Pivotal meeting between british Prime Minister winston churchill, president franklin roosevelt, and soviet leader joseph stalin. Welcome back to the metal and Paul HilliardConference Center here at the higgins hotel. I hope everybody enjoyed their lunch. We spent this morning doing highlevel analysis of the political and strategic situation that existed amongst the allied leaders. As we know, wars are fought on battlefield, not in boardrooms. These summits, though they dictated much of what would happen on the ground, they would not have mattered much if we did not have armies in the field. Our next session will look at how yalta affected the execution of the closing months of world war two. To do this we have asked rob citino. His executive director of the museum of democracy as well as at the world War Ii Museum. He is an awardwinning led terri historian. Military historian. He has published 10 books, primarily on the german army. He has taught for three decades including stints at west point, the u. S. Military academy, and the u. S. Army war college. He first came to the museum in 2012 for our international conference. Then he came in 2013 for our international conference. Then he was one of our featured tour historians at the 70th anniversary of dday crews. Then he came to arch when he 14 conference. Better yet, in 2016, we invited him to join the staff as a Museum Senior historian and we couldnt be luckier to have top notch scholar who guides our content but also a great guy who is in charge of the institute. Ladies and gentlemen, our friend, rob citino. I mean, what was up in 2015 . What did i do . You sit at home and there is a big Party Happening in new orleans and you are wondering what happened. Thank you very much for those comments, jeremy, and thanks for all of you for being here. I distinctly remember the first time i spoke in the museum in 2012 at the international conference. I was at the friday morning atm slot with wind bergh, the eminent historian. I just remember walking into that room and it was jampacked, there was electricity in the air and you had had an audience who came to play. Folks who know a lot and had good questions to ask. I suddenly realized, the National WorldWar Ii Museum is a place where you have to bring your a game. Ive been trying to do that ever since but thank you all for attending the symposium. We worked out, you never know how timely something is going to be when its the 75th anniversary. We knew that was going to happen. Who can predict just how timely these things are going to be and this one in yalta in 75 certainly is. Jeremy is my boss, so i do whatever he tells me to do. He asked me to speak on the role that yalta played with regards to the end of world war ii. To take us out of the realm of diplomacy and put us back into the battlefield and talk more about military operations in strategy. That is what i am going to try to do here and of course i will try to leave plenty of time at the end for questions as well. As youve heard so far today, we usually view the yalta conference i would say through a single lens. The way in which it determined the post war order in which we still live. The post war order seem to be fray and we may actually be living in the post, post war era right now. We will have to determine whether that is true as things play out. That is how we usually see yalta. Determining the post war order especially in europe and let me just say. That makes perfect sense. The soviet occupation and communist asian of Eastern Europe, the iron curtain, the cold war, you can make a case that all of these facts of post war life kind of flow naturally of the negotiations among the big three iota. I am still reeling from the first slide doctor put up on yalta with the modern faces superimposed. I have nightmares for the next three days. Seeing it in that light as the land that this is about determining the post war order, you could make various assessments of who won at the yalta conference. For much of the time that ive been alive and working in scholarship, scotland usually gets the morals. I know this from personal experience so if you will indulge me for a moment. I grew up in cleveland ohio, as i like to call it, beautiful cleveland, ohio. On the west side, it was a town with a Huge Population of east european ethnic groups. We used to say, and i have no way of determining whether this was or is actually true, there were slovenians in cleveland and there were in ljubljana, which is the actual capital of slovenia. Probably not true today, it may well have been true when i grew up in the sixties and seventies. Every february there was a mountain of mail to the cleveland plain dealer. The morning newspaper castigating the allies and fdr in particular for having sold poland, yugoslavia, hungary, romania, take your pick, for having sold one of those countries down the river a yalta, that was the phrase that was all was used. Fdr sold pulling down the river or yugoslavia or hungry a yalta. And the seventies, so i was a teenager in 0. 98, one of the biggest diplomatic issues was the return of crown of state stevens to hungry. They are the founder of hungarian traditionally, and had a cricket cross because supposedly was hit by turkish musket ball, i am not sure that is true but the legends of the crown. It was being held in the United States president carter wanted to give back. That was carters explanation. It royal politics in cleveland for the better part of three years. Mary rose was a Cleveland City councilman at the time she sort of leading the charge not to give the crown and sent stevens back to the crown of communism. That was the yalta top for five years growing up about the captive nations of Eastern Europe. Now, what im going to try to argue today that this is another lens through which we can probably should look at yalta. I think it is one that is a little less to use and doctor certainly refer to it enough times. Let me triangle to be a little bit more detail and you can set me up nicely. I think in this light, we could judge it a remarkable success for everyone concerned. That is to gauge yaltas impact at the end of