Stimson said that Germany must indeed be “policed” for at least twenty years after World War II, until there was a new generation of Germans.
Morgenthau was angered by what he took to be Stimson’s equanimity: “If you let the young children of today be brought up by SS troopers who are indoctrinated with Hitlerism, aren’t you simply going to raise another generation of Germans who will want to wage war? Don’t you think the thing to do is to take a lead from Hitler’s book and completely remove these children from their parents?”
He proposed that “ex-U.S. Army officers, English Army officers and Russian Army officers” run German schools “and have these children learn the true spirit of democracy.”
(He did not specify how Red Army officers might teach German children democracy.)
Source:
Beschloss, Michael R. “Not Nearly as Bad as Sending Them to Gas Chambers.” The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2007. 89-90. Print.
Further Reading:
No comments, yet...