From Who was Who in World War II, John Keegan, Ed., Bison Books, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1984, p. 150.

Morgenthau, Henry, 1891-1967

Morgenthau was President Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury from 1934 until the end of the war. During the war his one overriding task was to finance a mammoth war economy and war production without prompting correspondingly great inflation. This he did by maintaining high taxes and by selling Defense (later called 'War') Savings Bonds. Morgenthau was also responsible for the freezing of Japanese assets before the war in the Far East and for organizing economic measures against the Axis Powers. He also put the Lend-Lease Program into operation.

At the Quebec Conference of September 1944 Morgenthau put forward a plan to settle the long-disputed fate of postwar Germany. The Morgenthau Plan advocated enforcing agrarianism on Germany, in which most industry would be dismantled and the sites turned into arable land. This plan actually had the support of Churchill and Roosevelt but not of their Cabinets. Thus when the plan was leaked to the public they abandoned it quickly. The fact that Morgenthau was a Jew allowed Goebbels to use both him and his plan for anti-Allied propaganda -- a warning to Germans of what would happen should Germany surrender.

[ Index ]

Home ·  Funding ·  Site Map ·  What's New? · 
Make Nizkor your home page

Custom Holocaust Site Search

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2008

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.