The Morgenthau plan

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sandeepmukherjee196
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The Morgenthau plan

#1

Post by sandeepmukherjee196 » 25 Jan 2015, 19:09

[Split from "Was Hitler really incompetent as the Supreme Commander"]
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Michael Kenny wrote:
sandeepmukherjee196 wrote:
No one under those circumstances would call it quits. Anyone would still try and get an optimum outcome. Model was proven to be one of the best bets Hitler had under those circumstances.
The best outcome for Germany was no longer in doubt by the summer of 1944. Total capitulation. It would have avoided the retribution visited on them in 1945 because they gained nothing by holding out . The Generals knew this and some even said it out loud. Hitler was a gambler who having won big time early in the game believed he could recoup his (by now) crippling losses with 'one more bet'. He was wrong. The Mortain Offensive was the work of an idiot.
Perhaps some are confusing the best outcome for Germany with the best outcome for Hitler? Whilst the lunatic Hitler had nothing to lose his people did. His desperate attempts to delay his well deserved execution cost the lives of millions of innocent Germans.
The outcome for the lunatic and his innocent volk were not supposed to have been very different at that point of time. Today this pat story has come into circulation that it would have been business as usual for the ordinary non-Nazi Germans if only Hitler and his criminals were decent enough to do themselves in earlier.

The Morgenthau plan would have been put into effect in the Western parts of Germany and the Eastern provinces taken away and parcelled out to other countries, their German populations driven out (the ones that survived the rape and genocide). In the Russian parts, after the initial rape-festivals, Stalinism would have of course been imposed.

Very little is discussed today about the Morgenthau plan, its slightly abridged form .. JCS 1067 and its effect on the Germans..till the cold war came about to drastically change the ball game...and resulted in the survival of Germany as a nation and the Germans as a people.

In the map one can see what was done to Germany and what is left over after the lunatic was done away with. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan)

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Re: Was Hitler really incompetent as the Supreme Commander

#2

Post by Michael Kenny » 25 Jan 2015, 19:24

sandeepmukherjee196 wrote:

The Morgenthau plan.............................
Was never sanctioned and was never implimented. Just like War Plan Red and Operational Unthinkable.

You are simply repeating the WW2 Goebbel's lie.
Heed the warning from your own source:

Nazi propaganda on the subject had a lasting effect and ......... it is stil lused for propaganda purposes by extreme right-wing organizations



I would add it is also being used by those who have a lingering admiration for Hitler.

Germans did not fight to the end because they wanted too but because if they did not the Nazi's would have them all swinging from lamposts. Fear was the driver and no attempt to hide the facts will work


sandeepmukherjee196
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The Morgenthau plan

#3

Post by sandeepmukherjee196 » 25 Jan 2015, 22:01

Michael Kenny wrote:
sandeepmukherjee196 wrote:

The Morgenthau plan.............................
Was never sanctioned and was never implimented. Just like War Plan Red and Operational Unthinkable.

You are simply repeating the WW2 Goebbel's lie.
Heed the warning from your own source:

Nazi propaganda on the subject had a lasting effect and ......... it is stil lused for propaganda purposes by extreme right-wing organizations



I would add it is also being used by those who have a lingering admiration for Hitler.

Germans did not fight to the end because they wanted too but because if they did not the Nazi's would have them all swinging from lamposts. Fear was the driver and no attempt to hide the facts will work

The Morgenthau Plan was THE official policy of the Roosevelt regime. It ran up against resistance from other saner elements in the US Govt. Churchill was brought around by turning the screws on him regarding post war financial assistance. Churchill once famously burst out " What do you want me to do? Go up on my hind legs and beg like Fallah?"

Roosevelt's untimely death in April 45 was a bit of a dampener for Morgenthau's team but the JCS 1067 was modified and used to execute the main points of the plan. Please read the following :


INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW


The Morgenthau Plan and the Problem of Policy Perversion


Prof. Anthony Kubek



" The Morgenthau Diaries consist of 900 volumes located at Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York. As a consultant to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, I was assigned to examine all documents dealing with Germany, particularly ones related to the Morgenthau Plan for the destruction of Germany following the Second World War. The Subcommittee was interested in the role of Dr. Harry Dexter White, the main architect of the Plan."


.................................



" Stated in its simplest terms, the objective of the Morgenthau Plan was to de-industrialize Germany and diminish its people to a pastoral existence once the war was won. If this could be accomplished, the militaristic Germans would never rise again to threaten the peace of the world. This was the justification for all the planning, ...."


