In college I used to read bound volumes of Time & Newsweek from the WWII years; by 1944 the Morgenthau Plan was being openly discussed (I was wrong that it was a classified document that was `leaked’). Germans were referred to as “children of disaster” who should never again be allowed the means of industrial production as they would only use it to produce weapons. The postwar era proved that Germans & Nazis were not the same thing & that a revitalized West Germany was a necessary asset to NATO.
Never before thought about Imperial Germany’s view of the Armenian genocide. After all, these were Christians being exterminated by a Muslim state.
The German General Staff held the Turks in contempt as allies, despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli. Hindenburg said of the Ottoman Empire, “we are fettered to a corpse!”.
So they upgraded to Italy for the main event. ;-)