From Der Spiegel, English edition
The Thirty Years' War: How Peace Kept WWI Alive Part 2
By Jan Fleischhauer
Part 2: Designing the Second PeaceThe indecisiveness of the United States, its political elites divided over how to assume their role as a new world power, was already apparent in the peace negotiations. The resulting peace was one with conditions that were insufficiently draconian to permanently weaken the German Reich, and yet too severe not to give rise to a desire among the losers to reverse the peace when the next opportunity arose.
From Germany's perspective, the victors' demands were not only immoderate, but also served as a constant reminder of defeat. Germany's total war reparations, enforced with massive threats, amounted to 132 billion gold marks, payable in 66 annual installments, together with 26 percent of the value of its exports. Present-day Germany was still suffering the consequences until 2010, when Berlin made its last interest payment on foreign bonds it had issued after World War I to satisfy the Allies' demands for reparations. The most agonizing aspect of the war repayment was its duration.
Hardly anyone was as familiar with the Germans' smoldering resentment (or knew how to take advantage of it) as the private from Munich. Within three years, Adolf Hitler went from being an unknown veteran to the "King of Munich," a man who could fill the city's largest beer halls with his appearances.
The fact that the Allies had forced Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles was a central theme of Hitler's speeches. At his rallies, he never failed to mention "shameful and humiliating peace" that had condemned Germany to "servitude" for the foreseeable future. Humiliation at the hands of the victorious powers became a collective trauma that united Germans far beyond the circle of supporters of the rising Nazi Party.
What was initially a psychological problem became an existential one when the economic crisis began. Until 1929, the German economy had managed to keep itself more or less afloat, partly as a result of American investments. Now the creditors from abroad were withdrawing their money, plunging the German Reich directly into the vortex of the Great Depression. The deflationary policy of Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning drove unemployment numbers to well over six million.
Despite the defeat in 1918, the pride of the German officer corps was still intact. It was clear to everyone, beginning with the general staff, that the French would never have achieved victory on their own. But covetousness arises when a victor is only a victor through the help of others. Hitler, at any rate, was confident that a second effort could correct the failures of the first.
Gratification
When Germany invaded France in 1940, the Wehrmacht had learned from past mistakes. In the first war, German attacks had frequently failed due to an inability to bring up additional artillery and infantry quickly enough to preserve the momentum of attack achieved by shock troops. Now the tank force was being combined with dive bombers, which functioned as airborne artillery. This enabled German troops to advance at speeds previously believed to be impossible. German troops reached the Meuse River in two days, and after six weeks France was forced to capitulate. It was the greatest defeat of a proud nation in military history. When the French laid down their arms, half of their soldiers had not even arrived in the combat zone yet.
For the majority of German officers, the victory over France was the gratification they had desired. But for their commander-in-chief, the western campaign was merely ome stage in a much more extensive war of conquest. As a result, the world was transformed into a hell on earth once again, and what began as a war of revenge ended in a war of extermination more complete and boundless than the massive slaughter of World War I.
What was to be done with Germany? The Allies now faced the same question a second time, in the summer of 1944. By the time the Americans had landed in Normandy, everyone knew that the Third Reich's days were numbered. But the victorious powers were confronted with the same problem they had faced a quarter of a century earlier: How to prevent the Germans from planning the next war soon after their defeat.
One of the men who had been pondering this issue for some time was US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau. He believed that the Germans were a people with an unquenchable thirst for war. Because there would no longer be anyone to stand in the way after a third attempt to achieve global dominance, the goal was to figure out how to prevent them from doing so. It was a question of survival, not just for Europe for all of mankind.
In September 1944, Morgenthau submitted a plan to the president in which he proposed the large-scale destruction of German heavy industry. Anything that could be used to produce weapons was to be destroyed, seized or placed under international control. This meant the elimination of Germany's chemical, steel and electrical industries.
The Germans were not to be allowed to ever produce anything again that was "more deadly than toasters, vacuum cleaners and hair curlers," Morgenthau wrote in the extended version of his "Plan for Germany," which he published as a book after the end of the war. "If the German people are to make the best use of their soil, they are going to have to substitute the work of human hands for machinery for several years to come."
Morgenthau had influential adversaries. Both the American State Department and senior military officials stationed in Germany were strictly opposed to sending Germany back to the Middle Ages. They believed such a step would lead to millions of starvation deaths because Germany would be incapable of feeding itself without producing goods for export. But the treasury secretary had both the strength of his convictions and the ear of President Roosevelt. Their wives were good friends, and the two couples socialized with each other.
