Moscow Declaration

The Third Moscow Conference was a meeting between the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union from October 18 to November 11, 1941. The participants discussed war goals and postwar plans, which were then issued in the Moscow Declaration. 

The Moscow Declaration formalized the Allied commitment to Germany’s unconditional surrender. It also included a “Statement on Atrocities.” The three Allies pledged that Germans deemed responsible for atrocities would be sent back to those countries in which the crimes had been committed. There, they would be judged and punished according to the laws of the nation concerned. War criminals whose crimes could not be tied to a particular geographic location would be punished by joint decision of the Allied governments.