Morgenthau plan

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Unregistered User
(6/17/00 11:28:43 pm)
Reply Morgenthau plan
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I recently heared something about the Morgenthau plan, which was supposed to be an american plan to destroy Germany after the war!?
Is this a myth or are there some truth to this??

Mr L L
Unregistered User
(6/18/00 1:48:42 am)
Reply As good as any
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Have you read this:
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/text/x20/xm2000.html
L. L.

Jerry
Unregistered User
(6/18/00 2:01:06 am)
Reply Morgenthau Plan
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This was a program drawn up by US secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, for dealing with the defeated Germany in the immediate post war era. It was totally discredited by Eisenhower and everyone else in a position of power with the Allies and never implemented.

Regards, Jerry

Mr L L
Unregistered User
(6/18/00 2:09:12 am)
Reply Or did you mean Morgenthau the Ambassador?
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http://www.armenian-genocide.org/press/9-24-15-text.htm

L. L.

Marcus Wendel
Administrator
(6/18/00 9:36:02 am)
Reply Re: Morgenthau Plan
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Jerry,
Apprently not by everyone in power was against it:

"Truman knew that Roosevelt had at first endorsed the proposal and then quietly pigeonholed it after other members of his Cabinet rejected the policy as too harsh. What Truman did not know was that some of Morgenthau's ideas had been incorporated in a top - secret directive drafted in September 1944 by officials of the Treasury, State and War Departments and sent to General Eisenhower as Joint Chiefs of Staff Order No. 1067."
(Quoted from Simon Wiesenthal Center)

/Marcus

jerry
Unregistered User
(6/18/00 1:14:02 pm)
Reply Morgenthau Plan
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And were they ever implemented?

Marcus Wendel
Administrator
(6/18/00 1:16:33 pm)
Reply Re: Morgenthau Plan
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Obviously not, besides any attempt to enforce that plan would no doubt have been stopped with the beginning of the Cold War.

"Secretary of War Henry Stimson had argued against the Morgenthau Plan, and now he cautioned Truman against JCS 1067. Siding with his Secretary of War, the President ultimately dismissed Treasury Secretary Morgenthau from his Cabinet."

/Marcus

jerry
Unregistered User
(6/18/00 1:21:12 pm)
Reply Morgenthau Plan
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So, perhaps everyone "in a position of power" was against it.

kiluh
Unregistered User
(6/19/00 5:28:55 pm)
Reply Basically...
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Basically it called for Germany to be turned into an agricultural based feudalist nation, too harsh is right.

Marcus Wendel
Administrator
(6/19/00 5:45:09 pm)
Reply Re: Morgenthau Plan
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"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)

/Marcus

Gareth Collins
Unregistered User
(6/19/00 7:37:08 pm)
Reply Morgenthau Plan
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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.

regards,
gfc

Marcus Wendel
Administrator
(6/19/00 10:39:39 pm)
Reply Re: Morgenthau Plan
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Gareth,

That book seems to be a very good source. What else is covered?

/Marcus

Gareth Collins
Unregistered User
(6/21/00 12:41:16 am)
Reply Oxford Companion to WWII
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Marcus,
Almost everything about WWII. It is pretty hard to get your hands on nowadays, I find it invaluable.
regards,
gfc

Mr L L
Unregistered User
(6/23/00 4:39:54 am)
Reply JCS 1067
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JCS 1067

The Morgenthau Plan was occupation policy order JCS-1067. It was incorporated in Potsdam Agreement and adhered to until 1948 Berlin Airlift. For political reasons the occupying powers created the impression that the Morgenthau plan was negated. Morgenthau himself complained for his name being attached to the plan because it was "Part of Potsdam Agreement" and not one persons' idea.
Marshall Plan did not apply to Germany until after Western-Eastern break-up in 1948.
While I cannot verify James Bacque's figures, in the book "Crimes and Mercies" he very vividly, and in my opinion correctly, illustrates the suffering of innocent peoples.
I also fully endorse Bacque's statement: "Having made false gods, we have made a god of falsity. If the truth will set us free, we must first set free the truth."

L. L.






Mr L L
Unregistered User
(8/18/00 11:11:28 pm)
Reply French zone of occupation 1947
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French occupation zone, Germany 1947:


Legumes were available more often, but there was a problematic side to it as apparently they came form very old reserves and contained minute small bugs that even after repeated washings did not disappear, so that a considerable quantity was still in the soup. It was accepted with a humorous remark: "This is the meat-ration for this week."


from German language
http://www.koblenz.de/sehenswert...t/ikk2.htm


Goggi
Unregistered User
(8/21/00 7:59:11 am)
Reply Morgenthau-Plan
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There is a book by Henry Morgenthau,Jr with the title "Germany is our Problem", Copyright 1945, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London. I own this book and it contains right in the beginning a photographic copy of the memorandum which President Roosevelt took with him to the historic conference at Quebeck in September of 1944. This memorandum refers also to a map which is contained in the book, showing the partition of Germany in basically three areas: A South German state comprising Bavaria and Wuerttemberg-Baden up to the line Frankfurt, Fulda, Plauen, an International Zone comprising the Ruhr Area with the borderline following the Weser River North shifting South of Bremen in direction Kiel; a North German state with the old German border to the East, but Upper Silesia given to Poland with the border at Liegnitz and Glogau. East Prussia to Russia and Poland. Additionally the area of the Saar, including Trier and Mainz to France. The most interesting part of this map is the fact that there was no Oder-Neisse Border at all in the offing. The German territory east of Stettin was still 150 miles wide until the old Borderline! I suspect that the Neisse-River as border was due to some British Trickery who put later the blame on the Americans! Can anybody contribute Facts?