A photo of Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin sitting on a bench surrounded by military officers at the Yalta Conference in the Ukraine.

Source: Photo #: USA C-543 (Color), U.S. Military, Wikimedia

Yalta Conference 1945 – Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister (Left), Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States (Center), and Josef Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union.

Click here Video segment. Assistance may be required. Behind Closed Doors and skim the Objectives and Outcome sections, then watch the video clip titled The Big Three Decide Poland's Fate in the Related Resources and Media Section to the right of the article.

A special purpose political map of Europe showing post World War II spheres of influence.

Source: Map-Germany-1947, 52 Pickup, Wikimedia.

East Germany was formed by the Soviet Zone, while West Germany was formed by the American, British, and French zones in 1949 and the Saar in 1957.

Interactive exercise. Assistance may be required. Click and drag the goals of the United States and Soviet Union into the correct columns of the T chart below. Then consider the questions that follow.

In your notes, answer the following questions.

  1. What do the goals of the United States suggest about their intentions concerning post-war Europe?
  2. What do the goals of the Soviet Union suggest about their intentions concerning post-war Europe?
  3. How do you think they might change over the months of 1945?