, six pages long, was divided into nine sections.

The first, devoted to the military aspects of the conference, said that the big three meeting had been “most satisfactory from every point of view” and had resulted in an interchange of the fullest information.

It promised “new and even more powerful blows” to be launched by the United Nations armies and air forces into the heart of Germany from the east, west, north and south.

The communiqué said:

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 communiqué revealed that the three leaders had solved the major unfinished business of the Dumbarton Oaks World Organization Conference – the voting procedure question – but gave no details of the solution.

The text of the proposals on voting procedure will be announced as soon as China and France have been consulted.

The Big Three agreed that the full United Nations Conference to set up the world organization should meet at San Francisco April 25.

The communiqué said a new situation had been created in Poland as a result of her “complete liberation by the Red Army” and called for establishment of a more broadly based provisional government in that country.

It proposed reorganization of the provisional government which is now functioning in Poland on “a broader democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles abroad.”

The three leaders said they considered 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 territory in the north and west as compensation.

The Curzon Line would give Russia a substantial amount of Polish territory.

The final delimitation of the western Polish frontier should await the peace conference, they said.

The Big Three recommended to Marshal Tito and Premier Ivan Subasic of Yugoslavia that the agreement between them should be put into effect immediately and a new government formed on that basis. They further recommended that the new government should immediately declare extension of the anti-Fascist Assembly to include members of the last Yugoslav Parliament “who have not compromised themselves by collaboration with the enemy”

The communiqué said the three leaders had considered the question of damage caused by Germany and recognized it as “just” that she be obliged to make compensation in kind “to the greatest extent possible.”

A commission will be established in Moscow to consider the extent and methods for compensating such damage.

The Big Three declaration on Liberated Europe said in part:

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 domestic means their pressing political and economic problems.

The Big Three promised jointly to assist the people of Europe “to establish conditions of internal peace; to carry out emergency measures for relief of distressed people; to form interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic elements in the population and pledge to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of governments responsive to the will of the peoples, and to facilitate when necessary the holding of such elections.”

They affirmed “our determination to build with other peace-loving nations world order under law, dedicated to peace, security, freedom and general well-being of all mankind.”

The three powers expressed the hope that France would be associated with them in the procedure suggested, apparently recalling Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s recent assertion that France would not be bound by any decisions reached at the Big Three conference in her absence.

The Big Three said it was their “inflexible purpose” to destroy German militarism and Nazism so that Germany will never again disturb the peace. It would do it this way:

We are determined to disarm and disband all German forces; break up for all time the German General Staff that has repeatedly tried the resurgence of German militarism; remove or destroy all German military equipment; eliminate or control all German industry that can be used for military production; bring all war criminals to just and swift punishment and exact reparation in kind of 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 with such other measures in Germany as may be necessary to the future peace and safety of the world.

The Big Three said it does not intend to destroy the future of Germany. but it said that only with the elimination of Nazism and militarism could there be hope for “a decent life for Germans, and a place for them in the comity of nations.”

[NormanStewart]

Komsomolskaya Pravda (February 13, 1945)*

Конференция руководителей трёх союзных держав-Советского Союза, Соединённых Штатов Америки и Великобритании в Крыму

Советская молодёжь вместе со всем советским народом горячо приветствует исторические решения конференции руководителей трёх союзных держав-Советского Союза, Соединённых Штатов Америки и Великобритании в Крыму.

Решения Крымской Конференции ярко демонстрируют единство великих союзников в ведении войны до полного разгрома нацистской Германии и единство в организации прочного и длительного мира.

За последние 8 дней в Крыму состоялась конференция руководителей трёх союзных держав – Премьер-Министра Великобритании г-на У. Черчилля, Президента Соединённых Штатов Америки г-на Ф. Д. Рузвельта и Председателя Совета Народных Комиссаров СССР И. В. Сталина при участии Министров Иностранных Дел, Начальников штабов и других советников.

Кроме Глав трёх Правительств, следующие лица приняли участие в конференции:

от Советского Союза – Народный Комиссар Иностранных Дел СССР В. М. Молотов, Народный Комиссар Военно-Морского Флота Н. Г. Кузнецов, Заместитель Начальника Генерального Штаба Красной Армия генерал армии А. И. Антонов, Заместители. Народного Комиссара Иностранных Дел СССР А. Я. Вышинский и И. М. Майский, Маршал Авиации С. А. Худяков, Посол в Великобритании Ф. Т. Гусев, Посол в США А. А. Громыко;

от Соединённых Штатов – Государственный Секретарь г-н Э. Стеттиниус, Начальник Штаба Президента адмирал флота В. Леги, Специальный Помощник Президента г-н Г. Гопкинс, Директор Департамента Военной Мобилизации судья Дж. Бирнс, Начальник Штаба Американской Армин генерал армии Дж. Маршалл, Главнокомандующий Военно-Морскими Силами США адмирал флота Э. Кинг, Начальник Снабжения Американской Армии генерал-лейтенант Б. Сомервелл, Администратор по военно-морским перевозкам вице-

адмирал Е. Ланд, генерал-майор Л. Кутер, Посол в СССР г-н В. Гарриман, Директор Европейского Отдела Государственного Департамента г-н Ф. Маттьюс, Заместитель Директора Канцелярии по специальным политическим делам Государственного Департамента г-н А. Хисс, Помощник Государственного Секретаря г-н Ч. Болен, вместе с политическими, военными и техническими советниками;

от Великобритании – Министр Иностранных Дел г-н А. Иден, Министр Военного Транспорта лорд Лезерс, Посол в СССР г-н А. Керр, Заместитель Министра Иностранных Дел г-н А. Кадоган, Секретарь Военного Кабинета г-н Э. Бриджес, Начальник Имперского Генерального Штаба фельдмаршал А. Брук, Начальник Штаба Воздушных Сил Маршал Авиации Ч. Портал, Первый Морской Лорд адмирал флота Э. Кеннингхэм, Начальник Штаба Министра Обороны генерал Г. Измей, Верховный Союзный Командующий на Средиземноморском театре фельдмаршал Александер, Начальник Британской Военной Миссии в Вашингтоне фельдмаршал Вильсон, член Британской Военной Миссии в Вашингтоне адмирал Сомервилл, вместе с военными и дипломатическими советниками.

