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Appendix 17
The Atlantic Charter of August 14, 1941
The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr.
Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being
met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the
national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a
better future for the world.
1. First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;
2. Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord
with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;
3. Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of
government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and
self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;
4. Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing
obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or
vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the
world which are needed for their economic prosperity;
5. Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all
nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor
standards, economic advancement and social security;
6. Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see
established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in
safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the
men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;
7. Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas
and oceans without hindrance;
8. Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as
well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since
no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be
employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their
frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent
system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They
will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten
for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.
[sgd.] Franklin D. Roosevelt
[sgd.] Winston S. Churchill
Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten
Germans
Survivors speak out
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