" How the Treasury officials were able to integrate basic features of their plan into the military directive, originally prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and known as JCS 1067, is fully disclosed in the Diaries. White saw to it that many elements of his thinking were embodied in ICS 1067. Previous directives for guidance of American troops upon entrance into Germany, which already had undergone six or more revisions of a stylistic nature, were now brought more in line with the punitive thinking of Morgenthau and White. A new directive, which called for a more complete de-nazification, was, with some modifications, the spirit and substance of the Treasury plan. In the two full years that ICS 1067 was the cornerstone of American policy, Germany was punished and substantially dismantled in accord with the basic tenets of the Morgenthau Plan. JCS 1067 forbade fraternization by American personnel with the Germans, ordered a very strict program of de-nazification extending both to public life and to business, prohibited American aid in any rebuilding of German industry, and emphasized agricultural rehabilitation only."

.............................

" At the Yalta Conference on February 4, 1945, the question of postwar treatment of Germany was the most important item on the agenda. The President's conduct suggests the powerful effect on his thinking of White's masterplan and Morgenthau's salesmanship. On the major points regarding Germany the President easily capitulated to the Soviets. Stalin and Roosevelt were in general accord that the defeated Germans should be stripped of their factories and left to take care of themselves. But Churchill wished to preserve enough of the existing economic structure of Germany to permit the defeated nation to recover to some degree."

...............................................

" What were the final results of the Morgenthau Plan? What actual effect did it have on Germany? "While the policy was never fully adopted," wrote W. Friedmann, "it had a considerable influence upon American policy in the later stages of the war and during the first phase of military government." Although President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill eventually recognized the folly of what they had approved at Quebec, Morgenthau, White, and the Treasury staff saw to it that the spirit and substance of their plan prevailed in official policy as it was finally mirrored in the punitive directive known as JCS 1067.

In a very definite way JCS 1067 determined the main lines of U.S. policy in Germany for fully two years after the surrender. Beginning in the fall of 1945, to be sure, a new drift in American policy was evident, and it eventually led to the formal repudiation of the directive in July of 1947. Until it was officially revoked, however, the lower administrative echelons had to enforce its harsh provisions. "The military government officers," writes Prof. Harold Zink, "were unable to see how Germany could be reorganized without a substantial amount of industrialization. They tried to fit the Morgenthan dictates into their economic plans, but they ended up more or less in a state of paralysis.


As White had certainly anticipated, the economic condition of Germany was desperate between 1945 and 1948. The cities remained heaps of debris, and shelter was at a premium as a relentless stream of unskilled refugees poured into the Western zones, where the food ration of 1,500 calories per day was hardly sufficient to sustain life. As Stimson, Riddleberger, and others had predicted, the economic prostration of Germany now resulted in disruption of the continental trade that was essential to the prosperity of other European nations. As long as German industrial power was throttled, the economic recovery of Europe was delayed -- and this, in time, led to serious political complications. To nurse Europe back to health, the Marshall Plan was devised in 1947. It repudiated, at long last, the philosophy of the White-Morgenthau program."


Goebbels used the spectre of the Morgenthau plan to harden the resolution and desperation of Germans to resist. Just like he used the Russian atrocities in the East to drum up fear driven motivation. Both were based on reality. Just like the Stalinists used the German atrocities in Russia to drum up patriotism and dispel any threat of widespread collaboration on an anti Bolshevik agenda.

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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#4

Post by Marcus » 25 Jan 2015, 22:16

We've had other threads on this topic but it was a long time ago they were active so we're giving this one a chance.

/Marcus

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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#5

Post by sandeepmukherjee196 » 25 Jan 2015, 22:27

Thanks Marcus...

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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#6

Post by Michael Kenny » 25 Jan 2015, 22:36

Have you no idea of what type of site the INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW is?

Try your favourite source Wiki again

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_ ... cal_Review

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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#7

Post by OpanaPointer » 26 Jan 2015, 03:49

The Institute for Hysterical Revisionism is not a source for an honest historian.
Come visit our sites:
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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#8

Post by David Thompson » 26 Jan 2015, 04:37

sandeepmukherjee196 -- You wrote:
The Morgenthau Plan was THE official policy of the Roosevelt regime.
Prove it. What is the document adopting Mr. Morgenthau's proposals as "THE official policy"?
If a poster raises a question about the events, other posters may answer the question with evidence. If a poster stops asking questions and begins to express a point of view, he then becomes an advocate for that viewpoint. When a person becomes an advocate, he has the burden of providing evidence for his point of view. If he has no evidence, or doesn't provide it when asked, it is reasonable for the reader to conclude that his opinion or viewpoint is uninformed and may fairly be discounted or rejected.