О результатах работы Крымской Конференции Президент США, Председатель Совета Народных Комиссаров Союза Советских Социалистических Республик и Премьер-Министр Великобритании сделали следующее заявление:

I. Разгром Германии

Мы рассмотрели н определили военные планы трёх союзных держав в целях окончательного разгрома общего врага. Военные штабы трёх союзных наций в продолжение всей Конференции ежедневно встречались на совещаниях. Эти совещания были в высшей степени удовлетворительны со всех точек зрения и привели к более тесной координации военных усилий трёх союзников, чем это было когда-либо раньше. Был произведён взаимный обмен самой полной информацией. Были полностью согласованы и детальное спланированы сроки, размеры и координация новых и ещё более мощных ударов, которые будут нанесены в сердце Германии нашими армиями и военно-воздушными снламн с востока, запада, севера и юга.

Наши совместные военные планы станут известны только тогда, когда мы их осуществим, но мы уверены, что очень тесное рабочее сотрудничество между тремя нашими штабами, достигнутое на настоящей Конференции, поведёт к ускорению конца войны. Совещания трёх наших штабов будут продолжаться всякий раз, как в этом возникнет надобность.

Нацистская Германия обречена. Германский народ, пытаясь продолжать своё безнадёжное сопротивление, лишь делает для себя тяжелее цену своего поражения.

II. Оккупация Германии и контроль над ней

Мы договорились об общей политике и планах принудительного осуществления условий безоговорочной капитуляции, которые мы совместно предпишем нацистской Германии после того, как германское вооружённое сопротивление будет окончательно сокрушено. Эти условия не будут опубликованы, пока не будет достигнут полный разгром Германии. В соответствии с согласованным планом вооружённые Салы трёх держав будут занимать в Германии особые зоны. Планом предусмотрены координированная администрация и контроль, осуществляемые: через Центральную Контрольную Комиссию, состоящую из Главнокомандующих трёх держав, с местом пребывания в Берлине. Было решено, что Франция будет приглашена тремя державами, если она этого пожелает, взять на себя зону оккупации н участвовать в качестве четвёртого члена в Контрольной Комиссия. Размеры французской зоны будут согласованы между четырьмя заинтересованными Правительствами через их представителей в Европейской Консультативной Комиссии.

Нашей непреклонной целью является уничтожение германского милитаризма и нацизма и создание гарантии в том, что Германия никогда больше не будет в состоянии нарушить мир всего мира. Мы полны решимости разоружить н распустить все германские вооружённые силы, раз ин навсегда уничтожить германский генеральный штаб, который неоднократно содействовал возрождению германского милитаризма, из’ять или уничтожить все германское военное оборудование, ликвидировать или взять. под контроль всю германскую промышленность, которая могла бы быть использована для военного производства; подвергнуть всех преступников войны справедливому и быстрому наказанию и взыскать в натуре возмещение убытков за разрушения, причинённые немцами; стереть с лица земли нацистскую партию, нацистские законы, организации и учреждения; устранить всякое нацистское и милитаристское влияние из общественных учреждений, из культурной и экономической жизни германского народа и принять совместно такие другие меры к Германии, которые могут оказаться необходимыми для будущего мира и безопасности всего мира. В наши цели не входит уничтожение германского народа. Только тогда, когда нацизм и милитаризм будут искоренены, будет надежда на достойное существование для германского народа и место для него в сообществе наций.

III. Репарации с Германии

Мы обсудили вопрос об ущербе, причинённом в этой войне Германией союзным странам, ч признали справедливым обязать Германию возместить этот ущерб в натуре в максимально возможной мере.

Будет создана Комиссия по возмещению убытков, которой поручается также рассмотреть вопрос о размерах и способах возмещения ущерба, причинённого Германией союзным странам. Комиссия будет работать в Москве.

IV. Конференция Об’единённых Наций

Мы решили в ближайшее время учредить совместно с нашими союзниками всеобщую международную организацию для поддержания мира и безопасности. Мы считаем, что это существенно как для предупреждения агрессии, так и для устранения политических, экономических и социальных причин войны путём тесного я постоянного сотрудничества всех миролюбивых народов.

Основы были заложены в Думбартон-Оксе. Однако, по важному вопросу о процедуре голосования там не было достигнуто соглашения. На настоящей Конференции удалось разрешить это затруднение. Мы согласились на том, что 25 апреля 1945 года в Сан-Франциско в Соединённых Штатах будет созвана Конференция Об’единённых Наций для того, чтобы подготовить Устав такой организации соответственно положениям, выработанным во время неофициальных переговоров в Думбартон-Оксе.

С Правительством Китая и Временным Правительством Франции будут немедленно проведены консультации и к ним будет направлено обращение принять участие совместно с правительствами Соединённых Штатов, Великобритании и Союза Советских Социалистических Республик в приглашении других стран на конференцию.

Как только консультации с Китаем и Францией будут закончены, текст предложений о процедуре голосования будет опубликован.

V. Декларация об освобождённой Европе

Мы составили и подписали Декларацию об освобождённой Европе. Эта Декларация предусматривает согласование политики трёх держав н совместные их действия в разрешении политических и экономических проблем освобождённой Европы в соответствии с демократическими принципами. Ниже приводится текст Декларации:

Премьер Союза Советских Социалистических Республик, Премьер-Министр Соединённого Королевства н Президент Соединённых Штатов Америки консультировались между собой в общих интересах народов своих стран и народов освобождённой Европы. Они совместно заявляют о том, что они договорились между собой согласовывать в течение периода временной неустойчивости в освобождённой Европе политику своих трёх Правительств в деле помощи народам, освобождённым от господства нацистской Германии, и народам бывших государств – сателлитов оси в Европе ори разрешении ими демократическими способами их насущных политических и экономических проблем.

Установление порядка в Европе и переустройство национально-экономической жизни должно быть достигнуто таким путём, который позволит освобождённым народам уничтожить последние следы нацизма и фашизма и создать демократические учреждения тю их собственному выбору. В соответствии с принципом Атлантической хартии о праве всех народов избирать форму правительства, при котором они будут жить, должно быть обеспечено восстановление суверенных прав и самоуправления для тех народов, которые были лишены этого агрессивными нациями путём насилия.

Для улучшения условий, при которых освобождённые народы могли бы осуществлять эти права, три Правительства будут совместно помогать народам в любом освобождённом европейском государстве или в бывшем государстве – сателлите оси в Европе, где, по их мнению, обстоятельства этого потребуют: a) создавать условия внутреннего мира; b) проводить неотложные мероприятия по оказанию помощи нуждающимся народам; c) создавать временные правительственные власти, широко представляющие все демократические элементы населения и обязанные возможно скорее установить путём свободных выборов правительства, отвечающие воле народа, и d) способствовать, где это окажется необходимым, проведению таких выборов.

