 FROM
THE HENRY L STIMSON DIARY
[The
Morgenthau Plan evolved; plans for the
liquidation of captured Nazi
leaders]August 21, 1944: "At the
Department my time was spent in organising
my conferences as far as possible during
the coming four or five days that I shall
be in Washington. . . I talked
with Harry Hopkins over the telephone. He
wants me to talk with Morgenthau on the
subject of Germany. I also had a long talk
with Secretary Hull in which I was able to
give him a little of my views and arrange
for an appointment tomorrow evening." August 23, 1944: "At twelve
o'clock I went to the White House to see
the President. It is the first time I have
seen him since June. . . . He
was in better physical form than I had
expected and was very warm and cordial. .
. . I succeeded in getting through to him
my views of the importance of having a
decision on what we are going to do to
Germany as a matter of primary importance
in the peace settlement and pointed out as
strongly as I could the difficulties that
lay in that decision. . . I came
back to the Department and Secretary
Morgenthau came to lunch with me in my
room. I had McCloy in too. It was a very
satisfactory talk covering the subject of
our relations with Germany and France to
be settled during these post-war
negotiations. Morgenthau told me of how he
had learned in London that the division of
Germany had been agreed upon at Teheran
between the three chiefs. Although the
discovery of this thing has been a most
tremendous surprise to all of us, I am not
sure that the three chiefs regard it as a
fait accompli and in this talk with
Morgenthau it developed that the so-called
decision was of a more informal character
than I had understood from McCloy's first
report to me of Morgenthau's news a day or
two ago. In the afternoon I settled down
and tried to dictate my ideas in regard to
the post-war settlement with
Germany. . . [This was a "Brief for
Conference with the President," dated
August 25, 1944. Stimson listed "a
number of urgent matters of American
policy" relating to the zones of
occupation and the partition of
Germany, and in particular the "policy
vs. liquidation of Hitler and his
gang". "Present instructions seem
inadequate beyond imprisonment. Our
officers must have the protection of
definite instructions if shooting
required. If shooting required it must
be immediate; not post-war." He also
asked the question, "How far do U.S.
officers go towards preventing lynching
in advance of Law and Order?"] August 25, 1944 [Stimson
lunched with the president. He took up the
question of the British and American zones
and urged Roosevelt to allow the British
to have Northern Germany.] "I further
urged the point that by taking
south-western Germany we were in a more
congenial part of Germany and further away
from the dirty work that the Russians
might be doing with the Prussians in
Eastern Germany. I was inclined to think
that I had made an impression on him, but
it was impossible to say. I either then or
in my former meeting pressed on him the
importance of not partitioning Germany
other than the allotment of East Prussia
to Russia or Poland, and Alsace Lorraine
to France and a possible allotment of
Silesia to Poland, namely trimming the
outer edges of Germany. Other than those
allotments I feared that a division of
Germany and a policy which would prevent
her from being industrialised would starve
her excess population of 30 million
people, giving again my description of how
she had grown during the period between
1870 and 1914 by virtue of her
industrialisation. . . [Stimson was worried that the
troops were going into Germany without
instruction and he suggested that
Roosevelt appoint a Cabinet
committee.] "He took that point and
accepted it and then we went into Cabinet
and at the very beginning of Cabinet he
brought up this last point and said that
he would appoint Secretaries Hull,
Morgenthau and myself as the members of
that committee. . . [Later Stimson joined Morgenthau at
the airport.] "I had the opportunity
of a satisfactory talk with him on matters
on which we were inclined to disagree,
namely the use of over-punitive measures
on Germany principally economic. I have
been trying to guard against that." [In a subsequent
"Memorandum of Conversation with the
President," August 25, 1944, Stimson
felt that he had made his point that
the penalties should be against
individuals and "not by destruction of
the economic structure of Germany which
might have serious results in the
future." Stimson had also urged against
setting a punitive exchange rate such
as Secretary Morgenthau suggested. "As
to partition, the Secretary argued for
a lopping off of sections rather than a
general partition and thought the
President was inclined to agree that
Germany should be left as a self
supporting state. The President showed
some interest in radical treatment of
the Gestapo."] [For the last days in August
Stimson remained in telephone contact with
John McCloy in Washington]. "In
particular I was working up and pressing
for the point I had initiated, namely that
we should intern the entire Gestapo and
perhaps the SS leaders and then vigorously
investigate and try them as the main
instruments of Hitler's system of
terrorism in Europe.
