Earlier that day, Roosevelt had tried out on Churchill one of Morgenthau’s arguments for a tough German peace: “How would you like to have the steel business of Europe for twenty or thirty years?” He presumed that Churchill could not turn down his nose at such a glittering prospect.
As they dined, Churchill asked Roosevelt, “Why don’t we discuss Germany now?” At the President’s invitation, Morgenthau described his plan, showing how closing down the Ruhr would bolster the British steel industry and help stave off postwar British bankruptcy.
Indignantly, Churchill asked Roosevelt, “Is this what you asked me to come all the way here to discuss?” He replied to Morgenthau’s proposal with anger. Churchill declared that he would not chain himself to “a dead German”: “I’m all for disarming Germany. But we ought not prevent her living decently.” Germans must not be allowed to starve. “You cannot indict a whole nation.”
The British people would never “stand” for such measures, he said. They were “unnatural, un-Christian and unnecessary.”
Source:
Beschloss, Michael R. “Do You Want Me to Beg Like Fala?” The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2007. 125. Print.
Further Reading:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt / FDR
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PCc, DL, FRS, RA
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