alternatehistory.com

When World War II was near it's end, US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr put forward a proposal that was essentially intended to defang Germany and punish it for all time.

The plan called for the complete destruction of the German armaments industry, the disarming of the German Army, the partitioning of Germany into a South German state comprising Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and some smaller areas and a North German state comprising a large part of the old state of Prussia, Saxony, Thuringia and several smaller states.

The plan also called for the eternal elimination of the Ruhr as an area of industrial capability and the occupation of said area as a international zone of the United Nations.

Essentially, Germany was to become a country forced to rely totally on agriculture.

This plan did not go far since the Allies decided that they wanted a stable and productive Germany with it's industries intact.

However, what if this plan (or a equivalent of it) was forced upon Germany twenty-six years before at Versailles at the end of World War I, with several modifications to fit the time period?




Morgenthau's proposed borders of post-WWII Germany from his own book, Germany Is Our Problem
Top