By so doing I thought we would begin at
the right end, namely the Hitler machine,
and punish the people who were directly
responsible for that, carrying the line of
investigation and punishment as far as
possible. I found around me, particularly
Morgenthau (left), a very bitter
atmosphere of personal resentment against
the entire German people without regard to
individual guilt and I am very much afraid
that it will result in our taking mass
vengeance on the part of our people in the
shape of clumsy economic action." September 4, 1944 [(Monday)
Stimson flew back to Washington and had a
conference with General Marshall that
afternoon]: "Also discussed with him
my troubles in regard to the treatment of
Germany and the method in which we should
investigate and punish the Gestapo. He
approved strongly of doing that and gave
me some helpful suggestions. It was very
interesting to find that army officers
have a better respect for the law in those
matters than civilians who talk about them
and are anxious to go ahead and chop
everybody's head off without trial of
hearing. In this case we discussed the
methods of tribunals for the purpose of
conducting the trials of the Gestapo.
. . . "At night I felt I had had a full day
but I had an engagement to dine with
Morgenthau so I went home and rested for
an hour and then went to dinner at his
house where McCloy and Harry
[Dexter] White [Assistant
Secretary] of the Treasury were also
present. We had a pleasant dinner but we
were all aware of the feeling that a sharp
issue is sure to arise over the question
of the treatment of Germany. Morgenthau
is, not unnaturally, very bitter, and as
he is not thoroughly trained in history or
even economics it became very apparent
that he would plunge out for a treatment
of Germany which I feel sure would be
unwise. But we talked the matter over with
temperateness and goodwill during the
evening and that was as much as could be
hoped from the situation. We did succeed
in settling with perfect agreement the
question of the currency which should be
issued in Germany namely that we should
issue Allied military marks at a 10 cent
value of the mark. Morgenthau had first
struck for only 5 cents, wishing to use a
low rate of the mark to punish
Germany." September 5, 1944: "After I got
home last night I received word that Hull
had called a meeting of the new Committee
on Germany at 9:30 . . . The
President has appointed Harry Hopkins a
member of the Committee in addition to the
three that he appointed on August 25th.
. . . As soon as I got into the
meeting it became very evident that
Morgenthau had been rooting around behind
the scenes and had greased the way for own
views by conference with the president and
others. We did get through the question of
the currency alright on the lines which we
had decided upon last evening. Then Hull
brought up a draft of agenda
. . . and as soon as we got into
a discussion of these, I, to my tremendous
surprise, found that Hull was as bitter as
Morgenthau against the Germans and was
ready to junk all the principles that he
had been labouring for in regard to trade
for the past twelve years. He and
Morgenthau wished to wreck completely the
immense Ruhr-Saar area of Germany into a
second rate agricultural land regardless
of all that that area meant
. . . Hopkins went with them so
far as to wish to prevent the manufacture
of steel . . . which would
pretty well sabotage everything else. I
found myself a minority of one and I
laboured vigorously but entirely
ineffectively against my colleagues. In
all the four years that I have been here I
have not had such a difficult and
unpleasant meeting although of course
there were no personalities. We all knew
each other too well for that. But we were
irreconcilably divided. At the end it was
decided that Hull would send in his
memorandum to the President while we
should each of us send a memorandum of
views in respect to it." [Hull's paper was called,
"Suggested Recommendations on Treatment
of Germany from the Cabinet Committee
for the President," September 4,
1944.][In a reply dated September
5, Stimson utterly rejected it. "I
cannot treat as realistic the
suggestion that such an area in the
present economic condition of the world
can be turned into a non-productive
"ghost territory" when it has become
the centre of one of the most
industrialised continents in the world,
populated by peoples of energy, vigour
and progressiveness." As for destroying
the coal mines, etc, he added: "I
cannot conceive of turning such a gift
of nature into a dustheap."]  September
6, 1944, [Roosevelt called a
sudden conference at the White House of
the Committee on Germany.] "After what
had happened yesterday I was much alarmed
about this meeting and expected to be
steam-rollered by the whole bunch. But the
meeting went off better than I had
expected. The President . . .
then took up the question of German
economy, looking at me and reverting to
his proposition made at Cabinet a week or
two ago that Germany could live happily
and peacefully on soup from soup kitchens
if she couldn't make money for herself. He
said that our ancestors had lived
successfully and happily in the absence of
many luxuries that we would now deem
necessities. . . . As he
addressed his remarks to me, I took the
chance and tried to drive in the fact that
the one point that had been at issue in
our yesterday's preparatory meeting of the
Committee had been the proposition that
the Ruhr and the Saar a plot of
non-industrial agricultural
land. . . I said I was utterly
opposed to the destruction of such a great
gift of nature and that it should be used
for the reconstruction of the world which
sorely needed it now. . . .
Morgenthau had submitted through Hull a
memorandum giving his program towards
Germany and it had reiterated what he had
put forth verbally, namely a complete
obliteration of the industrial powers of
the Ruhr. . . I pointed this out
and said that this was what I was opposed
to. The President apparently took my side
on this but he mentioned the fact that
Great Britain was going to be in sore
straits after the war and he thought that
the products of the Ruhr might be used to
furnish raw material for British steel
industry. I said that I had no objection
certainly to assisting Britain every way
that we could, but that this was very
different from obliterating the Ruhr as
had been proposed.
