Innsbruck, February 11, 1985
Yalta after 40 Years
Forty years ago today, the Yalta Agreement was signed on the Crimean Peninsula. U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, already marked by severe illness, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill conceded to Josef Stalin, perhaps under pressure by the events at the time, that the Soviet Union may have political control in the territories in Europe which she occupied. Falling under Communist rule, the fate of Eastern Europe and large parts of Southeastern and Central Europe was sealed. Yalta created the prerequisite for the partition of the Continent into a Communist Eastern Europe and a free, democratic Western Europe. In the past four decades, this distribution of power into two spheres of influence has not changed but only hardened. Two days after the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the Red Army captured Budapest, and two months later it stood in front of Vienna and Berlin.
Note
[The Yalta Conference, which took place from February 4-11, 1945, dealt with the last phases of combat of World War II and established the zones of occupation. This summit meeting also laid the foundations for the United Nations and set up the Security Council with its veto power. Although the liberated countries had been assured free, democratic elections, soon the Communists seized power in the territories occupied by the Red Army.]
February 13, 1985
Like a Phoenix from the Ashes
Forty years after its destruction, the Dresden Opera House has indeed risen like a phoenix from the ashes. The Opera House with its long-standing tradition has been rebuilt following the designs of its original architect, Gottfried Semper. The opera Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber was chosen for the opening performance. In this House, opera history was made. The Richard Strauss operas Salome (1905), Elektra (1909), and Der Rosenkavalier (1911) had their world premiere in the Semper Opera in Dresden.