Три Правительства будут консультироваться с другими об’единенными нациями и с временными властями или с другими правительствами в Европе, когда будут рассматриваться вопросы, в которых они прямо заинтересованы.

Когда, по мнению трёх Правительств, условия в любом европейском освобождённом государстве или в любом из бывших государств – сателлитов оси в Европе сделают такие действия необходимыми, они будут немедленно консультироваться между собой о необходимых мерах по осуществлению совместной ответственности, установленной в настоящей Декларации.

Этой Декларацией мы снова подтверждаем нашу веру в принципы Атлантической хартии, нашу верность Декларации Об’единённых Наций и нашу решимость создать, в сотрудничестве с другими миролюбивыми нациями, построенный на принципах права международный порядок, посвящённый миру, безопасности, свободе и всеобщему благосостоянию человечества.

Издавая настоящую Декларацию, три державы выражают надежду, что Временное Правительство Французской Республики может присоединиться к ним в предложенной процедуре.

VI. О Польше

Мы собрались на Крымскую Конференцию разрешить наши разногласия по польскому вопросу. Мы полностью обсудили все аспекты польского вопроса. Мы вновь подтвердили наше общее желаннее видеть установленной сильную, свободную, независимую и демократическую Польшу, и в результате наши х переговоров мы согласились об условиях, на которых новое Временное Польское Правительство Национального Единства будет сформировано таким путём, чтобы получить признание со стороны трёх главных держав.

Достигнуто следующее соглашение:

Новое положение создалось в Польше в результате полного освобождения её Красной Армией. Это требует создания Временного Польского Правительства, которое имело бы более широкую базу, чем это было возможно раньше, до недавнего освобождения западной части Польши. Действующее ныне в Польше Временное Правительство должно быть поэтому реорганизовано на более широкой демократической базе с включением демократических деятелей из самой Польши и поляков из-за границы. Это новое Правительство должно затем называться Польским Временным Правительством Национального Единства.

В. М. Молотов, г-н В. А. Гарриман и сэр Арчибальд К. Керр уполномочиваются, как Комиссия, проконсультироваться в Москве в первую очередь с членами теперешнего Временного Правительства и с другими польскими демократическими лидерами как из самой Польши, так и из-за границы, имея в виду реорганизацию теперешнего Правительства на указанных выше основах. Это Польское Временное Правительство Национального Единства должно принять обязательство провести свободные и ничем не воспрепятствованные выборы, как можно скорее, на основе всеобщего избирательного права при тайном голосовании. В этих выборах все антинацистские и демократические партии должны иметь право принимать участие и выставлять кандидатов.

Когда Польское Временное Правительство Национального Единства будет сформировано должным образом в соответствии с вышеуказанным, Правительство СССР, которое поддерживает в настоящее время дипломатические отношения с нынешним Временным Правительством Польши, Правительство Соединённого Королевства и Правительство США установят дипломатические отношения с новым Польским Временным Правительством Национального Единства и обменяются Послами, по докладам которых соответствующие. Правительства будут осведомлены о положении ы Польше.

Главы трёх правительств считают, что восточная граница Полышн должна итта вдоль линии Керзона с отступлениями от неё в некоторых районах от пяти до восьми километров в пользу Польши. Главы трёх правительств признают, что Польша должна получить существенное приращение территории на севере и на западе. Они <читают, что по вопросу о размере этих приращений в надлежащее время будет спрошено мнение нового Польского Правительства Национального Единства н что, вслед за тем, окончательное определение западной границы Польши будет отложено до мирной конференции.

VII. О Югославии

Мы признали необходимым рекомендовать маршалу Тито и д-ру Шубашичу немедленно ввести в действие заключённое между ними Соглашение и образовать Временное Об’единенное Правительство на основе этого Соглашения.

Было. решено также рекомендовать, чтобы новое Югославское Правительство, как только оно будет создано, заявило:

1. что Антифашистское Вече Национального Освобождения Югославии будет расширено за счёт включения членов последней югославской Скупщины, которые не скомпрометировали себя сотрудничеством с врагом и, таким образом, будет создан орган, именуемый Временным Парламентом;

2. что законодательные акты, принятые Антифашистским Вече Национального Освобождения, будут подлежать последующему утверждению Учредительным Собранием.

Был также сделан обший обзор других балканских вопросов.

VIII. Совещания Министров Иностранных Дел

В течение всей Конференции, кроме ежедневных совещаний Глав Правительств и Министров Иностранных Дел, каждый день имели место отдельные совещания трёх Министров Иностранных Дел с участием их советников.

Эти совещания оказались чрезвычайно полезными, и на Конференции было достигнуто соглашение о том, что должен быть создан постоянный механизм для

регулярной консультации между тремя Министрами Иностранных Дел. Поэтому Министры Иностранных Дел будут встречаться так часто, как это потребуется, вероятно, каждые 3 или 4 месяца. Эти совещания будут происходить поочерёдно в трёх столицах, причём первое совещание должно состояться в Лондоне после Конференции Об’единённых Наций по созданию международной организации безопасности.

IX. Единство в организации мира, как и в велении войны

Наше совещание в Крыму вновь подтвердило нашу общую решимость сохранить и усилить в предстоящий мирный период то единство целей и действий, которое сделало в современной войне победу возможной и несомненной для Об’единённых Наций. Мы верим, что это является священным обязательством наших Правительств перед своими народами, а также перед народами мира.

Только при продолжающемся и растущем сотрудничестве ин взаимопонимании между нашими тремя странами и между-всеми миролюбивыми народами может быть реализовано высшее стремление человечества — прочный и длительный мир, который должен, как говорится в Атлантической хартии – «обеспечить такое положение, при котором все люди во всех странах могли бы жить всю свою жизнь, не зная ни страха, ни нужды».

Победа в этой войне н образование предполагаемой международной организации предоставят самую большую возможность во всей истории человечества для, создания в ближайшие годы важнейших условий такого мира.

Уинстон ЧЕРЧИЛЛЬ
Франклин Д. РУЗВЕЛЬТ
И. СТАЛИН

[NormanStewart]

Völkischer Beobachter (February 13, 1945)

Kapitulationsbedingungen sind illusorisch

vm. Madrid, 12. Februar – Während unsere drei brutalsten Feinde darüber beraten, wie man das deutsche Volk, das man trotz wütender Anstrengungen auf dem Felde der Ehre nicht besiegen kann, auf dem Felde der Lüge psychologisch entmannen könnte (wie schon einmal 1918), äußern hier neutrale Beobachter Ansichten, die unserem Willen zum Durchhalten absolute innere und logische Berechtigung zusprechen und vor Jenen falschen Perspektiven warnen, unter denen im alliierten Lager wieder einmal, wie schon so oft, verfrüht und unberechtigt das Thema „deutsche Kapitulation“ besprochen wird.