". . . I wound up by using
the analogy of Charles Lamb's dissertation
on roast pig. I begged the President to
remember that this was a most complicated
economic question and all that I was
urging upon him was that he should not
burn down his house of the world for the
purpose of getting a meal of roast pig. He
apparently caught the point." September 7, 1944 [Stimson
had a talk with Marshall and showed him
the memorandum he had written about
Germany]. ". . . thoroughly
approved the position I have taken of
temperate treatment economically of the
Saar-Ruhr area as being the only possible
thing for us to do. I also showed them the
memorandum which I received from
Morgenthau demanding that the leaders of
the Nazi party be shot without trial and
on the basis of the general world
appreciation of their guilt, and it met
with the reception that I expected --
absolute rejection of the notion that we
should not give these men a fair trial.
. . . But at 11:45 I heard from
McCloy that Morgenthau still sticks to his
guns and has been to the president again
and has demanded a re-hearing of the talks
that we had on Wednesday. . .
and the President has given us another
hearing for the Committee on Germany to be
held on Saturday morning [September
9] when he has more time. Morgenthau
demands two hours." "Dinner with Mabel [Stimson]
and [Justice Felix] Frankfurter.
Frankfurter was helpful as I knew he would
be. Although a Jew like Morgenthau, he
approached this subject with perfect
detachment and great helpfulness. I went
over the whole matter with him from the
beginning with him, reading him
Morgenthau's views on the subject of the
Ruhr and also on the subject of the trial
of the Nazis, at both of which he snorted
with astonishment and disdain. He fully
backed up my views and those of my fellows
in the Army . . . [that we
must accord] these men the substance
of a fair trial and that they cannot be
railroaded to their death without
trial. . . " September 9, 1944: "Instead of
having a two hour conference with the
President as Secretary Morgenthau had
asked for, our conference boiled down to
about forty-five minutes and that was
taken up mainly by the President's own
discursive questions and remarks.
. . . Morgenthau appeared with a
new diatribe on the subject of the Nazis
and an enlargement of his previous papers
as to how to deal with them. Hull took no
leading part as chairman but sat silent
with very little to say. The President
addressed most of his remarks to me and
about the only things that I can remember
were (1) that he asserted his predilection
for feeding the Germans from soup kitchens
instead of anything heavier, and (2) he
wanted to be protected from the expected
revolution in France. Those are the two
obsessions that he has had on his mind on
this whole subject as far as I could
see. September 13, 1944: "The
President has gone off to Quebec. While he
has the papers we have written on the
subject with him, he has not invited any
further discussion on the matter with us.
Instead apparently today he has invited
Morgenthau up, or Morgenthau has got
himself invited. I cannot believe that he
will follow Morgenthau's views. If he
does, it will certainly be a
disaster." September 14, 1944: "It is an
outrageous thing. Here the President
appoints a Committee with Hull as its
Chairman for the purpose of advising him
in regard to these questions in order that
it may be done with full deliberation and,
when he goes off to Quebec, he takes the
man who really represents the minority and
is so biased by his Semitic grievances
that he is really a very dangerous adviser
to the President at this time. Hull
. . . is left behind."  September
16-17, 1944 [Stimson was isolated
that weekend on his estate by a
hurricane.] "On Saturday or Sunday I
learned from McCloy over the long distance
telephone that the President has sent a
decision flatly against us in regard to
the treatment of Germany. Apparently he
has gone over completely to the Morgenthau
proposition and has got Churchill and Lord
Cherwell with them. . . . But
the situation is a serious one and the
cloud of it has hung over me pretty
heavily over the weekend. It is a terrible
thing to think that the total power of the
United States and the United Kingdom in
such a critical matter as this is in the
hands of two men, both of whom are similar
in their impulsiveness and their lack of
systematic study. . . . I have
yet to meet a man who is not horrified
with the "Carthaginian" attitude of the
Treasury. It is Semitism gone wild for
vengeance and, if it is ultimately carried
out (I can't believe that it will be) it
as sure as fate will lay the seeds for
another war in the next generation. And
yet these two men in a brief conference at
Quebec with nobody to advise them except
"yes-men", with no Cabinet officer with
the President except Morgenthau, have
taken this step and given directions for
it to be carried out."
September 27, 1944: "To my
surprise . . . the President
himself called me up on the
[scrambler] telephone.
. . . He . . . was
evidently under the influence of the
impact of criticism which has followed his
decision to follow Morgenthau's advice.
The papers have taken it up violently and
almost unanimously against Morgenthau and
the President himself, and the impact has
been such that he had already reached a
conclusion that he had made a false step
and was trying to work out of it. He told
me that he didn't really intend to try to
make Germany a purely agricultural country
but said that his underlying motive was
the very confidential one that England was
broke; that something must be done to give
her more business to pull out after the
war, and he evidently hoped that by
something like the Morgenthau Plan Britain
might inherit Germany's Ruhr
business." 
. . .
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note: The above passages were dictated
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