Managing war is not easy. Managing their remnants, managing those left after the wars. By 1944, Allied forces were no longer concerned only with the outcome of the World War and the progress of their troops. As their victory became increasingly clear, the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the USSR began to worry about another equally important question: What to do with post-war Germany? How can we prevent Berlin from strengthening and the world from starting a new World War in a few years?

One of the minds trying to respond to this challenge was Henry Morgenthau, US Secretary of the Treasury and President Roosevelt’s confidant. His approach was as simple as it was radical: to demilitarize, deindustrialize and dismantle Germany and turn it into the breadbasket of Europe.

It didn’t turn out well at all.

What to do with Germany? The question arose at the end of World War II. The challenge posed to leaders after the Normandy landings and the advance of Allied troops was how to confront Germany’s future. In such an environment, between January and September 1944, Henry Morgenthau Jr., who had been the US Treasury Secretary since 1934 and was very close to Franklin D. Roosevelt, decided to forward a proposal to the president.

His comprehensive memorandum, with which officer Harry Dexter White is believed to have participated, was titled “Proposed Post-War Program for Germany” and was structured around 14 points, all very thoughtful and designed with a clear purpose: “Germany’s Third World War.”

Demilitarize and chop. These were the first two points of the memo, which we can still reference today in both its copied and original version through the website of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.

The first proposal of the program calls for the “complete” and “as soon as possible” demilitarization of Germany. And when he said “completed,” Morgenthau wasn’t exaggerating. According to the plan’s authors, erasing any trace of weapons from the country was not enough. What they desired was the “complete” and absolute destruction of “the entire German arms industry”, the suppression at one blow of “other key industries forming the basis of military power”.

divide the country. The second proposal involved the “division” of Germany. He even suggested how to do it. Poland would keep Upper Silesia and two-thirds of East Prussia, with the remaining third going to the Soviets. France would seize the Saar and neighboring regions, limited to the Rhine and Moselle, and would also form an “international region” with the Ruhr and industrial areas.

The rest of the country will be divided into two states of an “autonomous and independent” character: one in the south, with Bavaria, Würtemberg and Baden, among other regions; and the second, in the north, would include most of ancient Prussia, Saxony, Thuringia, and a few smaller states. The plan devised by Morgenthau in 1944 concluded that “there will be a customs union between the New South German state and Austria, which will restore its political borders before 1938.”

Farewell, industrial Germany… The plan didn’t just want to change Germany’s drawing on the map. He made the same effort to rethink his economy. The report’s authors believed that the country’s industrial power, and thus the “cauldron of war” as they put it, was concentrated in the Ruhr basin and the surrounding industrial region, including the Rhineland or Kiel Canal. Therefore, Morgenthau suggested that efforts should be made to wipe out the manufacturing sector here: “It should not only be cleared of all industries, but it should also be weakened and controlled so that it cannot become an industrial area for the foreseeable future.”

How to achieve this? Removal of all equipment and scrapping of what cannot be removed. The situation is the same in factories. “All residents must be made to understand that the area will not be allowed to become an industrial zone again,” the plan concludes. and disperse as much as possible”.

Thus, the region would become a kind of “international zone” under the control of the organization established by the United Nations, which was established in 1945 after the Second World War. All this, of course, without paying reparations to Germany.

…Hello, agricultural Germany. The aim was to radically change the German economy by deindustrializing it and focusing it on the agricultural sector. World Order realized that Morgenthau’s aim was to destroy approximately 1,500 industrial plants and destroy German industrial potential in 1938, during World War II. It states that the aim is to reduce the demand to 50% of the levels it managed before the start of World War II.

The idea of ​​its authors was clear: the program wanted to “eliminate the war industries in the Ruhr and Saarland”. [y convertir] Germany is a country with a predominantly agricultural and rural character, as even the World Economic Forum recognizes.

Moreover, after a while, when the USA, USSR and the United Kingdom signed the Potsdam Agreement in the summer of 1945, the countries agreed on the “reduction or destruction” of Germany’s “war potential” heavy industry and the “restructuring of the world”. “The economy is moving towards agriculture and light industry”.

Photograph of Roosevelt and Morgenthau.

denazification operation. Another of Morgenthau’s priorities was to eliminate any trace of Nazi rhetoric in the country, for which he planned a campaign focused on the education system and propaganda machine. The authors warned that the country’s schools and universities would be closed until a commission formed by the Allies could draft a program of “reorganization”; It warned that this task could take “considerable time”; and the country’s radio stations, newspapers, magazines… were suspended until “adequate controls” and an “adequate program” were established.

So what happened to the plan? The Morgenthau plan made some impact and is actually included among Franklin Roosevelt’s documents relating to the Second Quebec Conference, held in 1944 and attended by the American president and his British counterpart, Winston Churchill. The British Prime Minister was not convinced by the proposal, which was risky due to the risks of maximally weakening the German economy and leading to the division of the country, but both powers moved closer to positions during the international summit.

“The proposal was provisionally approved at the Second Quebec Conference. The signed declaration included a statement that was not included in the original Morgenthau version. It was stated that the Allies ‘hoped to transform Germany into a country predominantly engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry.'” National Archives. The plan had some influence on post-war Allied planning, but that does not mean it came to fruition.

30-part plan. The Morgenthau Plan was designed just like that, as a secret road map; But it didn’t take long for it to leak to the press and create a veritable media storm. Criticisms arose due to both its content and the context from which it came. Goebbels and the powerful Nazi propaganda machine saw this as an ideal hook to warn that the US or UK’s intention was to “enslave” Germany, and there were even Allied commanders who warned that the plan was fueling German desperation in the finale. stages of the competition: “It was worth 30 episodes for them.”

Result: Roosevelt began to publicly distance himself from his proposals. While he points to distance, the National Archives recalls that the leak had the opposite effect in Germany: “The plan is seen as a reason why they should fight to the end rather than be reduced to a non-industrialized nation.”

Pictures | Wikipedia 1 and 2 and US National Archives and Records Administration (Wiki)

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