Manuel Aznar, wahrscheinlich der nüchternste und sachlichste militärische und politische Beobachter Spaniens wendet sich mit einem großen Aufsatz im Falangeorgan Arriba gegen die Ansicht, die Alliierten brauchten nur von der Casablanca-Formel der bedingungslosen Kapitulation herunterzusteigen und klare Kapitulationsbedingungen zu steilen, um Deutschland zur Waffenstreckung zu bewegen. Aznar erklärt wörtlich:

Man hat Deutschland erklärt, dass die Sowjetunion mehrere Millionen Deutsche für ihre Fabriken, Felder und Landstraßen als Arbeitstiere verlangt, dass Deutschland ohne Industrie bleiben soll und sich auf das Dasein eines kärglichen Agrarstaates beschränken muss. Man will ihm keine Handelsflotte und keinen zivilen Luftverkehr erlauben, man will sein Staatsgebiet in Stücke schlagen und diese unter die Siegerstaaten verteilen. Es soll unter internationale Kontrolle gestellt werden, damit seine Jugend sich vom Nationalsozialismus entgifte und die Kinder demokratische Wege zu wandeln begönnen. Kürzlich haben wir sogar gehört, dass es nützlich wäre, deutsche Frauen zur Aufzucht nach bevölkerungspolitisch schwachen Ländern zu entsenden.

Angesichts dieses Panoramas nimmt der Deutsche mit Recht an, dass es wenig Zweck hat, zwischen möglichen und tatsächlichen Kapitulationsbedingungen zu unterscheiden, weil sie auf das gleiche hinauslaufen und es gleichgültig bleibt, ob man das Schreckliche a priori oder a posteriori erfährt.

Aznar kommt daher zu dem Urteil, dass auch eine Politik mit Kapitulationsbedingungen illusorisch sei, weil Deutschland sie niemals annehmen werde. Wer Deutschland nach 1918 kennen gelernt habe, wundere sich gar nicht, dass die Erinnerung an jene Nachkriegszeit Schrecken einflösse. Dabei sei damals die territoriale und moralische Einheit des Reiches sowie Ehre und Ansehen seines Heeres gerettet worden, Größen, die heute bei einer Kapitulation, wie die Alliierten versicherten, für immer verloren gehen müssten. Gerade deshalb, so meint Aznar, halte er das Spiel mit Bedingungen für irrtümlich und illusorisch.

Doch begeht der spanische Journalist den Fehler aller Intellektuellen, nämlich zu glauben, dass wir ausschließlich aus den bösen Erinnerungen an Versailles oder aus der Erkenntnis der Vernichtungspläne unserer Feinde die Kraft zum Widerstand und zum Tragen der schweren Bürde des Schicksals beziehen. Er vergisst den Anschauungsunterricht der Gegenwart. Was haben schon Finnland, Italien, Rumänien, Bulgarien mit ihren Kapitulationen gerettet? Leiden diese Länder heute nicht mehr als damals, wo ihre Fahnen ihnen im Felde voraus wehten? Tod und Leid blieben gegenwärtig. Im Gegenteil: das Soldatensterben an den Fronten und der Zivilistenmord in den bombardierten Städten wurde vermehrt durch das Rasen der Blutgerichte und der Tschekas, durch den Hungertod, durch den Selbstmord der Verzweifelten. Der Tod fährt fort, die Substanz zu verschleißen, die man fetten wollte, indem man Ehre, Ideen und Würde preisgab. Wir aber wissen, dass nicht allein unser Leben als Menschen, die Existenz als Nation und die Reichsidee auf dem Spiele stehen, sondern auch die Werte unserer Revolution, die gesamte abendländische Kultur.

Man wird deshalb vergeblich die Lindenblattstelle des gehörnten Siegfried suchen, denn er hat diesmal gründlich im Drachenblut gebadet. Diese Tatsache wird, wie Aznars Ausführungen zeigen, bereits im Ausland richtig erkannt, während unsere Feinde mit Spekulationen auf eine geistige und moralische Minderwertigkeit fortfahren, die, wenn sie überhaupt noch nach unserer Revolution in Deutschland existiert hat, von ihnen mit ihrem Phosphorkrieg gegen Frauen und Kinder, mit ihren Vernichtungsplänen und ihrem abgrundtiefen Hass ein für alle Mal beseitigt worden ist. Sie suchen eine Angriffsfläche, die sie selbst zerstörten.

[NormanStewart]

Dardanellenfrage auf der Dreierkonferenz

Genf, 12. Februar – Der diplomatische Mitarbeiter der Sunday Times schreibt, in Ankara meine man, dass auf der Dreierkonferenz auch die Dardanellenfrage besprochen werde.

Man glaube, dass Moskau die Aufhebung aller Verkehrseinschränkungen durch den Bosporus und die Dardanellen sowie die Entmilitarisierung der Gebiete auf beiden Ufern verlangen werde. Dies würde das Ende der türkischen Herrschaft über die Dardanellen bedeuten.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (February 13, 1945)

GERMANS DENOUNCE ‘SATANIC’ PACT
Yalta program catches Nazis by surprise

‘Political murder,’ Goebbels’ boys cry

LONDON, England (UP) – German propagandists today called the Crimean declaration the “Program of the haters of Yalta.”

Germany “will smash this Satanic plan,” DNB promised.

After a lengthy delay in informing the German public of the nature of the Crimean communiqué, an official DNB News Agency dispatch was issued with instructions to German editors that it be headlined: “Germany Has to Be Exterminated.”

Caught off base

The DNB dispatch charged that President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Marshal Joseph Stalin had decided upon “new crimes against humanity.” It charged that the Crimean conferees were imbued “with the Spirit of Old Testament Jewish Hatred” and were attempting the “greatest political murder of all time.”

Apparently, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was caught off base as he had been busily warning the Reich to beware of a Wilsonian peace plea.

Even since the Big Three conference had been rumored, Goebbels had turned loose the full propaganda facilities inside Germany to warn the Reich against a Big Three appeal to the German people.

Expected honeyed plea

The Goebbels line was that the Big Three would issue a honeyed plea to Germany which would make the “unconditional surrender” doctrine sound more palatable. Goebbels warned the Nazis to beware of any such new “Wilsonian” tactics.

But when the Big Three communiqué failed to bear out this buildup, the Nazi propagandists were apparently at a loss how to present the grim news to the Nazi public. For hours after the news had been announced and Allied radios were blaring it into Germany on all available wavelengths the domestic Nazi radio made no mention of the Crimea conference.

