Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2 · Scott Bury

The Impossible Alliance, Part 2: Episode 95

·42 min·2 clips

Roosevelt arrived at Yalta with congestive heart failure and died weeks later.

1. Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2, Episode 95, returns to the Yalta Conference of February 1945 and the decisions made by Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. 2. Scott Burry hosts Giles Milton, author of The Stalin Affair, and Milton matters because he built the episode around the people behind the conference, not just the headlines. 3. The episode asks why Yalta produced outcomes that often favored Stalin and why Roosevelt, Churchill, and their aides accepted them. 4. Milton reviews Germany's unconditional surrender, the four occupation zones, denazification, and the planned trial of war criminals. 5. He also covers forced return of prisoners of war and displaced persons, plus reparations that included forced labor in the Soviet Union. 6. The discussion moves to the promise of free elections in Central and Eastern Europe, from Czechoslovakia to Bulgaria to Greece. 7. Roosevelt's agreement to Soviet entry into the war against Japan is tied to the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin Island. 8. Poland becomes the central dispute, with Churchill demanding pre-war borders and Stalin insisting on the Curzon Line. 9. Milton notes that this meant shifting Poland about 150 kilometers westward and bringing Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, under Soviet control. 10. The Baltic states are another flashpoint, since Roosevelt entertains Stalin's plan for a plebiscite while aides react with alarm. 11. Milton repeatedly emphasizes Roosevelt's physical collapse, saying he arrived at Yalta with congestive heart failure and looked pale, white, and yellow. 12. He says one plenary session had to be held in Roosevelt's bedroom because the president could not get out of bed. 13. Averell Harriman appears as Roosevelt's emissary, a wealthy Union Pacific owner who could press Detroit to build tanks and planes for the Soviet Union. 14. Kathleen Harriman, or Puff, matters because her uncensored diplomatic letters provide intimate accounts of Churchill's household and Stalin's circle. 15. Milton says Harriman warned Washington not to underestimate Stalin, describing him as brilliant at manipulation and getting what he wanted. 16. The episode also revisits the 1944 Moscow 'naughty document,' where Churchill privately proposed spheres of influence and pushed it across the table to Stalin. 17. Milton's delivery is conversational and argumentative, with Scott Burry interrupting, clarifying, and following up on names, dates, and motives. 18. The format mixes historical explanation, biography, and anecdote, including the Roosevelt illness, the Harriman affair, and the Churchill-Stalin bargaining story. 19. Listeners interested in Yalta, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and wartime diplomacy will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting only battlefield history without high-level politics may skip it.

As heard by us

A sharp look at Allied cooperation that finds rivalry, illness, and leverage beneath the surface.

It frames the alliance as a contest as much as a partnership, with Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin each pressing for advantage while still performing unity.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want the wartime alliance stripped down to its real bargains and bruised egos?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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