the war itself. On the strategy of the allies and on the actual course of military operations in the worst last months. We are talking about a conference that happened in february of 1945 and talking about a war that came to an end in europe, at least in may and then in the pacific in august and september. How did yalta indicate what happened on the battlefield in those months. Let me begin with a fairly obvious point, and we will start this map for a while, the big losers at the yalta conference were not the east europeans, and especially as they were treated and its horrible that they were under soviet domination, the big losers where the germans, and germany itself. Yalta rammed a final nail in the coffin of the german strategy. Summarized briefly, that strategy ran Something Like this. Germany intended, to make allied as expensive as possible. I think the french revolution style a big call up of the population, a German National uprising. So, the plan actually had been followed since night late 1944 the plan was to call up laps last ditch levied. These are made up of man power, and supply troops, administrative troops, even lightly wounded turned out of their hospital beds, thrown back to the front given a route of antirudimentary training, the big offensive like at the battle of the bulge. They were holding extremely larger segments of the front going forward. At the point where both reserves were exhausted, you know when youve taken every desk jockey and turn them into an infantry man, at the point where those reserves were exhausted, they were turn to italians comprised of the classic old men and young boys grandpas and grandsons in the same units given a single shot anti tank weapon, and sent it to do or die against the evaders. You see pictures of some german shuttle soldiers, and i use that term loosely on the eastern and western front, they do look like sophomores in high school, and in many cases thats what they were. Now when those were exhausted, you run out of old men and boys eventually, then there would be last second partisan resistance all over germany a nation in flames, of people standing up against the hated invader in both the east and west, offered often going under the heading of with a werewolf movement, these were partisans, who would put guerrilla warfare against the invaders. Once again the idea was to force the allies to fight hard. Over every inch of ground. Against a population that was tied from revolutionary socialist. According to the scheme probably in britain a united state first, enemy morale would crack. You cannot fight over every single village in germany, to both armies, the east in the west invaders and meet in the middle. Eventually morale would crack. In the deliberations in the high command of the armed forces, game it was almost always assumed that that would be britain and the and or the United States first. And that was splinter the ground alliance. And that would free german troops, to against the soviet people driving in from the east. There was a strategy, it was discussed all the time at the upper echelons off the german high command, and that morales was the strategy. I read sometimes that hitler had no strategy, he was trying to choreograph a downfall for himself, im not really a fan of that point of view, but you do see it argued from time to time. Now, im saying there was a strategy was lot different and saying there was a good strategy, whether that was realistic or, not an frankly its hard to argue that there was much there that was actually going to work, that entire strategic perspective, was smashed to pieces at yalta. Simply by reaffirming the unity of the grand alliance. Simply by presenting a united front to the german enemy. Simply by implicitly restating the allied commitment to unconditional surrender. It wasnt to a point of discussion wealth of, but it wouldve been rescinded. So implicitly stating unconditional surrender. Simply by elating stalins fears of the west, with somehow going to do a deal against him. Yalta lay the groundwork for the endgame in europe. One that would end, spoiler alert in the total destruction of German Military. Sure that seems inevitable to us today, and also its february this war is going to be over its going to be over in so many months, but hard fighting was going on, all across the front, while the yalta conference was taking place, nobody was doing a victory lap, nobody was driving forward at top speed against negligible opposition, nearly every village in town was being fought over, and talk about the opposition far from the rhineland, so victory seems inevitable, and now if you have a class but university professor, or lecturer and you have the time in your behind on the syllabus, we were just talking about this, believe me youll see the wars over in two months. But if you happen to be there or be with those who are in charge of fighting that war, there was a great deal more to it than that. And if the study of diplomacy, and history tells us anything, it is that nothing is inevitable, there is nothing less inevitable than the end of a war. When it happens. In that sense im arguing that yalta was a kind of a allied victory. At this point in the war, victory was guaranteed, as long as the Brand Alliance held. So the german these alliances these made up of boys, who are not yet of draft age, than men who are really well past that time, the motto was the people stands up, but you know in the face of these vast forces, in the face of a firm grand alliance, the people stood up all right, and the vast majority of them, set right back down again. And hence the mass surrenders at the end of the war, and the lack of any real guerrilla resistance. I think by stating a firm promises, saying there is no room for that type of thing, yalta probably did good work, bringing up german need to surrender. Hitler shot himself because of what happened at yalta as well, i think thats part of what i want to say. The second, follow an impact of yalta at the end of the war, has to do with the shape of operations in europe. In the last few months. So once again in my era, ive revealed 1958, i grew up in