The flat Big Three assertion that Germany is doomed appeared to have thrown a monkey-wretch into the usually well-oiled Nazi propaganda machinery.

Give gist of communiqué

For foreign consumption the Nazi propaganda displayed equal uncertainty.

Initial broadcasts merely gave the gist of the Crimea communiqué.

Later, Nazi commentators said the Big Three had confirmed their policy of “hate and destruction” toward Germany. Broadcasts beamed to the United States said that the Big Three had adopted the “Morgenthau plan for enslavement and destruction” of the Reich.

Other comments said the Big Three committed “the greatest political crime of all times.” They said it was “a super-Versailles that surpasses the old Versailles by 100 percent.”

Attack Polish solution

Broadcasts to Europe attacked the Polish solution and made sarcastic references to Allied plans for relief of liberated countries.

Berlin spokesmen railed at the Big Three plan to transfer German territory to Poland and declared jeeringly that “the bear’s skin is being divided before the bear is caught.”

“The arrogant authors of the communiqué must have realized themselves that the German answer to these songs of hate cannot be anything but fight,” one broadcaster said.

Allied transmitters in London, Moscow and elsewhere in and around the continent told Germany the story of the Big Three meeting in the official words of the communiqué, without elaborating on that announcement.

Japs give news

At intervals of an hour or less, German-speaking announcers broadcast the official statement by shortwave to Germany and Austria, interspersed by similar transmissions to other parts of the continent.

FCC monitors in New York said the Tokyo radio broadcast a factual summary of the communiqué late last night to Japs living in the Americas, but there was no indication that the Jap home public had yet been informed of the meeting.

Stockholm dispatches, meanwhile, said a flood of fantastic rumors had come out of Germany in the wake of the Big Three proclamation, most of them from dubious anti-Nazi sources.

Explosion in Berlin

Among the most lurid of these were reports that Adolf Hitler had resigned as Reich Chancellor in favor of Baron Franz von Papen; that Hitler and von Papen had received a peace delegate from the Vatican; that Gestapo agents were searching Berlin’s graveyards for secret arms caches after a series of mysterious explosions in the capital, and that the Fuehrer was preparing to launch gas warfare with a new “wonder gas."

More reliable reports circulating in Zurich said the Swiss minister to Berlin had left the German capital and that other neutral delegations were expected to follow very shortly, presumably because of the Red Army advance from the east. The Papal Nuncio in Berlin was also said to have left the city for an undisclosed destination.

Sweden’s legation was reported to have been ordered to remain in Berlin as long as possible to assist the fairly large number of Swedes remaining in Germany.

[NormanStewart]

Congress backs Big Three unity

United Nations to draft world security treaty in San Francisco April 25
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

WASHINGTON – The Roosevelt-Stalin-Churchill conference report got an enthusiastic cheer from Congress today on its proposal that the United States, Russia and Great Britain be bound in post-war unity as a “sacred obligation” to the peoples of the world.

President Roosevelt, Marshal Joseph V. Stalin and Prime Minister Winston Churchill made that post-war compact the foundation of their “report and statement” on the Crimean conversations.

To achieve it they announced they had summoned the United Nations to conference in San Francisco April 25 to draft a world security treaty. It will be in the Dumbarton Oaks pattern.

The Black Sea conferees announced they had reached final agreement on treaty framework, including voting methods.

Announcement yesterday of completion of the Roosevelt-Stalin-Churchill conversations and of the April conference call opens the administration campaign to present the security treaty to the Senate before hot weather begins to swelter this capital. Final Senate action is sought by midsummer.

The conferees held their eight-day meeting in Yalta, a Crimean resort.

German people assured

They said they had agreed on war and post-war plans for Germany. ‘They passed on her a grim cleansing sentence, but assured the German people that they would survive and be fit to live within the “comity of nations.”

They announced agreement on objectives and methods of dealing with most of Europe’s political and economic problems – boundaries, forms of government and such. They promised aid to distressed populations and revealed they would intervene jointly almost anywhere to aid or prod liberated peoples toward desired objectives.

The report revealed a specific Polish settlement based on compromise but in very substantial measure granting all basic Russian demands, including territory. There were instant rumblings of objections to that.

But overall political and economic plans for Europe were tied firmly to the ideal of free elections and universal suffrage.

April 25 fateful date

This latter plan was regarded as a reassurance to Americans, and especially to the Senate, where Mr. Roosevelt soon must stand sponsor of a security treaty guaranteeing world peace backed in part by our armed forces.

Some saw an inference in the statement that Russia is maneuvering to swing at least its moral strength into the Pacific war against Japan. It was no more than an inference.

But it was observed that April 25, when the United Nations conference begins at the Golden Gate, is the last date upon which Japan or Russia can denounce their mutual non-aggression pact.

At table with Chinese

Furthermore, unlimited Russian participation in a United Nations discussion will put them at the same table with the Chinese, whom Russians have avoided because their enemies have not been the same. China fights Japan. Russia fights Germany.

The Crimean report ended on a note of “unity for peace as for war.”

The three most powerful men in the world said:

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. We believe that this is a sacred obligation…

France recognized

The conferees significantly beckoned France to first rank political status in post-war peace machinery and promised her participation in the occupation of the beaten enemy. China was also granted first-class power by promise of a permanent seat, along with France and the Big Three, on the World Security Treaty Council.

The bid for American and senatorial support was in the form of a vigorously enthusiastic conference endorsement of the Atlantic Charter.

Congress welcomed the report which was read in the Senate and circulated among members of the recessed House. The reaction was not unanimous, but it was far from partisan. Republican Senators rose with Democrats to say to the Big Three: “Well done.”

Lauded by Hoover

Former President Herbert C. Hoover called the Crimea agreement a “strong formation on which to rebuild the world.”

“It is fitting,” he told a New York audience, “that it should have been issued on the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.”

The Polish exile government in London evidently intends to repudiate the Big Three agreements as to its own fate, which is early extinction. There was some complaint here, too, against boundary and other plans for the Poles. But few of Mr. Roosevelt’s recent state papers have been better received at first glance on Capitol Hill.

‘Stimulating message’

“A very stimulating message,” said Sen. Alexander Wiley (R-Wisconsin), who has been listed by some persons as an isolationist. “It shows an apparent unity of purpose which the world has been looking forward to, and we hope it will ultimate in a real instrument for international collaboration.”