Undocumented claims undercut the research purposes of this section of the forum. Consequently, it is required that proof be posted along with a claim. The main reason is that proof, evidence, facts, etc. improve the quality of discussions and information. A second reason is that inflammatory, groundless posts and threads attack, and do not promote, the scholarly purpose of this section of the forum.

This requirement applies to each specific claim. In the past, some posters have attempted to evade the proof requirement by resort to the following tactics, none of which are acceptable here:

A general reference to a website, or a book without page references; citations or links to racist websites; generalized citations to book reviews; and citations to unsourced, secondary articles or opinions.

Noncomplying posts are subject to deletion after warning.

AHF rules at http://forum.axishistory.com/rules

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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#9

Post by David Thompson » 26 Jan 2015, 06:31

For interested readers -- Here are some previous threads relating to Allied policies in Germany:

JCS 1067 and US military government in Germany
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=21690
Documents on the US Occupation of Germany 1945
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=69515
Soviet containment and Marshall Plan
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=21292
Ralph Keeling's 'Gruesome Harvest' (1947)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=175226
US policy and Nazi war crimes 1943-1946
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=33400
Plunder in postwar Germany
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=4055

sandeepmukherjee196
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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#10

Post by sandeepmukherjee196 » 27 Jan 2015, 14:41

David Thompson wrote:sandeepmukherjee196 -- You wrote:
The Morgenthau Plan was THE official policy of the Roosevelt regime.
Prove it. What is the document adopting Mr. Morgenthau's proposals as "THE official policy"?
If a poster raises a question about the events, other posters may answer the question with evidence. If a poster stops asking questions and begins to express a point of view, he then becomes an advocate for that viewpoint. When a person becomes an advocate, he has the burden of providing evidence for his point of view. If he has no evidence, or doesn't provide it when asked, it is reasonable for the reader to conclude that his opinion or viewpoint is uninformed and may fairly be discounted or rejected.

Undocumented claims undercut the research purposes of this section of the forum. Consequently, it is required that proof be posted along with a claim. The main reason is that proof, evidence, facts, etc. improve the quality of discussions and information. A second reason is that inflammatory, groundless posts and threads attack, and do not promote, the scholarly purpose of this section of the forum.

This requirement applies to each specific claim. In the past, some posters have attempted to evade the proof requirement by resort to the following tactics, none of which are acceptable here:

A general reference to a website, or a book without page references; citations or links to racist websites; generalized citations to book reviews; and citations to unsourced, secondary articles or opinions.

Noncomplying posts are subject to deletion after warning.

AHF rules at http://forum.axishistory.com/rules
HI David Thompson...

I would like to know from you, as a Forum Staff, what exactly have I done to merit your post, as above please? I have posted a document written by a scholar who was a consultant to the US Senate Internal Security Sub Committe. Prof Anthony Kubek was officially assigned to examine all documents related to Germany and the Morgenthau Plan for post war Germany. His Bio data to be found on the internet, is as follows:

" Dr. Kubek was a nationally prominent authority on American foreign policy, especially US policy in Asia.
Anthony Kubek was born in 1920. After a year as a scholarship student at Geneva College, he served during World War II in the US Navy in the Pacific theater and the Far East.

He earned three degrees from Georgetown University: B.A. in Foreign Service (1948), M.A. (1950), and Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History (1956). During his academic career, he served as the Academic Dean of Frisco College, in Frisco, Texas, and as a professor at the University of Dallas, where he was chairman of the Department of History and Political Science."

One can still dispute whatever he says. However does quoting him construe an infringement of the rules of AHF? If it does, I would like to be specifically apprised of the same please.

You have quoted one sentence from my post in isolation please. I will repost the relevant part in totality. :

" The Morgenthau Plan was THE official policy of the Roosevelt regime. It ran up against resistance from other saner elements in the US Govt. Churchill was brought around by turning the screws on him regarding post war financial assistance. Churchill once famously burst out " What do you want me to do? Go up on my hind legs and beg like Fallah?"

Roosevelt's untimely death in April 45 was a bit of a dampener for Morgenthau's team but the JCS 1067 was modified and used to execute the main points of the plan....................."


The contents and intent of the JCS 1067 amply demonstrate that the spirit of the Morgenthau plan was captured and sought to be palmed off under a different name since the original had run up against resistance. This is what I said in my post and this is what I am repeating here.

