6 - Collude

Summary

Both sides in the battle over postwar German policy shared the same ultimate objective: to reduce the likelihood of another world war. The question was how to achieve it. Both sides could make compelling cases. In Treasury Secretary Morgenthau’s view, future peace required the dismantling of Germany’s capacity to wage war. It was that simple. Remove their means of manufacturing the weapons of modern war, and the Germans could not threaten the peace. By contrast, War Secretary Stimson believed that peace required prosperity, and by forcing Germany to subsist at artificially low living standards, the Allies would breed resentments that would undermine stability. Morgenthau’s view was a negative conception of world order: disintegrate Germany from the calculus of great power politics, and the result would equal peace. Stimson’s view was more positive: reintegrate Germany into European recovery, and the Germans would become stakeholders in an interdependent world. Roosevelt’s advisors split down this divide. Their position depended in large part on what each believed about the German people, themselves.