Perspectives

With all the current talk about Russia it might be worthwhile to think about the closing days of WWII. In February of 1945 there was a conference at Yalta in Crimea between Josef Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to discuss the post war reconstruction of Germany and Europe. At the time Soviet forces, which were three times the size of the Western Allies, were 40 miles from Berlin and the Western forces were crossing the western boundary of Germany many hundreds of miles from Berlin. Russia demanded the right to drive on to Berlin and occupy Eastern Europe and the Western forces were to stop at the Elbe River. In return, Russia agreed to join the war against Japan whose invasion was expected to create a million casualties.