Referring to the report as “this momentous document,” Senate Democratic leader Alben W. Barkley, D-Kentucky, said:

If we can accomplish the objectives set forth in this Crimean conference, we will go a long way toward justifying the terrible sacrifices we are making in treasure and blood.

‘Great work done’

Senate Republican leader Wallace H. White Jr. (R-Maine) immediately rose from his seat across the aisle.

“A great work has been done,” he told the Senate.

Everyone wanted to know what Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-Michigan) thought of the Big Three job. Mr. Vandenberg proposed and Republicans generally have adopted a foreign policy based on immediate treaties for the permanent demilitarization of Germany and agreements for post-war examination of all political adjustments made or being made in Europe.

‘Best so far’

“The report is far the best that has issued from any major conference,” said Mr. Vandenberg, although reserving the right to seek more detailed information, especially about Polish political and boundary agreements.

He continued:

It reaffirmed basic principles of justice to which we are deeply attached. And it undertakes for the first time to implement these principles by direct action. The total demilitarization of Germany and the pledge to proceed among our Allied friends on the basis of the Atlantic Charter are greatly encouraging.

The Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin report bore down hard on the Atlantic Charter, which Mr. Roosevelt has been accused of forgetting.

‘Joint’ action stressed

The three men repeatedly emphasized the “joint” nature of their plans and intentions in all respects. They reported, without disclosing the solution, that they had agreed upon a plan for voting in the council of the proposed security organization.

Voting procedure stymied the Dumbarton Oaks conference here: It adjourned without decision whether all council members should have a vote even though one of them be a party to the aggression they were seeking to suppress or to prevent.

Russia insisted that all should vote and that one negative ballot should have veto power.

Details withheld

The Crimean conference report said that the solution of this problem would be revealed after China and France have been advised of the agreed upon procedure. If China and France go along and the Crimean conferees explored all parts of the security problem in amity, it would seem that the United Nations conferees in San Francisco next April will not be long in session.

Mr. Roosevelt and his foreign policy advisers are convinced that agreement and ratification of a world security treaty must be obtained at once to avoid the delays and defeats encountered after World War I.

To that end they have laid out a program not unlike Woodrow Wilson’s famous 14 points. This time, however, there is a report from leaders of the three nations most immediately concerned, undertaking to follow stipulated procedure in making desired post-war conditions come true.

Procedure listed

The stipulated procedure is embodied in a “Declaration on Liberated Europe.” It is an agreement among the three men on several points:

• The United States, Britain and Russia will act in concert to assist the liberated peoples to solve by democratic means their immediate political and economic problems. They expect that to be necessary during a “temporary period” only.

• This requires destruction of the last vestige of Nazism and adherence to the Atlantic Charter principle that all peoples have the right to choose the form of government under which they shall live.

• To foster conditions in which the liberated peoples may enjoy that right, the conferees agreed that when necessary, they jointly would assist the people of any liberated state or former Axis satellite to achieve four specific objectives:

  (a) Establish conditions on internal peace.

  (b) Effect emergency measures for relief of distressed peoples.

  (c) Form interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic elements of the population.

  (d) Facilitate the holding of free elections.

Where the three powers intervened to form interim governmental authorities, it would be with the understanding, the report explained, that it would be only for the purpose of “the earliest possible establishment through free elections of governments responsive to the will of the people.”

The United States, Britain and Russia promised to consult other governments when matters of direct interest to them were involved in such cases. Prior to any action to make good on the foregoing pledges, the representatives of the three governments would consult among themselves.

The report said it was the hope of the three conferees that the provisional government of France “may be associated with them in the procedure suggested” – evidently as an equal partner.

The report said:

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 the peace, security, freedom and general well-being of mankind.

To further the foregoing program and to maintain a political and diplomatic continuity of thought and action, the conference agreed that the foreign secretaries of the United States, Russia and Britain would meet hereafter about every four months. The first meeting is scheduled for London after the April United Nations conference here. Other meetings would rotate among the three capitals.

[NormanStewart]

Major decisions of Big Three

German militarism to be destroyed

WASHINGTON (UP) – The major decisions reached by the Big Three at Yalta:

• GERMANY
  Will be subjected to “new and even more powerful blows… to bring her to unconditional surrender.”

  Terms were agreed upon for occupation and control of Germany.

  German militarism and Nazism will be destroyed; the German General Staff will be “broken up for all time,” all of Germany’s capacity for waging war or producing war materials will be eliminated or controlled.

  The criminals will be punished. A commission will be established to study reparations.

• UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE
  An agreement was reached on voting procedure in the Council of the contemplated world security organization, a question left unsettled at Dumbarton Oaks.

  To prepare the charter for a world security organization along the lines of that contemplated at Dumbarton Oaks, a full United Nations conference will meet in San Francisco April 25.

• LIBERATED EUROPE
  The three countries will jointly assist liberated European territories and former Nazi satellites to establish internal peace, carry out emergency relief measures, form interim governments and hold free elections of permanent governments “responsive to the will of the people.” The three countries will confer whenever the necessity arises in connection with these problems.

  The principles of the Atlantic Charter, including free determination of governments, are reaffirmed.

• POLAND
  Russia gets roughly the eastern one-third of pre-war Poland, on the basis of a Polish border roughly following the old Curzon Line. In return, Poland will get “substantial” territory from Germany in the West.

  The so-called Lublin Government, now recognized by Russia, will be “reorganized on a broader democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles abroad.” The broadened government will be recognized by Britain and the United States.

• YUGOSLAVIA
  The Big Three recommended acceptance of the compromise calling for creation of a regency and broadening of the Yugoslav Cabinet.

• FOREIGN SECRETARIES
  The Big Three foreign secretaries will meet every three months, with the first session in London after the San Francisco conference.

• FRANCE
  France was invited to participate in control and occupation of Germany, and in settling problems of Liberated Europe, she will be given a preview of the world security organization voting plan agreed upon at Yalta.

[NormanStewart]

Poles in exile defy Big Three

But former premier may join cabinet

BULLETIN

LONDON, England (UP) – The London Polish government tonight flatly rejected the Big Three decision on Poland.

LONDON, England (UP) – The Polish Exile Cabinet was expected to defy the Allied Big Three today and reject its invitation to join the provisional government in liberated Poland.

The Exile Cabinet probably will make known its stand following a special meeting today, but its repeated anti-Russian declarations made rejection of the Crimean conference’s formula for Poland a foregone conclusion.

It was likely, however, that Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, who resigned as exile premier last November after failing to bring about a rapprochement with the Russians, would hasten to Poland to join a coalition government.