'Castrate the German People'
In addition, Roosevelt had little sympathy for what he called the "Huns." As a child, he had frequently accompanied his father, who had a heart condition, to the German spa town of Bad Nauheim for treatments and had developed a clear distaste for the country and its people. One of Roosevelt's anecdotes was the story of how he had been arrested four times in one day for such minor offences as spitting out cherry stones. "We have got to be tough with Germany," Roosevelt told to his secretary of state. "You either have to castrate the German people or you have got to treat them so they can't just go on reproducing people who want to continue as in the past."
Morgenthau seemed to prevail at a meeting between Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Quebec in September 1944. Churchill, who initially had strong objections to the plan, snapped at Morgenthau, saying that he would not allow himself to be chained to a "dead Germany." But then money came into play and decided the issue. Churchill urgently needed a new loan from the United States. With that hurdle out of the way, the two commanders-in-chief placed their initials under a document agreeing on the transformation of Germany into a "country principally agricultural and pastoral in character."
That the Germans were eventually spared this fate is thanks the US public outcry over the plan and fear of the Russians.
If Roosevelt dreamed of a long-term alliance with the Soviet Union, his successor Harry S. Truman had no illusions about the character of Russian dictator Joseph Stalin. Churchill, too, did not have to be convinced of Stalin's malevolence. "We mustn't weaken Germany too much -- we may need her against Russia," Churchill had whispered to his foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, in 1943. "I do not want to be left alone in Europe with the bear."
In contrast to 1918, the Western powers chose generosity. Those who lived in the Western occupation zones benefited from the kind of post-war reconstruction that the United States had failed to push through in Versailles. Those unlucky enough to experience the end of the war in the eastern part of Germany bore the burden of the war, which should have been carried by the entire country. Another 44 years would pass before this injustice eliminated.
The pacification of the Germans through benevolent reeducation was an experiment that had never been attempted, and it proved to be surprisingly successful for everyone involved. Ironically, the nation that had brought large-scale wars to the continent twice was transformed into a model democracy and a force for European integration.
Learning Their Lesson
Everything was done differently this time. Instead of rubbing the faces of the defeated in the extent of their humiliation by demanding submission, the United States carefully guided the country back into the family of nations. The victors also practiced leniency in the courts, limiting their prosecutions to a small number of leading war criminals. The majority escaped with a formal interrogation, with which the requirements of denazification were satisfied.
Only two decades later, in the Auschwitz trials starting in 1963, did a true investigation of the crimes begin. A look at the lives of people like Kurt Franz, the last commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp, reveals that a former Nazi thug and mass murderer was able to live scot-free in Germany until the early 1960s.
The Germans learned their lesson. The notion that they could never be allowed to possess weapons again is a view that the Germans, only too happy to be disarmed, completely internalized over the years. Pacifism had become national policy by the time the peace movement began. Even the swearing in of new recruits by torchlight can be a source of discomfort.
When the Germans decide to do something, they do it thoroughly. In a strange reversal of roles, they had assumed the role of the reformed criminal who lectures others on how to bring about peace without weapons. In 1989, many still believed that it was important to cling to German partition, so as to contain the ghosts of the past. In West Germany, the motto "Nie wieder Deutschland" ("Germany, Never Again") appeared on banners next to the East German slogan "We are One People."
To this day, the mistrust among Germans hasn't disappeared completely. In the European debate, the suspicion that things could change drastically once again is a subliminal but clearly perceptible motif. Hardly any appeal to European solidarity makes do without a reference to the war and the resulting obligation to keep the peace. Integration into Europe is seen as a sort of self-shackling of the German giant, intended to relieve its neighbors' fears of the country's size and economic might.
Too Young
British economic historian Niall Ferguson has pointed out that Germany's achievements during the course of European integration roughly correspond to the burdens imposed on the country by the Treaty of Versailles. When net contributions to the budget of the European Community are taken into account, Germany paid more than 163 billion deutsche marks to the rest of Europe between 1958 and 1992. Ferguson has also calculated 379.8 billion in "transfer payments without counter-performance."
During the euro crisis, there has been a noticeable decline in the Germans' desire to contribute to peace in Europe through transfer payments. But the ongoing impact of the memory of both world wars remains evident in the fact that an EU-critical party has yet to win seats in German parliament.
Until his death in 1967, Morgenthau remained convinced that the Germans could not be pacified. "You're too young to know whether the Morgenthau Plan was a mistake,"
You are too young to be able to evaluate whether the Morgenthau plan was a mistake," he told his biographer when he tried to get Morgenthau to admit that his plan was wrong. "And I'll bet you -- though I won't be around to collect -- that you're going to have to fight Germany again before you die."
Like many historians, the former US treasury secretary saw World War I as the beginning -- not of a Thirty Years' War but of a Hundred Years' War.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan