end of World War II By late 1944, after the Soviet success of the Belorussian Offensive in August 1944, the Eastern Front became relatively stable. Romania and Bulgaria had been forced to surrender and declare war on Germany. The Germans had lost Budapest and most of the rest of Hungary. The plains of Poland were now open to the Soviet Red Army. Starting on January 12, 1945, the Red Army began the Vistula–Oder Offensive which was followed a day later by the start of the Red Army's East Prussian Offensive. German populations in Central and Eastern Europe took flight from the advancing Red Army, resulting in a great population shift. After the final Soviet offensives began in January 1945, hundreds of thousands of German refugees, many of whom had fled to Danzig by foot from East Prussia (see evacuation of East Prussia), tried to escape through the city's port in a large-scale evacuation that employed hundreds of German cargo and passenger ships. Some of the ships were sunk by the Soviets, including the Wilhelm Gustloff, after an evacuation was attempted at neighboring Gdynia. In the process, tens of thousands of refugees were killed. Cities such as Danzig also endured heavy Western Allied and Soviet bombardment. Those who survived and could not escape encountered the Red Army. On 30 March 1945, the Soviets captured the city and left it in ruins. The Yalta Conference As it became evident that the Allies were going to defeat Nazi Germany decisively, the question arose as to how to redraw the borders of Central and Eastern European countries after the war. In the context of those decisions, the problem arose of what to do about ethnic minorities within the redrawn borders. The final decision to move Poland's boundary westward was made by the US, Britain and the Soviets at the Yalta Conference, shortly before the end of the war. The precise location of the border was left open. The western Allies also accepted in general the principle of the Oder River as the future western border of Poland and of population transfer as the way to prevent future border disputes. The open question was whether the border should follow the eastern or western Neisse rivers, and whether Stettin, the traditional seaport of Berlin, should remain German or be included in Poland. The western Allies sought to place the border on the eastern Neisse, but Stalin