Unity demanded

President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill doomed the exile government by promising at Yalta to recognize the Soviet-supported Polish Provisional Government once it has been reorganized on a “broader democratic basis with inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from the Poles abroad.”

Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Churchill and Premier Stalin also gave their blessing to a coalition government already in the process of formation in Yugoslavia under an agreement negotiated by Marshal Tito and Premier Ivan Subasic of the Royal Yugoslav exile government.

Other Balkan question

The Big Three recognized the objections of King Peter to a one-party (Communist) Parliament, however, by recommending that the anti-Fascist assembly be extended to include members of the last pre-occupation Parliament who had not collaborated with the Nazis.

The Big Three also made a “general review of other Balkan questions,” presumably including the Greek crisis, which was already well on the way to solution following the signing of a peace treaty by the Greek Government and the rebellious left-wing EAM-ELAS at Athens yesterday.

The formula for Poland represented a compromise between the Soviet and Anglo-American positions, though Moscow asserted that the Soviets had won “hands down.”

The Crimean declaration said Soviet Foreign Commissar V. M. Molotov, U.S. Ambassador W. Averell Harriman and British Ambassador Sir Archibald Clark Kerr would sit as a commission in Moscow with Polish leaders in reorganizing the provisional government, which would be known as the “Polish Provisional Government of National Unity.”

There was no question but what the Soviet views prevailed on the question of Poland’s eastern boundary. The Crimean declaration said the United States, Britain and Russia were agreed that the Curzon Line, which gives some 50,000 square miles of pre-war eastern Poland to Russia, should be adopted.

Poland would be recompensed by taking over German territory to the north and west, presumably including large portions of East Prussia, Silesia, Brandenburg and Pomerania, with the final boundaries being set at the Peace Conference.

By adoption of the Curzon Line as its western boundary, Russia would take over the former Polish cities of Lwow, Pinsk, Luck, Brest-Litovsk and Grodno, though Poland might retain the last two under the Crimean declaration’s provision for digressions in some regions of three to five miles “in favor of Poland.”

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WASHINGTON (UP) – Allied abandonment of the London Polish exile government and acceptance of the Curzon Line as the eastern Polish boundary brought loud protests today from many Polish-American circles.

But the long-awaited decision appears to be final, with the Big Three ready to make it stick.

The London Polish government is not likely to find a court of appeal.

The key to the plan apparently is for Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, former premier of the London Poles, to join the Lublin government.

[NormanStewart]

Reaction in Moscow –
Reds cheered by victory on all debatable issues

Russians particularly satisfied by decision which means end of exile Polish government

MOSCOW, USSR (UP) – Russia won “hands down” on all debatable questions in the Crimea Conference, it was felt in Soviet circles today, “as a party of the conferees including U.S. Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius Jr. arrived here from Yalta.

High satisfaction was expressed over results of the parley, particularly the agreement on Poland which spelled the end of the Polish exile government in London, and the fact that President Roosevelt had visited Soviet soil – regarded as a token of Soviet strength and prestige.

The Big Three decisions were hailed by the Soviet press with superlatives never before employed.

Izvestia, the government organ, called the Crimean Conference “the greatest modern political event.

Unprecedented mass meetings were called in cities and towns all over Russia at which the Big Three decisions were announced, cheered and discussed.

Mr. Stettinius flew here from the Crimea at the invitation of Foreign Commissar Vyacheslav M. Molotov for a one-day visit after which he will proceed to Mexico.

[NormanStewart]

Simms: If decision on Poland stands, peace plan may be jeopardized

Roosevelt, Churchill gave way completely to Stalin in pact signed in Crimea
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor

The Big Three version of Poland after the war is shown on this map. The eastern boundary will follow approximately the Curzon Line. The territory taken from Germany may be as indicated in the other shaded area on the map.

WASHINGTON – If the Big Three decision regarding Poland stands – and it would now seem, to all intents, irrevocable – it may jeopardize Dumbarton Oaks and the whole American peace plan.

Under the pact signed at Yalta, in the Crimea, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill gave way completely to Marshal Stalin, whose plans for the partition of Poland are well known. They agreed to the Curzon Line as the new Russo-Polish frontier and to the Stalin thesis that Poland shall have several large slices of Germany by way of compensation.

The effect of all this on the United States will be tremendous, if, as it is generally expected, this country participates in the collective security guarantees so widely favored by the American people. It would start up a new and bigger “Alsace-Lorraine” between Germany and Poland and make the United States at least partly responsible for its safety.

To get German land

The Big Three did not specify the exact amount of German soil which the Poles might annex. They did, however, make it clear that while Poland’s eastern frontier is really no longer debatable, she “must receive substantial accessions of territory in the north and west.”

And Moscow has already indicated that, in the north, approximately two-thirds of East Prussia will go to Poland and, in the west, practically everything up to the Oder River, that is, up to within 40 miles of Berlin.

However, says the Big Three communiqué, “the final delimitation of the western frontier of Poland should… await the peace conference.”

The Poles themselves – that is the Polish government-in-exile in London – are under no delusions when it comes to what the annexation of purely Prussian territory will mean to them. They know it is loaded with dynamite.

London Poles alarmed

Some months ago, when the London Poles became convinced that what has just happened at the Big Three meeting was inescapable, they were alarmed. History was full of warnings that it would become a perpetual bone of contention between a diminished Poland and a potentially powerful Germany and they knew they would be doomed unless they had the permanent protection of one or more of the great powers.

So, they approached Washington. They inquired if the United States would guarantee Poland’s proposed new frontiers. The inference, of course, was that if this country acquiesced in the Moscow plan, she should stand ready to guarantee the boundaries in question.

Washington said “no.” The United States never guarantees anybody’s specific frontiers.

Answers now yes

The answer however, might just as well have been “yes.” If the United States, in fact, agrees to the Polish settlement reached at Yalta, and if the Dumbarton Oaks formula is ratified by the Senate, the United States, of course, automatically will become a guarantor of Poland’s new boundaries – unless the Senate writes in reservations.

This means that should Germany stage a comeback 10, 20 or 50 years hence and attack Poland with a view to getting back her lost provinces, the United States would be bound to help put down the aggression.

Destroys all hope

As for Poland herself, the Yalta pact all but destroys any hope she may have had regarding her future independence. Hereafter no government at Warsaw will dare enter into a treaty, trade arrangement, non-aggression pact or any other government without first asking Moscow.

It was agreed that the so-called Lublin (or Moscow-sponsored) regime should be reorganized “on a broader democratic basis” with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles abroad.

But, however well this plan works out, Poland still will not be a free agent. At best, she will be an international protectorate; at worst, a Russian puppet.

