Transcripts For CSPAN3 Allied Conferences Before Yalta 20240713

The National World War Ii Museum hosted the event. Well, greetings, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to see you all here and it is always great to see i dont want to say so many probably all are familiar faces and we saw most of you in november and we hope to see most of you again in november and in between in september for our memory conference. As steven is said, unfortunately dr. Stoller tried his best, slipped on the way and caught his balance. But all three flights from berlington, vermont, were cancelled to get him here yesterday. And while we are disappointed, he is even more disappointed that he couldnt make it back down here and present. But i can tell you that we are very fortunate in this great city of new orleans to have one of the leading scholars in this field in gunther bischof here to fill the breach and enlighten us with the first panel of the day. Gunther has been a friend since before we had a building. Not just a hotel. But an actual museum. He goes back with nick mueller and Steven Ambrose back to the early days as a master stunds of theirs and then went to harvard to obtain his hpd and then came back home to join the faculty at uno. And gunther is joined by someone equally important and that is melanie buhl his wife, just retired from being a life long School Teacher and also very involved with our Educational Committee so it is great to have you, mal annie. As i mentioned going way back and so we have heard lots of suggestions from dr. Bischof over the years and we have listened to them and we have enacted them. Slowly in his mind. But a couple of things that today really points out to me is the students. Gunther and his friends dr. Dupont and others at uno have been strong in advocated the museum not just have wonderful folks here but engage with the local university audience and with younger scholars, post docs or fresh out as a ph. D program and to look at a broader International Perspective and try to bring in not just the American Experience in our public programming. And lastly, he has been a long time advocate that we need to get a distinguished scholar by the name of sergei plokhy here. So thank you everything youve done for us gunther. Dr. Bischof is the director of center of austria at the university of new orleans, a native of austria he came here as an Exchange Student with a history degree and masters greig from u. N. O. He has published too many books to put in one biography and edited many more and published thousands of articles. But he is most recently the Marshall Plan since 1947, saving europe rebuilding austria. We have had him on our president ial counselors Advisory Board since before we had a board in 2006 and hes always a delight to be here so, ladies and gentlemen, lets welcome dr. Gunther bischof to the podium. Thank you. [ applause ] okay, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. So good to see many of you here. Especially shoutout also to our u. N. O. Colleagues and students. It is sort of if you think about yalta fitting that our colleague mark stoler didnt make it out of vermont because it was very hard to get to yalta at that time in february of 45. You might know that roosevelt was roosevelt was a very sickly man. He had to travel by ship from virginia to malta in theed me r mediterranean and a flight up to the northern part of theeninsul down to the palace in yalta, another four hours. This man that had all kinds of physical challenges. So keep that in mind. By the way, there was a number of other cities initially envisioned for a summit meeting. Churchill and roosevelt suggested, for example, northern scotland, cypress, alexandria or jerusalem as possible sites for a summit meeting. Of course, stalin didnt want to leave the soviet union. Now, when we talk about summits, this is a relatively recent phenomenon in international diplomacy, summitry. Summit summitry in the early 1950s, when there was a chase on who would first clear the summit of mount evet. Everest. The cambridge historian David Reynolds has written an excellent book on 20th century summits. He said the first big one was munich in 1938. That is before tehran and yalta, what were going to talk about today. The way professor reynolds put it, it was made possible by air travel made necessary by weapons of mass destruction and made into a household news by the mass media. Three elements thats crucial in modern summitry. Let me get into the very complete outline and march you through it. His theme is sort of various summit conferences before the yalta summit. And in his preliminary remarks he was saying that the yalta conference is often considered to have been a peace conference, but it was not. The war was still going on. Military matters had a high place on the conference agenda, he says. Appears only in retrospect as if it were a peace conference. He thinks this is probably due to the fact there was no post world war ii peace conference the way it ended in 1991. He wants to make that point. Not a peace conference. He also makes the point and thats what