the middle of the cold war, maybe at its coldest, we cant argue what its worse womans were, but in my era the story often spoke of a race to berlin. Thats how they characterize the end of the war. And the castigated the western allies, for having lost the race to berlin. Making this mistake, and that mistaken that blunder in that one. Lets surrendering a big chunk of post war germany and Eastern Europe to the soviets. Now there were always, big problems with this, by march 1945 to beginning of march, powerful soviet offensive, had smashed their way into the reich itself and came to rest along the line of the odor rivers, just about 50 miles from berlin. Good at the time, western allied forces, under allied commander eisenhower, was still stuck on the ryan, could 300 miles away from berlin, kisses where we are at the time, and here is where the soviets are sorry sounds like the home team, heres where the western allies were at the time, and heres where the soviets were, there is a discrepancy in moves closer to berlin. But soviet offensive said that smashed their way deep into the right itself, over running the provinces of east pressure, and the coastal province of palm arena. Coming to rest on the line at. Seizing the german Capital First was extremely unlikely for the western allies, short of some miracle. It was also a highly risky operation that i would argue is kind of foreign to eisenhowers strategy. Eisenhower does take his share of risk in the war but by and large, the operations on the map are not what you would consider napoleon it in the chances they take and the risks they are willing to court. There is a little 1967 book by Steven Ambrose of memory. Steven ambrose of course is one of the fathers with this museum along with our very own nick. He wrote a book called eisenhower in berlin 1945. The decision to halt. Not driving for berlin but halting here at the elbow where americans would eventually stop. He was one of the first, i think, to make a sustained argument in favor of the decision not to go for berlin, not to risk 80,000 or 90,000 or 100,000 men in a senseless fight for a city that was going to be divided amongst the allies anyway. That is essentially the contour of ambrose his argument in eisenhower and berlin in 1945. It is still a book, like everything Steve Ambrose wrote, it is still a book well worth reading but in fact, the strategic context for all these developments was laid again at yalta, after this show of inter allied unity against germans. A lunch for berlin that snatched the big prize from under stalin snows would have been difficult to justify. I might even say difficult to explain and amongst people who would have a hard time understanding, it would be a lot of americans. Stalin was paranoid of the possibility and paranoia was a way of life. Feeding stalins paranoia was probably not a Winning Strategy for the allies at this point in the war or frankly at any other point. That was the background for the march 28th note from eisenhower to stalin. Telling the soviet dictators that allied forces intended to drive east towards the elbow river with the aim of cutting germany and a half, north and south, not to detour northeast to try to take my point, instead of a messy top speed race to berlin and a subsequent bloody urban melee, which is what the proponents are going for berlin are really asking for, you all to ensure that the war in europe would end with a meeting at the soviet troops in the river of april 25th, 1945. I have to say, having weighed the pros and cons in the places and minuses, its probably a better option and i hope a lot of people in the room would agree with me. What did that decision lead to . Deciding to forgo risky, longdistance strike at berlin allowed the u. S. Army to focus on a juicy operational target. The encirclement of the main german force in the west. There was a stroke of luck on march 7th as u. S. Forward units, ninth armored division, seized and attacked railroad bridge over the ryan river at the town of armada, which is going to be here at the bottom of this. You may know the story, truth rushing forward, there is a german bridge that has not been blown yet. German troops on the bridge and on the opposite side of the river and pressing the buttons and pressing every switch they could to block the charges that will destroy the bridge and american troops are already on the bridge, they press it, it blows, illicit in the air and it comes back down from to rust and tack. It was one of the most amazing moments in all of world war ii. Naturally, it is rather freakish by all accounts, the bridge should have gone into the river and the nazis reacted as you would expect, rounded up all the troops who were responsible for it and had them shot. It is really to mean nothing more than just a horrible stroke of bad luck from the german perspective. At any rate, the american see the bridge over the rind and that was getting over the ryan, it is now crossing the little stream in your backyard. It is a major mississippi style river and it was going to be difficult to have any kind of crossing operation. By the end of the month, massive ally forces were driving over the ryan had he east. In concert, with an attack across the ryan by general montgomery to the north, for included a gigantic airdrop behind german lines. The allies in circled an entire German Army Group here in the fifth germanys industrial heartland. Nearly 400,000 troops of army grubby of actually surrendered. That is fifth pans or army and 15th army marching into captivity nearly and told us, nearly half 1 million prisoners. A hall of p. O. W. That the u. S. Army had a hard time processing them and kept them out and camps, open air camps, along the ryan. Under horrible conditions, under the elements, but there was just too many p. O. W. s to do more with them at the time. The battle of the pocket, as a sometimes call it, because it is an encirclement. They had a cauldron battle battle of encirclement. The battle of the rubber pocket was nothing left then the u. S. Military victory of alltime. The german Commander Army grubby, seeing the writing on the wall about the