[NormanStewart]

Invasions of Denmark, Norway, Baltic coast may be plan of Allies

Speculation touched off by Big Three pledge of attacks on Germany from the north
By W. R. Higginbotham, United Press staff writer

LONDON, England – Military observers said today the Allied Big Three may have planned invasions of southern Norway, Denmark and even the German Baltic coast to speed victory in Europe.

Speculation was touched off by the Big Three’s promise in the Crimean declaration that Allied armies and air forces would strike “new and even more powerful blows… into the heart of Germany” from the east, west, north and south.

The timing and scope of operations from all four directions “have been fully agreed and planned in detail,” President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin said in the declaration.

Will shorten war

The declaration said:

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.

The declaration marked the first authoritative Allied word regarding the possibility of offensives against Germany from the north.

A Moscow dispatch said military circles in the Russian capital attached especial importance to the contemplated “blows from the north.” It was assumed, Moscow said, that these would supplement those from the Soviet bridgehead in northern Norway.

May cut off Nazis

The Big Three’s plan may envisage Anglo-American landings on the coasts of South Norway and Denmark aimed at cutting off German troops in northern and central Norway and forcing the Nazi command to disperse further their already limited forces.

Any landings on the Baltic coast of Germany presumably would be made by Soviet amphibious forces, but there remained a remote possibility of an attempt by Anglo-American fleets to force the Skagerrak and Kattegat into the Baltic.

Significantly, Vice Adm. Sir Harold Burrough, supreme naval commander in Western Europe. said at a press conference several weeks ago that other amphibious landings probably would be made under his command.

Drive in Italy hinted

New blows against Germany from the north also raised the possibility that Allied armies in Western Europe would drive into northern Germany to link up with the Russians along the Baltic coast.

Reference to “new blows” also from the south indicated that the long-dormant Italian front may erupt in a new Allied offensive aimed at clearing northern Italy and reaching the Brenner Pass.

Soviet forces in Hungary and Yugoslavia also probably will renew their drive in force along the Danube Valley toward Vienna and southern Germany. The smashing of organized resistance in Budapest, as announced by Moscow last night, may speed this drive.

Staffs to confer

Military observers were enthusiastic over the Big Three’s announcement that a “very close working partnership” had been attained among the American, British and Soviet military staffs. Meetings of the three staffs will be continued in the future whenever the need arises, the declaration said.

There had been widespread criticism in the past few months at what was felt to be a lack of coordination between offensives on the Eastern and Western Fronts.

Once Germany has been defeated, the Big Three announced their intention of assigning separate zones of occupation to each of the three powers and France.

To sit in Berlin

Coordinated administration and control would be provided under the plan by the establishment of a separate control commission in Berlin consisting of the “supreme commanders of the three nations,” plus a French commander.

The reference to the “supreme commanders” was not clear, but it was believed likely that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, commander of the Western Front, would represent the United States and Marshal Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, Allied commander in the Mediterranean, would represent Britain.

[NormanStewart]

Parley lifts veil on Russian plans

Hastening of peace believed effected
By William H. Stoneman

LONDON, England – Russia has finally drawn back the curtain concealing its military plans and, for the first time since it went to war with Germany in June 1941, is about to work in complete conjunction with the United States and Britain in finally crushing Germany.

This truly spectacular result of the Yalta conference ends an impossible situation in which the Western Allies were embarrassed, and at times positively handicapped, by lack of information.

End of war hastened

As a result of the Yalta conversations, it can be assumed that the forces invading Germany from the east and west will join speedily in giving Germany a decisive coup de grace on land and from the air. The end of the war should be materially hastened.

The only regret is that an agreement could not have been concluded months, or years ago.

The Yalta agreement for the division of Germany and Austria into three or four fixed zones of occupation, and for the coordination of Allied administration by a Central Control Commission sitting in Berlin, already had been worked out by the European Advisory Commission in London.

Who will form group

The Control Commission will consist of the supreme commanders of the American, British, and Russian forces in Germany, in addition to a French representative, if the French wish to name one.

If France wishes to share in the occupation of Germany, its zones of occupation, to be fixed by European Advisory Commission, will certainly include the west bank of the Rhine.

The decision not to announce terms of the “unconditional surrender” demands is significant. Obviously, these terms would be announced if the Allied chiefs thought they would contribute to the collapse of Germany’s home front. Thus, it can be assumed that these terms really involve complete surrender and that they are harsh enough to satisfy most proponents of a severe peace.

[NormanStewart]

Ed Flynn’s visit to Yalta a mystery

Washington unable to figure it out

WASHINGTON (UP) – Of all interesting sidelights on the Big Three Conference, Washington pondered the presence of Edward J. Flynn.

The White House explained that Mr. Flynn took no part in the discussions. It said President Roosevelt discovered, shortly before he left this country, that Mr. Flynn planned to go to Moscow. So, he invited the former Democratic National Committee chairman to accompany him as far as Yalta.

Mr. Flynn, the White House said, crossed the Atlantic with the President – method not announced. Then he flew with Mr. Roosevelt from Malta to Yalta. Apparently, he stayed in the Crimean resort town throughout the historic conferences, because the White House said he went to Moscow with U.S. Ambassador W. Averell Harriman. Mr. Harriman attended the entire eight-day conference.

Even Mr. Flynn’s close associates in New York were at a loss to explain his presence in Russia. They professed not to know that he accompanied the President.

Monroe Goldwater, Mr. Flynn’s law partner, said he “thought Mr. Flynn was in Mexico.”

“He left New York about two weeks ago,” was all Mr. Goldwater could add.

If anybody knew the nature of Mr. Flynn’s business in Moscow, they weren’t talking about it. Unquestioned, however, was the fact that he was not wen route to Australia.

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Anna Boettiger has key role

WASHINGTON (UP) – The presence of Mrs. Anna Roosevelt Boettiger at the Big Three Crimean Conference gave emphasis today to her new role as confidante, boon companion and adviser to her father.

The tall blond, only daughter of President and Mrs. Roosevelt, returned to the Executive Mansion to live more than a year ago.

Prior to and for a while after Pearl Harbor, she was a columnist and woman’s page editor of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Her husband, John, was its publisher. Mrs. Boettiger moved into the White House while her husband was overseas as an Army major. Now he is stationed in Washington.

Mrs. Boettiger is in her late 30’s. Gifted with her mother’s energy, she plays the role of White House hostess during Mrs. Roosevelt’s frequent absences.

She is good company. Lively, animated and possessor of quick wit, she has a talent for informality.

She and her father have at least one common attribute. They both use long cigarette holders.