his outline is about that many Major Political issues that were on the yalta agenda like poland, like the u. N. , like germany, had previously already been discussed in many summit meetings. In truth, most if not all the major issues had previously been discussed in the tehran conference in november 1943. Only about a bit more than a year before yalta. Of course, there was many other conference by lower level diplomats. I would add to his outline that many of the issues that were discussed by the big three or by the Foreign Ministers were worked out by various planning committees. In great britain, it was the Foreign Office Research Department in the Foreign Office which came out of Foreign Research and press service at oxford. The british i looked at many of the documents with regard to postwar planning for austria. They are very complete. I think in the british case you can see that churchill took more of the suggestions of his planners than in the american case. The United States, the council on Foreign Relations new york began postwar planning even before the country was in the war. When the u. S. Finally joined the war late in 1941, that planning effort from the council on Foreign Relations was brought into the state department. Many of the council experts were part of it. It was in the state Department Much of the planning was done. Very often the suggestions made by the experts were not necessarily picked up by roosevelt and carried out. In other words, there was huge Planning Efforts going on in the a angloamerican world but also france and also in the soviet union there was planning going on. So think about planning during world war ii as something that quietly goes forward while the armies fight in the field and trying to defeat the nazis on the battlefield. Now lets go into the outline here. Put together the most important conferences. You see even on the highest level with roosevelt and churchill begins in august 1941, the famous new foufoundland conference. So again, the United States was not in the war yet and already they were doing diplomatic planning for the future of the world. Then there was a couple meetings in washington, d. C. You see that in 42. Then moscow meeting where churchill and stalin met in august and harriman was also present. If you dont know, he was roos svel roosevelts ambassador to the soviet figure. Then roosevelt and churchill met in morocco in january 1943. Stalin didnt come to that even though he was invited because it was out of the country as he put it. In canthat a decision was made. The german and japanese could not surrender this time. They had to surrender unconditionally at the end of the war. So crucial decision. Another washington meeting, quebec meeting the first one. Then the important Moscow Council of Foreign Ministers meeting that was the Foreign Ministers. The United States was represented. This thing is not working. Okay. There we go. Too well. Then there was a meeting in washingt washington. Thats very important for the postwar world. U. N. Relief and Rehabilitation Administration fed the hungry people particularly of central euro europe. If you think about the fact in germany and austria people only had 1,000 calories a day, it would be this that guaranteed their survival. Very important meeting there. Then after tehran, there was a meeting in cairo for postwar planning for the far east. Then, of course, the important tehran meeting. I will talk more about that in a few minutes. That was in november of 1943. Then a meeting that were very important, in new hampshire, where all the important decisions were made for the financial postwar order. You see the world bank and imf was also planned. Out of this meeting, the dollar became the strongest currency in the world and other currency would be picked after the war. It was important for the financial order of the postwar world. Washington was a meeting that was a long meeting and mainly dealt with United Nations matters. Quebec in canada. The plan was decided, we will talk about that. Then again moscow. In the soviet Union Churchill flew there. He flew 107,000 miles during the war to get to these meetings. These miles were flown in unpressurized, unheated bombers. If you think about the many meetings and churchill attending them, going to moscow in the fall of 44. Will talk about it a bit. An important decision was made about how the balkans would be divide up. The socalled percentage agreement. Then yalta, we will talk about that and the meetings continued later on. There was a San Francisco meeting where the United Nations was founded. There was also a big meeting in germany right at the end of the war where important decisions were made about postwar germ y germany, including reparations decisions. You see its a very long list of meetings that were talking about. In all of these meetings, important decisions were made about the postwar order. For example, when they when they got to moscow in october of 1943, the Foreign Ministers, they talked about whether the soviet union would come into the war in the far east. Thats something that continued at yalta and