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Contrary to what is often reported in history books, the Morgenthau Plan had a major impact on postwar planning. This book traces the role of Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury to President Roosevelt, in the planning for the postwar world, with close attention to the discussions leading up to the Second Quebec Conference where Winston Churchill's acceptance of the plan was obtained. It follows the devastating consequences of the policies based on the plan, and their contribution to the postwar collapse of the European economy. Damning evidence shows that the Allies intentionally brought starvation and disease to large civilian populations.

Homo homini lupus — Man is a wolf to other men.

In an age where every government policy is dissected for the slightest hint of scandal, where every hero is scrutinized for the most minute blemish, there is a curious lack of critical interest in the period of history immediately following the Second World War. Still, as the passions surrounding the events of the Second World War inevitably subside, a reexamination of the Western postwar policies is unavoidable.

New documentary evidence demands a reconsideration of the way government officials and politicians formed policy. Inconsistencies and obvious falsehoods have been accepted at face value by respected historians, whose natural inquisitiveness is strangely absent.

Sad to say, reports of mass murder and genocide in the twentieth century have not been uncommon; sadder still, the holocaust depicted in this book is unique in that there is no clear historical record of its occurrence. Millions of people perished without mention or with little more than a footnote in some of the most detailed accounts of the history of the period. This missing chapter is so large as to lead to the conclusion that the historical record has been grossly distorted. As James Bacque commented, “It is astonishing to encounter such a wholesale erasure of history.”1

In an age of historical revisionism there is one absolute: World War II was a “good war.” It was a conflict in which the forces of good were pitted against the forces of evil. As General Eisenhower stated, “This war was a holy war; more than any other in history this war has been an array of the forces of evil against those of righteousness.”2 On July 13, 1945, he wrote to Field Marshal Montgomery, “a continent has been liberated from all that is an antipathy to the ideal of democracy which is our common heritage.”3

Within two years of the end of the War, this comforting interpretation of events was rendered obsolete by the East-West conflict. As a result of this conflict Soviet policies came under increased scrutiny, leading to the conclusion that only half a continent, at best, had been liberated.

While Soviet policies came under closer inspection, Western policies have rarely been subjected to critical review. This book will deal with the Morgenthau Plan and its impact on American postwar planning. Conventional accounts of Western postwar policies occasionally mention the Morgenthau Plan, describing it as a plan developed in the Treasury Department designed to deindustrialize or “pastoralize” the German nation. These accounts are chiefly characterized by their brevity. Professor Robert Ferrell has remarked, “the proposal [the Morgenthau Plan] and its temporary and partial adoption . . . was an unfortunate but small chapter in American diplomatic history.”4 Conventional accounts state that the Plan was adopted by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill at the Second Quebec Conference in September 1944, and that, when President Roosevelt was informed of its impracticality, he immediately abandoned it and stated that he had initialed the plan “without much thought.”

McGeorge Bundy provides a typical explanation of the plan’s rejection: