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FDR was in visibly declining health by 1944. The Yalta Conference took place at a resort on the Black Sea in the USSR in late 1944. Britain was represented by Churchill. The Soviet Union by Stalin. Of course, Roosevelt was there to represent the United States. A number of agreements were made with respect to Poland which left in solidly in Russian hands.
Is Roosevelt to blame for what happened? Is it a situation that really couldn't have been prevented without another war because Poland was occupied by the Red Army and under Stalin's control? Was Roosevelt's health to blame?
I'd appreciate some comments to this and I'm really hoping are World War II expert, Tony T, will weigh in at some point. I hope we'll keep this discussion on a high level and people will contribute historical sources and facts rather than just popping off with an opinion they got from their parents years ago.
Ask yourself what FDR should have done and project the consequences of what would have happened as a result.
Was the agreement a bad one, or was the problem that Stalin never had any intention of keeping to the terms which called for free elections in the liberated eastern European nations?
Did FDR have reason to believe that Stalin would renege? This seems very probable since the language of the agreements was purposefully vague and no mechanism for enforcing it was included.
Would allied attempts to enforce it have led to a martial confrontation with the USSR? This also seems highly probable.
Would such a war have been justified? Could FDR have rallied the nation which had just defeated Germany, into fighting another war against an even stronger enemy? Could the US have won this fight? Was it a necessary fight?
The Red Army was half way across Poland in January 1945 and in fact had crossed the Oder River before Roosevelt even left the White House. Soviet control of Poland was a fait accompli and nothing short of all out war was going to change that.
As Grandstander points out, how on earth was Roosevelt going to win public support for a war against our "Great Ally" the Soviet Union over Poland when we hadn't even beaten the Japanese?
I would've stopped the American armies at the Rhine and let the Red Army take all of Germany. It would've saved thousands of American lives and served the Germans right.
I agree with Grandstander and Ovcatto. No one deserved any life under the Soviets! The Germans themselves paid for their ruin with money and -blood. FDR- amongst the greatest of presidents and world leaders!P.M. Churchill ranks as high. So do Pres.Michael Gorbachev of the Soviet Union and Pres. Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Federation and . Fredrick de Klerc and Pres. Nelson Mandela of the Uinion of South Africa!
I would've stopped the American armies at the Rhine and let the Red Army take all of Germany. It would've saved thousands of American lives and served the Germans right.
Carrying that sort of reasoning forward, the French and Italians would have voted themselves Communist, Great Britain would have gone even further to the Left than it did under Atlee, and most of the German scientists who aided in the development of a Western defense network would have been working for Stalin.
Not my idea of a healthy future for democracy anywhere.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 12-31-2012 at 06:16 PM..
Carrying that sort of reasoning forward, the French and Italians would have voted themselves Communist, Great Britain would have gone even further to the Left than it did under Atlee, and most of the German scientists who aided in the development of a Western defense network would have been working for Stalin.
Not my idea of a healthy future for democracy anywhere.
Yeah, and it probably would've been in the long term economic interests of The United States; Europe totally screwed up and us making everything they now make.
We didn't need Germans to develop most of our weapons and we certainly had the talent and resources to develop rockets on our own.
We didn't need Germans to develop most of our weapons and we certainly had the talent and resources to develop rockets on our own.
Without the enormous brain-drift from europe ( not only germany ) the whole world would be part of the sovjet-empire today.
The Rusians launched the sputnik, the first man in space and so on....... Without the european scientists the flag on the moon will be the red-star.
Stalin was made from the same stuff like Hitler - Roosevelt, and the others, never had a chance to create a better result at Jalta. The best deal was to divide Germany in two parts.
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