im sure we will talk about that. The moscow meeting, thats something that i tell you was also important for declaration on postwar austria. That sort of founded the postwar austrian state which had been gobbled up by the nazis in 1938. Important decisions had been made about nazi germany already at tehran. It was important for a combined military strategy and the socalled second front was being decided upon. Because stalin insisted on it. If you think about it, United States had already landed and the british in africa and then italy, making their way up the boot in 1943. The soviets had already defeated the germans before moscow and stalingrad. While this vital progress was being made on the bottle field, here they decided finally were going to up a second front six months after the end six months after the tehran conference. In that sense, the second front had been a sore issue between the western powers and stalin for two years. It was promised in may of 194 s because he wanted to relieve list armies in the east. Upon stalins insistence, it finally was promised that there would be a landing in france, operation overlord. Another landing in the south of france, operation anvil. This would force hitler into a twofront war, he would have to fight in the west, too. There was a three or fourfront war going on because he was fighting in italy, the balkans, scandinavia. He had armies all over. The big three then met in tehran in november of 1943. Not only did the big three meet, but the combined chiefs of staff met there as well, meaning the military leaders of the british and the americans. You sort of see that the military matters were important as diplomatic matters for the postwar order. The polish issue was beginning to be discussed again. It was one of the chief issues. Polands boun dadaries, future government. This was an issue that divided d the powers east and west. When this conference went over churchill and roosevelt went to cairo and egypt and met shaand s continued into 1944. An important decision was made in tehran that the socalled European Advisory Commission would be established. European Advisory Commission became a very important diplomatic body, where essentially the boundaries for germany and postwar austria were being established. Important diplomats represented the United States. So an important decision coming out of tehran. At the quebec conference, the first one, the Prime Minister churchill and roosevelt also discussed nuclear weapons, the atopic bomb. They would say that this scientific effort, the achievements of which came to fruition at the end of the war, would remain an angloamerican monopoly and would not be shared by the soviets. That would be a sore point after the war, that monopoly, that information had not been shared with the soviets. If you think about these many diplomatic meetings prior to yalta, they were trying to decide on important issues like a new international organization, the u. N. , to replace the league of nations which had not been a particularly successful collective security organization. As i said, many of the issues were worked out. On the United Nations issue, such as a future General Assembly where the four policemen as roosevelt called them would govern the United Nations. Premiere powers in the world, United States, great britain, soviet union and china would sort of dominate as the four policemen of the United Nations. There would be a againGeneral Assembly where all will be represented. One of the sore points with the soviet was that the soviet union insisted they wanted to have all their 16 republics represented in the General Assembly, georgia, ukraine, whatever would be representing as individual states would be represented there. Churchill and roosevelt were not excited about that. Im not going to talk more about it. Im sure they will pick up that issue. The future of germany was a very important discussion part in all of these conferences. Namely, the decision that ge germany would be ak pie e occup military by the big three. There was an incident in tehran where they were talking about dena denazification. Stalin said, we need to kill 50,000 officers. Churchill was aghast at this. Roosevelt choked back, well, 49,000 is enough. Of course, nothing came off this. Of course, they had to talk about the future order of postwar germany in the sense of what are we going to do with all of the nazis . That was a very important subject matter. European Advisory Commission was established. Let me just mention one more thing that was very important at the quebec conference, late in 1944, the american secretary of the treasury insisted on a severe treatment of germany, namely that germany would be deindustrialized so it could not be a threat to the future of the world again. This socalled morganthal plan was accepted by churchill. When the state department heard it, they were aghast at the idea of deindustrialize germany because they knew germany was the center of the continental european economy and that germany deindustrialized would hurt everybody around them. This strange thing was then rejected later on