Extract from the Yalta Protocol – the agreements signed by Britain, the USA and the USSR at the Yalta Conference, February 1945 (Catalogue ref: FO 371/50838)
Transcript
PROTOCOL OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CRIMEA CONFERENCE
THE Crimea Conference of the Heads of the Governments of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which took place from the 4th-11th February, came to the following conclusions-:
I.–World Organisation.
It was decided:
- That a United Nations conference on the proposed World Organization should be summoned for Wednesday, 25 April, 1945, and should be held in the United States of America.
- The nations to be invited to this conference should be:
- a. the United Nations as they existed on 8 Feb., 1945; and
- b. Such of the Associated Nations as have declared war on the common enemy by 1 March, 1945. When the conference on World Organization is held, the delegates of the United Kingdom and United States of America will support a proposal to admit to original membership two Soviet Socialist Republics, i.e., the Ukraine and White Russia.
- That the United States Government, on behalf of the three powers, should consult the Government of China and the French Provisional Government in regard to decisions taken at the present conference concerning the proposed World Organization.
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C. Voting
“1. Each member of the Security Council should have one vote.
“2. Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters should be made by an affirmative vote of seven members.
“3. Decisions of the Security Council on all matters should be made by an affirmative vote of seven members, including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VIII, Section A and under the second sentence of Paragraph 1 of Chapter VIII, Section C, a party to a dispute should abstain from voting.’
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II. DECLARATION OF LIBERATED EUROPE
The following declaration has been approved:
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The establishment of order in Europe and the rebuilding of national economic life must be achieved by processes which will enable the liberated peoples to destroy the last vestiges of nazism and fascism and to create democratic institutions of their own choice. This is a principle of the Atlantic Charter – the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live – the restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived of them by the aggressor nations.
To foster the conditions in which the liberated people may exercise these rights, the three governments will jointly assist the people in any European liberated state or former Axis state in Europe where, in their judgment conditions require,
- a. to establish conditions of internal peace;
- b. to carry out emergency relief measures for the relief of distressed peoples;
- c. to form interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic elements in the population and pledged to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of Governments responsive to the will of the people; and
- d. to facilitate where necessary the holding of such elections.
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V. REPARATION
The following protocol has been approved:
Protocol
On the Talks Between the Heads of Three Governments at the Crimean Conference on the Question of the German Reparations in Kind
i. Germany must pay in kind for the losses caused by her to the Allied nations in the course of the war. Reparations are to be received in the first instance by those countries which have borne the main burden of the war, have suffered the heaviest losses and have organized victory over the enemy.
ii. Reparation in kind is to be exacted from Germany in three following forms:
- a. Removals … of equipment, machine tools, ships, rolling stock, German investments abroad, shares of industrial, transport … these removals to be carried out chiefly for the purpose of destroying the war potential of Germany.
- b. (b) Annual deliveries of goods from current production for a period to be fixed.
- c. (c) Use of German labour.
iii. For the working out on the above principles of a detailed plan for exaction of reparation from Germany an Allied reparation commission will be set up in Moscow. It will consist of three representatives – one from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, one from the United Kingdom and one from the United States of America.
iv. With regard to the fixing of the total sum of the reparation as well as the distribution of it among the countries which suffered from the German aggression, the Soviet and American delegations agreed as follows:
“The Moscow reparation commission should take in its initial studies as a basis for discussion the suggestion of the Soviet Government that the total sum of the reparation in accordance with the points (a) and (b) of the Paragraph 2 should be 22 billion dollars and that 50 per cent should go to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
The British delegation was of the opinion that, pending consideration of the reparation question by the Moscow reparation commission, no figures of reparation should be mentioned. The above Soviet-American proposal has been passed to the Moscow Reparation Committee as one of the proposals to be considered by the Commission.
VI. Major War Criminals
The Conference agreed the question of the major war criminals should be the subject of enquiry by the three Foreign Secretaries for report in due course after the close of the Conference.