Following the links to the earlier threads you have posted later on this page, one finds that Marcus Wendel conveys the same sense. I am not copy -pasting what Marcus said since you have already given the link. But should it be found necessary, I would be happy to quote the relevant lines from Marcus' post.

Should you so desire, I would also be glad to look for other documents and sources which indicate that the Morgenthau Plan had official US Govt. blessings at the highest levels.

Thanks
Sandeep

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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#11

Post by sandeepmukherjee196 » 27 Jan 2015, 14:51

Michael Kenny wrote:Have you no idea of what type of site the INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW is?

Try your favourite source Wiki again

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_ ... cal_Review
OpanaPointer wrote:The Institute for Hysterical Revisionism is not a source for an honest historian.
I bear no brief for this organisation. I have quoted from the writings of Prof Anthony Kubek, a noted scholar and Professor of the University of Dallas, apart from his role as an one time consultant to the US Senate.

His document was provided on this site which you say is disreputable. How is that germane to our main issue? Umless you are saying that Prof Kubek in reality didnt write these lines !?

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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#12

Post by OpanaPointer » 27 Jan 2015, 15:28

Bye.
Come visit our sites:
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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#13

Post by Marcus » 27 Jan 2015, 17:24

sandeepmukherjee196 wrote:Following the links to the earlier threads you have posted later on this page, one finds that Marcus Wendel conveys the same sense. I am not copy -pasting what Marcus said since you have already given the link. But should it be found necessary, I would be happy to quote the relevant lines from Marcus' post.
I have not claimed that the Morgenthau plan was "THE official policy of the Roosevelt regime", you made that claim, not me so do not try to place the burden of proof on me.

---
15 years ago I posted the below quote (that does not support your claim) in a link David linked to wrote:"Roosevelt and Churchill at first endorsed these harsh conditions, but were persuaded that a weak, economically backward, Germany would not be in the long-term interests of either state,"
(Rochard Overy - Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich)
In the same 15 years old discussion Gareth Collins posted the below quote wrote: Morgenthau Plan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scheme for the post-war pastoralisation of Germany which was proposed in 1944 by the secretary of the US Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr. (1891-1967).
Morgenthau was highly successful - he raised and spent more money than all his 51 predecessors combined, and he took a leading role at the Bretton Woods conference in July 1944 - but his plan should never have seen the light of day. However, at the time Roosevelt's intimate advisor, Harry Hopkins, was out of favour and Morgenthau's ideas were influential. The plan envisaged Germany being divided into two states, northern and southern, after being stripped of the territory it had acquired. No financial reparations would be demanded, as this would have meant keeping part of Germany's industrial strength operational to pay for them. Instead, all industrial machinery would be dismantled and transported to Allied nations, mostly to the USSR, 'restitution'. In its original form no help was to be offered, and a de-industrialised Germany was to be left, as one official history comments, 'to stew in her own juice for a long time'.
The President adopted the scheme enthusiastically and asked Morgenthau to present it at the second Quebec Conference in September 1944 when Germany seemed on the verge of collapse. Though Churchill later said he disliked it, he wanted Morgenthau's agrement for further financial credit, and both he and Roosevelt initialled it. When their advisors strongly opposed the plan it was put on one side, but it remained extant until more realistic policies were adopted at the Potsdam Conference in July-August 1945. This made it difficult for SHAEF's civil affairs division to formulate a policy for the military government of Germany.
When the plan was revealed in the American press it was seized upon by German propaganda as evidence of what unconditional surrender meant, and may have contributed to bolstering German resistance during the last months of the war.

Source: Oxford Companion to WWII.
/Marcus

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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#14

Post by Marcus » 27 Jan 2015, 18:36

OpanaPointer wrote:The Institute for Hysterical Revisionism is not a source for an honest historian.
I can only agree, the IHR is not a reliable source for anything and anything that uses that site as a source has to be considered doubtful until the material and context has been confirmed by reliable sources.

/Marcus

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Re: The Morgenthau plan

#15

Post by OpanaPointer » 27 Jan 2015, 19:51

Marcus Wendel wrote:
OpanaPointer wrote:The Institute for Hysterical Revisionism is not a source for an honest historian.
I can only agree, the IHR is not a reliable source for anything and anything that uses that site as a source has to be considered doubtful until the material and context has been confirmed by reliable sources.

/Marcus
SIngle-sourcing anything is a bad idea, but if you find it stuck to the sole of your shoe... :roll:
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