by roosevelt and didnt come to fruition. We still dont know exactly how it came about, but one idea that has been discussed more recently was that this was actually a soviet idea and that high official in the Treasury Department was actually a soviet spy we think today. It might have come via him, this idea. Finally, one last important meeting before the yalta meeting is when churchill came to moscow in october of 1943. Of course, roosevelt couldnt come because he was in the middle of his Fourth Campaign for being reelected. In this meeting, the infamous percentage agreement was agreed upon by the two leaders. The percentage agreement said, this is something that apparently churchill wrote down on a napkin and roosevelt excuse me, stalin checked off the various percentages and they agreed upon them. But its really european diplomacy. This percentage agreement said that in the case of romania, the soviet union should have 090 ad grace, 90 influence for the british. In bulgaria, the soviets would have 75 influence. The west 25 . Notes that poland is not part of this agreement, czechoslovakia is not part of it. Austria is not part of it. Certainly in terms of the future influence taking in Eastern Europe, it was very important what was agreed upon by these two leaders in moscow. Did roosevelt know about it . Yes, he did, because harriman was reporting on the percentages. He reported back to washington. Since roosevelt did not outrightly reject the percentages, stalin was led to believe it was sort of an agreement between the big three. Ladies and gentlemen, i think im going to stop here. This is the outline of the preyalta conferences that took place where many of the important decisions that would figure at yalta on poland, on germany, on the postwar order, on the United Nations were already if not agreed upon, they were discussed. So it was a process that was going on during the whole war and yalta, of course, we continued those discussions. I thank you for your attention. If there is questions, i can answer them. Id be happy to answer them. Thank you very much for starting us off here. Ladies and gentlemen, i will be walking through the crowd with a microphone. I ask you stand before you ask your question. Stalins refusal to leave russia at the yalta conference and other times, was that legitimate or was it some kind of maneuver otherwise . From what i can tell is it was a maneuver. Because roosevelt and churchill could have said, we cant leave our country because we have to be close to our military decisionmaking. That was stalins principal reason. One reason why he probably only came to a meeting say at yalta or tehran, which was under soviet control at the time, we think is that it gave him an opportunity to bug the meeting rooms and the places where ro roosevelt and churchill would meet. We think they were bugged. Whenever churchill and roosevelt talked privately, stalin would have the transcripts. He was careful in knowing what the other players would come up with. That intelligence advantage seemed to have been important to him. I cant see a reason why he couldnt travel to northern scotland for a summit meeting. It would have been easier for roosevelt to get to than the long way. Yalta had been liberated, meaning the Crimean Peninsula had been gravely destroyed by the germans when they withdrew from crimea. When roosevelt drove down through the crimea, he saw that destruction all around him. It was still in a way a tough place to get to as well, because there were still german mines around. It was not undangerous. It was somewhat dangerous to get there. To your right. One of the things that influences yalta is how much the soviets figured they were doing the heavy lefti ilifting. Can you comment on the cricks of the two sides . Dw diplomatic . Military contributions. Thats a big question. Generally speaking, you know, let me he has a map here. This might explain it. After norman normandy landings, moved up through the low counsel to the german border. The battle of the bulge, they were threatening to break into germany proper. What we often forget but which our International Conferences more recently have pointed out very vigorously, of course, part of the agreement was that the soviets would also attack in the east. That was an operation that happened a couple weeks after the nor. Dale normandy. They were outside of warsaw, close to berlin by the time that yac yalta occurred. They were 60 miles outside of berlin. In terms of who contributed more, thats an old discussion where im on the side that probably the red army contributed more simply because the germans throughout the war had many more divisions fighting in the east than in the west. Keep many mind, there was not much happening in the west under the normandy landing. They had been preparing for such a landing. They had fortified the french coast. They had armies in normandy and france that could be shipped around if need be, depending on where they landed. In terms of german divisions, there was 180 out of 220 german divisions which were tied down in the east. Of course, with the big victories, the