bischof over the years and we have listened to them and we have enacted them. slowly in his mind. but a couple of things that today really points out to me is the students. gunther and his friends dr. dupont and others at uno have been strong in advocated the museum not just have wonderful folks here but engage with the local university audience and with younger scholars, post docs or fresh out as a ph.d program and to look at a broader international perspective and try to bring in not just the american experience in our public programming. and lastly, he has been a long time advocate that we need to get a distinguished scholar by the name of sergei plokhy here. so thank you everything you've done for us gunther. dr. bischof is the director of center of austria at the university of new orleans, a native of austria he came here as an exchange student with a history degree and masters greig from u.n.o. he has published too many books to put in one biography and edited many more and published thousands of articles. but he is most recently the marshall plan since 1947, saving europe r

bischof, thank you very much for starting this off here. [applause] i will be walking through the crowd with a microphone. i ask that you please stand before >> stalin's refusal to leave russia at the yalta conference, is that legitimate or some kind of maneuver otherwise? >> from what i can tell, it was a maneuver. because roosevelt and churchill just as legitimately could have said, we can't leave our country because we have to be close to our military decision-making and that was stalin's principal reason. one reason why he probably only came to a meeting at yalta or tehran which was under soviet control at the time we think is that it gave him an opportunity to thoroughly bug the meeting rooms and the places where roosevelt and churchill would meet. so we think that these meeting rooms were bugged and that whenever churchill and roosevelt talk privately, stalin would have the transcripts of those talks the next evening. he was very careful in knowing what the other players would come up with and that intelligence advantage seemed to hav

bischof: i thought that was pretty remarkable.y took reparations away from german assets and eastern austria. that was all the way up until 1960. austria delivered oil to the soviet union all the way up until 1960. but what the historian has reminded us, we need to keep in mind the fact that the americans got reparations from germany, even though they did not demand any at yalta. how did they get it? in a smart way. they sent teams into germany. to take production methods, to take patents out of german corporations. and apparently that saved companies like dupont, who took these production plans billions , of dollars of research plans, so it is assumed this smart way of intellectual reparations netted the united states $10 billion or so, too. in the long run, both sides got what they wanted. >> i would like to throw in one thing, gunter, about this issue of myths. myths are easy to sell when there a kernel of truth to them. i don't really believe in the big lie. that you just invent a crazy thing and sand enough times. let me talk

that bischof: i thought was pretty remarkable. they took reparations away from german assets and eastern austria. that was all the way up until 1960. but what the historian has reminded us, we need to keep that in mind, tia well, the fact that the americans got reparations from germany, even though they did not demand any at yalta. how did they get it? i got it in a smart way. .hey sent teams into germany and apparently that saved companies like dupont, who took these reduction plans, billions of dollars of research plans, so it is assumed this smart way of doing reparations netted the $10 billion or so, too. in the long run, both sides got what they wanted. i would like to throw in one issue gunter, about this of myths. myths are easy to sell when there is a colonel of truth to them. i don't really believe in the big lie. let me talk about poland. we have all worked with graduate students at certain points in our career. i love them dearly. they bring us certain amounts of wisdom. the student was here. there was no real independe

plokhy and michael bischof. before everyone gets up, i have a couple of closing remarks and then i will cede the podium to rob. thank you in the audience for a great day, for your questions both online but especially you all being here physically with us. and seeing for maybe the first time our brand-new higgins hotel. i hope this isn't the last time we see you this year. we have wonderful programming throughout the year. keep in mind and look on our website for the september memory wars conference, world war ii at '75. we've talked about the legacy of world war ii or yalta today. this conference in september will be discussing how the war is remembered throughout the world and how it is very relevant to current political and diplomatic affairs. it is looking at it through public memorials, through museums, monuments. so that's going to be one in september. and then the week after vj day or the anniversary of the surrender ceremony on september 2nd. so the next one is our international conference on world war ii

. ♪ ♪ >> history professor gunter bischof explores world war ii

. >>> history professor gunther bischof examines world war ii summit which preceded the yalta conferenceiewed the post war decisions made during these meetings and the political leaders in

gnter bischof to the podium to open our yalta symposium. thank you. >> good morning ladies and gentlemen. good to see many of you here. special shout out to our you and no colleagues and students. it's sort of if you think about yalta fitting that our colleague mark stoler didn't make it out of vermont because it was very hard to get to yalta at the time in february 1945. you might know that roosevelt was already a very sickly man and he had to travel by ship from virginia to malta in the mediterranean 10 days and then a seven hour flight up to the northern part of the crimean peninsula and from there he took a car down to the palace in yalta, another four hours. this is a man that had all kinds of physical challenges. so keep that in mind. there was a number of other cities initially envisioned for a summit meeting. churchill and roosevelt suggested for example of scotland, cyprus, sicily, alexandria or jerusalem if possible. stalin didn't want to leave the soviet union. when we talk about summits, this is a early tivoli recent phenomenon

gunter bischof to the podium to open our yalta symposium. thank you. >> good morning. it's so good to see many of you here, a special shout out to our colleagues and students at uno. it's sort, of if you think about yalta, fitting that our colleague did not make it out of vermont because it was very hard to get to yalta at the time. in february 1945. you might know that roosevelt was already a very sickly man, and he had to travel by ship from virginia to the mediterranean ten days, and then a seven-hour flight up to the northern part of the crimean peninsula, stocky airfield, and from there he took a card to the palace in yalta. another four hours, this was a man who had all kinds of physical challenges. so keep that in mind. by the way, there was a number of other cities initially envisioned for a summit meeting, churchill and roosevelt suggested, for example, northern scotland, socially, alexandria, or jerusalem as possible, a site for a summit meeting but did not want to leave the soviet union. we will talk more about that. when we talk about summits, this was a re

. >> history professor gnter bischof explores world war ii allied summits in quebec and moscow which preceded the yalta conference. he reviews the