US Presidency
1945

It will be removing a cancer from the German body politic which for generations has produced only misery and only pain to the whole world. During my stay in Yalta, I saw the kind of reckless, senseless fury, the terrible destruction that comes out of German militarism. Yalta, on the Black Sea, had no military significance of any kind. It had no defenses. Before the last war, it had been a resort for people like the Czars and princes and for the aristocracy of Russia, and the hangers on. However, after the Red Revolution, and until the attack on the Soviet Union by Hitler, the palaces and the villas of Yalta had been used as a rest and recreation center by the Russian people. The Nazi officers took these former palaces and villas, took them over for their own use.