germans became weaker, had fewer troops in the east. I think in term s of the overal weight of the contribution to the final victory, you would have to say given the soviets were fighting since 1941 that they probably made a larger contribution to the eventual defeat of the german armies. We have a question online. Its a personal opinion question. Of all of the conferences and summits prior to yalta, which one in your mind is the most influential or had the most influential decision . I think that would have been the tehran conference which was a big three meeting where all three of them met, the joint chiefs of staff met, that indicates that important military decisions. In tehran, the important second front decision was made. The Unconditional Surrender decision was reaffirmed by the soviets as well. I would definitely have to think that tehran was the most important meeting. By the sheer fact that all three of them met. I will get to the question to your left near the middle. Three quick questions. One is, thank you for your wonderful a comment, thank you for your wonderful presentation. How did roosevelt and truman travel . In the postwar configuration of germany, how did france get involv involved whether th involved when they werent in the top three . In the percentage agreement, hungary was 50 . How it worked out the soviets took over, how did that work . Those are three big questions. With regard to how did truman and hull travel i told you how roosevelt got to yalta. It was very difficult to get there. Hull, i think, took an airplane. Truman still took a ship. So he traveled the oldfashion way. If you think about summitry it was being made possible by more comfortable kinds of travel arrangements that the leaders could make. Certainly, in the post world war ii world, they would fly usually like churchill flew during the war. Roosevelt, i think because of his heart condition, couldnt really fly. The way he flew from malta i think the plane had to go 10,000 feet, very low, which was dangerous. They have to be very careful over what territory they flew. So he couldnt fly 30,000 feet above the ground. With regard to france, i left that out because thats one thing that the doctor will talk about because the decision to involve the french into German Occupation was finally decided at yalta because churchill insisted on it. Churchill was afraid that the United States would withdraw after the war. There was plenty of indication that roosevelt made during the war that that might happen. So he felt he would be left alone with the soviets on the continent. He wanted the french to be on his side. Thats why he insisted to gift the french. But that make the french a power. Made them a victorious power, which in terms of the fighting, of course, they were not. Thats why stalin was very reluctant to let the french come in. There was a lot of fighting already in the early meetings. 51 over how the zones in germany should be divided up. Xoe there was all kinds of socalled dismemberment plans. Somebody said, we would like to have many0cr,9em rather than one powerfulz1zl germany being consolidated. Ko u bavaria being indepenv x states again rather than one strong germany. That didntzdlnc reallyimin com. Kf consideration of maybe protestant, along thoseah lines. There was a lot of talk dismembership issue. Nothing of the roosevelt was not happy. Stalin was not happy. Mc[ n division of are made in this european j[k Advisory Commission and then later adopted by the big three. Your final question about hungary, it was 50 50. Zlqv keep in mind at this time bed]coevnncwz,n yfgi yeah, it does. Wik xl7 . 4ln much,n election. Bmrxakh0[ p. Kcxxo 5b9bz l u ported by the soviet occupation element. ;i8ccz there wasfcnz p p k t daxkpz7 ic op . V governments upon these people. ,n wasmq on beyondui. Vnlenxcqsqthat. Ktkt[x xen7 kc2ef1 o ixr r t hahp l] hr h t hahp hc stalin to humor him, to keep the soviets churchill didnt want toexysee traditional europeans influence diplomacy to be continued after juy÷. Obz between specifically the western allies, how fearful was stalin of what was being discussed, how forthcoming were the western allies with moscow and telling him what would be discussed, what was on the agenda . Of course, when we talk about sta stalin we have to keep in mind we do not have access to any kind of documents. I think the doctor can confirm that. He is probably the only person in the room here who is actually for his yalta book work with soviet documents. Stalin is very hard to prove one way or the other of having agreed on this or that because he was a taciturn man. We dont know. We know the least about stalins mind, how it worked. We know he didnt like the initial Unconditional Surrender decision made because he thought this was sort of indicating a degree of western kind of cooperation that would try to exclude the soviets from future big decisions. In other words, he would like to have been part of that decision and he was not. On the other hand, we know at the time there was all kinds of secret peace feelers going out via sweden and such to see if some conditional surrender could be arranged given the severity of the battle on the Eastern Front. That would sort of indicate that we know that stalin was a very mistrustful kind of man. In a decision like the Unconditional Surrender decision that came out fairly clearly, but beyond that i hope they talk more about how to assess stalin world war ii. I would say its very difficult to assess him. To your right. I would like to add a clarification to gerhards body count. If you count only ground force casualties inflicted on the east he were front, his figures are pretty good. Were fairly certain that the russians accounted for twothirds of all German Military deaths in the second world war. He overlooks the fact that the allies destroyed the uboat force, not the russians. The allies had the major role in destroy i destroying the lufafa. The russians forget that the air campaign, whatever its results, drew the best of the Fighter Force back into the defense of germany where the raf and usaaf destroyed it. There was an indirect influence of the allies air war on the Eastern Front which did, in fact, favor the russians, which is why they had aces with 85 kills and guy racking up kills. You have to watch the counting rules. Thats my eminent colleague. Nobody would want to dispute him. I would add to the air war over germany that indeed sometimes its interpreted as the second front that had not opened earlier on the ground. I think a good argument can be made for that, that so much not only of manpower but of american wealth and british wealth went into that air campaign that kept the germans off kilter, if you will, for a long time to come. Of course, forced them eventually to put theirundergro it from the factories and put them into the mountains. For example, if you think about the building of the weapons, the v1 and v2, the german rockets, initially they were tested on a site on the north sea. When the british bombed that site, they had to relocate the entire effort underground. They put it into the mountains. The engines were tested in a subcamp in austria. If you look at individual production capabilities of the germans, you see how much the bombing war hurt them. In that sense, i would agree that the bombing war needs to be part of the overall accounting. Of course, even though a lot of american pilots and crews perished in the effort or came down and became p. O. W. S of the german in terms of numbers, its much fewer than what was going on on the Eastern Front. I think in terms of the overall accounting, you would have to triple and quadruple those numbers and say this is what every airman is worth. Jack here to your right. I was impressed by the length of the list of conferences. Of course, as you know, theres recently been discussion about the prospect of bombing the death camps that were responsible for the holocaust. Which, if any of these conferences was that the subject of the holocaust discussed . Were there any was there discussion of what could be done about it, any Strategic Decisions made in that regard . To my keep in mind, by the time of yalta, auschwitz had been liberated. To my mind, none of the conferences was holocaust discussed. Usually, the way that issue comes up is what did roosevelt and churchill know about the holocaust . I think there we are quite sure today that they knew early on because german and soviet traffic could be listened to, meaning the codes were broken. Through the broken codes they heard a lot of the reporting going on on the Eastern Front about the killing of jews. So i think that puts them in the know as early as 1941. When the holocaust was beginning to unfold with the killing in cold blood a lot of the jews that they rounded up in ukrainian and White Russian cities. They knew about it but they didnt discuss it. Of course, in terms of bombing auschwitz, i have nothing more to add. I remember this was heavily discussed in the 1995 1994, 50th anniversary conference of the normandy profession. I dont really think scholarship has much advanced beyond what was said at the time. We need to defeat the germans, the sooner we defeat them, the better it will be for the j ews. We do not want to squander our military resources in bombing when it is more important to defeat the nazis on the battlefield. As soon as they are defeated, the killing of the jews will end. Of course, on the other hand, the nazis killed jews to the very end of the war. If you follow the gruesome story of the walks out of the concentration camps, auschwitz death march, there was People Killed to the very end of the war. In that sense, i think one could discuss whether one could have done more. Keep in mind, the holocaust was a very decentralized kind of affair. There were many killing centers, many death camps. The concentration camps within germany, like you see in the austrian camp, they increasingly became death camps due to the severe treatment of the inmates. Which was p. O. W. S, all kinds of people, not only jews, people from all over europe, enemies of the nazis that were brought there. Among 400,000 people, 200,000 perished. To me, that sounds like a death camp, too. Before the next question with our audience here in the ball room, a followup to that. When the United Nations relief and Rehabilitation Administration, when that was discussed at previous conferences, did this pertain to the Jewish Population or was this for all of europe and all of displaced peoples . It was for all of europe, for all the displaced people. They just expected keep in mind, United States had experience with this in a sense that Herbert Hoover launched an effort to feed the hungry people of europe. A lot of attention has been paid to that effort. Sometimes compared with the postwar marshal plan. It was not as big but as important as saving people. It was not designed specifically for jews but for all the hungry people of the world. If you take the german and austrian populations, i would say their survival could not have been guaranteed were it not for unra aid. The u. S. Army put a lot of aid out there, too. But keep in mind, unra worked until 1947, then the United States said, okay, we are paying 70 of the unra expenses and we have no control over what unra is doing, the United Nations is doing. We want to start our own effort. The marshal plan came out of the United States bowing out of supporting unra. Unra went down quickly after that. As the marshal plan came about, unra had closed its doors. It went to Eastern Europe just like hoover aid went to hungary and Eastern Europe. Thank you. Next question is about dead ahead for you. Looking at the map of europe, its easy to understand why a lot of those Eastern European countries came under soviet domination because the red army was there. Czechoslovakia is in great measure as far west as austria. Prague is west. If you travel from vienna to prague, you go west. I was under the impression that Pattons Third Army was prepared to enter czechoslovakia and could have occupied prague before the soviets got there and they were called back. In any event, my question to you is, why did a different result happen in czechoslovakia than in austria . Why, for instance, did they not divide czechoslovakia into two states the way it exists now with the Czech Republic and slovakia on the eastern side with different influence . Thank you. Thats a longish question but a good one. Czechoslovakia also had a free election after the war like hungary. But the interesting thing is in that free election of 46, the communist came out the strongest party. Why was that so you would ask yourself rightly. Usually, the answer to that question is that the czechs were still smarting visavis the west because of the munich agreement. They felt they were sold down at munich to the nazis, which in many respects they were. In that sense, they have never forgiven the british for being involved in that agreement. The czech leader in exile visited moscow during 1943 and sort of did preliminary agreements with the soviets because they felt they needed to deal with the russians, the soviets directly. Since the soviets had not been involved in munich. They couldnt blame the soviets. They explains to a good part the election result in 1946. You are right, patton and the third army were some american soldiers i knew one of them had been over across the border in czech towns. They were stopped to go on to prague. Even though they could have liberated prague. That was the same kind of decision, remember eisenhowers decision to halt at a river in germany . There was wartime agreements that the military leadership, eisenhower, marshal, didnt want to break with the soviets. Since the soviets had already liberated slovakia by beginning of may 1945, it was not far for them to get to prague. Prague is an interesting city in the sense that it suffered very little destruction during world war ii. Vienna and budapest were destroyed heavily. Of course, churchill early on had wanted to liberate those cities himself by the west. Remember, he had a socalled strategy. If i can get this its down here, the capital of slovenia. Its wellknown in the United States since its the home country of the first lady. Its a strategy that churchill had to sort of try to push on the americans in 44 and 45 and say, lets go he says theres a gap here in the mountains. Go up to usa traustria, czechoslovakia, because we cannot allow the soviets to liberate the ancient capitals. Eisenhower said, thats going to be a very thats a strategy lose too many people. We have to cut through the mountains. He didnt want to see any resources diverted. Of course, his strategy was to fight in the west in moremandy a normandy. There was not enough to land troops there. Churchill had seen it coming. Iffed red army liberates, they will impose their regime on it. Thats pretty much what stalin said yugoslavia during the war. Wherever an army liberates, it will impose order on that place. Thats what it did over Eastern Europe. There was a coup in czechoslovakia where the government ministers of the conservative parties resigned. The commune niis communists put into place. We have the communists in control in prague and czechoslovakia. You could say a year after hungary, after budapest is being turned