The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945

The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945 | Michael Beschloss | The Not So Private War of Henry Morgenthau

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The Conquerors: Ro...

	The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945 Michael Beschloss Simon & Schuster, 2002 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 94 reviews view larger image
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The Conquerors provides a fascinating insight into the behind-the-scenes negotiations during World War II that led to the emasculation of Germany. As Presidents Roosevelt and Truman led the United States in World War II in Europe, they had to deal with the question of what kind of government should be imposed on Nazi Germany to ensure that Germany could never again drag the world into war. The Conquerors tells the story with much intimate detail and colour of how Roosevelt and Truman privately struggled in their own minds and with titanic allies like Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin, through summits and secret messages, to answer this question. Roosevelt did not react to increasing evidence of the Holocaust, but close friend and Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., privately pressed Roosevelt to accept what was soon called the "Morgenthau plan" - teach the Germans a lesson and destroy their ability to make war by destroying their industrial base and letting many Germans starve to death. Bechloss also revels how Harry Truman, on abruptly assuming the Presidency, was briefed on the Morgenthau Plan and was appalled. Truman, backed by Cabinet members, turned his back on the plan, fired Morgenthau, and moved toward Germany's division between East and West, allowing West Germany to become the bulwark of Western opposition to Soviet expansionism in Europe.

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A great read

Reading this book made me understand more about the complex war Roosevelt fought, against not only Germany, but also his own supporters and allies. Recommended.

The Not So Private War of Henry Morgenthau

Michael Beschloss's study of the Allied management of the end of World War II with Nazi Germany serves as a reminder that things are not always as obvious as they seem. At first glance the goal of hostilities in Europe could easily be summed up as the defeat of Hitler and Nazi Germany's Axis allies. But how does one define "defeat?" Is it territorial annihilation, Sherman to the Sea on a more massive scale? Is it discredit or even elimination of the warring military leadership? Is it national humiliation? Or is it business as usual in the conquered territories under Allied overlords, as would be the case of Japan?

This work is the story of how the United States, in concert with its allies, gestated its final plans for the conquest of Germany. One naturally gravitates toward Franklin D. Roosevelt as the leading man for such a drama, but in truth this book, like the events themselves, pivots around the persona of Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. That Morgenthau was Jewish, one of few of his faith to achieve such status to that time, adds poignancy to the tale. Beschloss describes Morgenthau as perhaps Roosevelt's closest friend in the cabinet, a bond developed over their years together as neighboring self-styled gentlemen farmers in Dutchess County, NY. Despite Morgenthau's perceptions and desires, it was not exactly a friendship of equals. As was his wont, Roosevelt managed his communications with Morgenthau in the ethereal fashion of all his working associates. In truth Morgenthau enjoyed cabinet status because of difficulties Roosevelt had encountered earlier with the scrutinies of more independent men in the Treasury, Dean Acheson among them.

His affection for Roosevelt notwithstanding, Morgenthau felt a particular responsibility to Jews under persecution in Nazi occupied territory. Early in the conflict Morgenthau had focused upon relocation of Jews from Germany and elsewhere, but as the War unfolded and the scope of atrocities became gradually evident to policy makers, Morgenthau pressured Roosevelt to make rescue of Jews a major priority during the engagement. Such considerations collided with concurrent Cabinet debate about the status and treatment of postwar Germany. This was not a matter of hawks and doves as much as a question of priorities. Instinctually, most policy makers wanted a hard peace for both military and punitive reasons. The question was how much of Germany's industrial infrastructure to destroy or spare in response to its crimes, a critical matter as 1944 hurried into 1945.

By 1944 Winston Churchill had his fill of German militarism and would gladly have endorsed a Shermanesque solution to the German problem. Living through his second major encounter with the German military machine, he advocated utter annihilation of the nation's infrastructure, including its factories in the Ruhr Valley. Joseph Stalin, ever fearful of his west flank, would easily come around to Churchill's position as well, motivated not only by a will to survive but an opportunity to expand Communist hegemony.

Morgenthau, despite his closeness to Roosevelt, was gradually losing place in the Cabinet. His peers believed that his Jewish faith and priorities blinded him to other military, political, and economic issues that worried them, and with reason. Beschloss makes splendid use of official minutes and private diaries to trace the strategic shifting going on around Roosevelt--insights into the concerns and motivations of Henry Stimson, Cordell Hull, and particularly John McCloy, who at the end of the day would probably do the most to derail Morgenthau's postwar vision.

Roosevelt's 1944 Quebec meeting with Churchill, with Morgenthau in attendance, convinced the latter--wrongly, as it would turn out--that his boss and the Prime Minister were solidly behind his call for a hard and vengeful peace, the Morgenthau Plan. He returned home entirely justified, so much so that he felt emboldened to steer certain aspects of his peace plan toward the Washington Post, with added hints of opposition among certain cabinet members. The fallout from public disclosure ignited massive political difficulties in nearly every quarter. Joseph Goebbels jumped upon Morgenthau's plan as evidence that Allied strategic planning was aimed at reducing Germany to the stone ages. Morgenthau was blamed for stiffening German resistance and costing American lives. Thomas Dewey, then running for president in the 1944 campaign, jumped upon the strategy ["as useful as ten fresh German divisions"] and the now apparent disarray of the cabinet. Roosevelt distanced himself from the plan and from its author Morgenthau, a painful and humiliating blow for the latter. Mercifully, Morgenthau was unaware at the time that his own closest confidant, Henry Dexter White, was a Russian spy.

The Battle of the Bulge, reported by American intelligence sources as a German response to the Morgenthau Plan, was probably the last straw that ended his influence upon conduct of the war. But other factors were weighing heavily upon the Allies. As western armies began crossing into Germany itself, the enormous damage already wrought upon the country's substructure made it clear that economic chaos and starvation were very likely at the conclusion of hostilities. All parties to the conflict, and notably England, were heavily in debt. The idea of a post-war German welfare state worried the international business community [except, ironically, America's own chief treasury officer.] To destroy the existing mines and factories of the Ruhr Valley, for example, seemed less and less desirable. In addition, growing concern in England and the United States about Russian post-war ambitions led to a grudging recognition that Germany could not be entirely demilitarized.

On the other hand, Germany's heinous crimes of the half-century called for an appropriate response. Beschloss captures the dilemma of policy makers, torn between pragmatic and humanitarian concerns in the partition, punishment, and reorganization of Germany. The author presents his well researched account in a style marked by intimacy, immediacy and movement. He gives us another vantage point of the War. Assuming that we know something of how it was fought, Beschloss explains how it was ended--and how it could have ended.

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How Allies planned for post-war world

Thoroughly researched, sturdily written history of how Roosevelt and then Truman planned to deal with a defeated Germany after World War II.

Nothing earth shattering, but interesting and detailed insight into how policy got made and how it could have gotten made worse.

Also of interest is discussion of Roosevelt's silence on the developing Holocaust as news seeped out to a stunned and horrified world.

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