The 1948 reconstruction program is regarded as the blueprint for post-war Ukraine because it acted as an “igniter” for the reconstruction of Western Europe.
(Photo: Getty Images, dpa, Imago [M])
Bonn In September 1944 – Germany’s defeat had long been certain – the National Socialists’ propaganda machine was once again in top form. With the secret but leaked “Morgenthau Plan”, wrote the “Völkischer Beobachter”, “world Jewry wanted to enslave the Germans”.
In fact, US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau proposed de-industrializing Germany after the war ended. It was to be an agrarian poorhouse that would never again pose a threat to world peace.
Nazi propaganda tied its perseverance slogans to warnings about “Juda’s murder plan” and the “fanatical hater” Morgenthau. Even Adolf Hitler went into the US post-war plans in his last radio speech in January 1945 and appealed to the “resistance of our nation” to ward off the “Jewish-international world conspiracy”.
However, Hitler had only set up a bogeyman. The US General Staff and the post-war planners in the State Department had already shelved Morgenthau’s concept of a “punitive peace” for months.
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