into a communist country. The irony is when it came time to who will participate in the marshal plan, the czechs would have loved to participate. And said so in 1947. Stalin had called the czech leadership, the foreign minister and told them, no, you cant participate. That might have been a preliminary step for czechoslovakia to go down on the communist side. Thefirmed up the iron curtain. They landed on the western side of europe. Eastern europe could not participate in the marshal plan landed on the side that would slowly, economically go down the drain and become poorer. It was a moment of great decision for the czechs. Moscow would not allow them to participate. Thats why the coup in 1948 should not surprise us because around that time the foreign minister probably was dumped out of the window on the mountain in prague and was killed. Czechoslovakia went communist. For the west, it was a big warning signal. The west, United States particularly, feared that this would be the new model of communist takeovers in europe. What happened in czechoslovakia, namely subversion from inside rather than direct attack by the red army. Increasingly, the west feared such subversion. Indeed, they feared usa tr eed might be next. I think we have time for one last question. I will give it to the floor here. Or i have a good one from the online audience. We will two. A recommended reading list. We cant do a bibliography of 20 books. The question was, what would you recommend to read for not yalta. We know whose book we should get for that. These major other summits. I found the best book i wonder whether my colleagues would agree on postwar planning was keith sainsbury. He wrote a book that covers negotiations from moscow 43 to tehran 1943, those few weeks in fall of 1943. Its detailed. Its good. Its worked out of british records. Keith would be a good one. Mark has written about it, too. I dont really know of a book that has covered all book has covered all the conferences. There tend to be books on individual conferences. Theres considerable literature on yalta which tops because seen the soviet documents but not too long ago, two years ago at the International Conference we heard our big friend and colleague talk about potsdam. Much more could be written about potsdam. Thats what happens individual books on individual conferences but we dont have a book that cover it all. By the way, an excellent introduction on yalta, david rends summit book. Second chapter is on yalta and thats very good. For the audience watching at home that doesnt have the program in two of them, two of the best books are dr. Stollers books. Youll notice both are heavily on the western alliance, but they are top notch and you had mentioned rendynolds. We had professor reynolds who gave a talk on the kremlin letters, war time correspondence from winston and franklin. Thats relatively new and also something that sort of opened my eyes. Also a book on the conference between churchill and roosevelt in 1941 and the Atlantic Charter. The Atlantic Charter is the founding document of the postwar order. So that can be recommended too. Great. We have last question here from joe. Thanks again for your presentation. Going back sort of more to the travel aspect of all the conferences, was yalta more of a strategic place for stalin in the sense that he could show off the destruction of the east in the crimea and then of a course more safe for him but is it not just as dangerous for churchill and fdr to travel to these conferences in the soviet union . I think yes, on both of those questions. For stalin it was, you know, he got in a trade and moscow and went down to yalta. Yes, it was safe for him. To show off the destruction, to remind his allies, and this i think might have figured in future debates we havent mentioned an important issue, yalta and subsequently at potsdam german reparations to remind the western powers the level of soviet Union Destruction was so immense. Let germans pay for reconstruction. I think youre right. Stalin didnt care about the difficulty for churchill and roosevelt to get to yalta, he just cared that number one, he would get there safely and number two, it would be a site he could thoroughly bug. We shouldnt forget about that intelligence aspect. Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for the doctor. [ applause ] thank you. Week nights this week were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 3. Tonight civil war scholar discusses the battle of fort fisher which occurred in december of 1864 and january 1865. Then civil war scholar Timothy Smith explores the 1863 battle of Champion Hill that was part of the Vicksburg Campaign followed by jeffrey hunt detailing the moments of general george meade and union force as they followed confederates through virginia. American history tv, tonight beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 3. Next harvard ukrainian history professor Serhii Plokhii outlines the 1945 yalta conference which took place in a crimea resort in ukraine. This talk is part of a National World War Ii Museum symposium marking the 75th anniversary