Victor Davis Hanson: Germany’s New Morgenthau Plan

American Thinker ^ | 2 Jan, 2025 | Victor Davis Hanson

[MtnClimber]

Eighty years ago, Germany’s former conquerors rejected wrecking the defeated nation as too harsh. But now Germany is willfully pastoralizing, disarming, deindustrializing—and destroying—itself.

Less than a year before the end of World War II, then U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau drew up a nightmarish plan to punish postwar Germany.

After the serial 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War, World War I, and World War II—along with the failed Versailles peace treaty of 1919—the Allies in World War II wanted to ensure there would never again be an aggressive Germany powerful enough to invade its neighbors.

When the so-called Morgenthau Plan was leaked to the press in September 1944, at first it was widely praised. After all, it would supposedly render Germany incapable of ever starting another world war in Europe.

Morgenthau certainly envisioned a Carthaginian peace, designed to ensure a permanently deindustrialized, unarmed, and pastoral Germany.

Postwar Germany would have resembled something akin to the ancient, pre-civilized frontier that the first-century AD historian Tacitus wrote about in his Germania.

The plan would have ensured that within six months of Germany’s surrender, all of its industrial plants and equipment were to be dismantled.

The Ruhr, the renowned center of European industrial strength, was to be permanently neutered, starved of its energy, raw materials, and infrastructure.

After the war, the plan demanded virtual complete disarmament of Germany. Its once-feared armed forces were to be rendered nonexistent.

There were also promised massive reductions in Germany’s borders. Various countries, such as the Soviet Union, Poland, and France, were to be given large slices of the old Third Reich.

Future German security would hinge only on the power and goodwill of the victorious United States and its allies.

[MtnClimber]

Currently, Germany is doing to itself almost everything Morgenthau once dreamed of.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Better headline:

God PERMITS Germany everything they voted for - Sin devours itself.

Correction: replace “Germany” with

“ENTIRE FIRST WORLD”

[srmanuel]

Besides the obvious of terrible consequences of what Germany is doing, after WW I and the Treaty of Versailles which punished Germany significantly, their economy went in the dumper and led to the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party.

I’m not saying another Hitler will rise up in Germany but sooner or later the Germans themselves will get enough of destroying themselves thru the Green New Deal and unlimited Immigration from 3rd world countries.

When it snaps back I can violence run amok in Germany, things like outlawing the AfD which is offering a sensible path out of this mess, will only speed things along the path of real violence inside of Germamy.

[texas booster]

Ping! Out to the Victor Davis Hanson list

The German economy actually shrank in 2023. And the diminished Ruhr can no longer save the German economy from its own utopian politicians.

Not a long read but was a difficult subject for me to comprehend. Is Germany really self-destructing?

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[caddie]

The Germans are just commie idiots like most of the EU.

Every time the right tries to improve things or tell the truth they get shouted down or dismissed as nuts by the Establishment Left.

Germany's status of being frozen in the liberal/Communist 1960s is going to continue until Germany and the other EU countries pull their heads out.

It's slowly happening in France, Italy, UK, and breaking wide open in the US and Argentina.

Germany has a choice: It can continue to molder in Communism for another quarter- or half-century, or it can come out of its woke coma and start thinking and producing with this new wave of conservative life that is emerging.

It's a complete state of flux right now. Both Left and Right are non-dominant, but certainly the Right is in ascendancy, and the Left is in rapid decline.

[nopardons]

BTTT

[wardaddy]

Morgantheau was on vengeance acid

Sadly Germany cut its on balls off in time anyhow all by its lonesome

I’m not sure they are recoverable honestly

[GOPJ]

I’m not saying another Hitler will rise up in Germany but sooner or later the Germans themselves will get enough of destroying themselves thru the Green New Deal and unlimited Immigration from 3rd world countries.

Germans aren't having children... that'll change the equation and outcome.

[nathanbedford]

the AfD which is offering a sensible path out of this mess

As one residing in Germany for many years, I agree that the AFD offers a sensible path, indeed a compelling path closely paralleling Trump's approach to making America great again, compelling that is, until one becomes acquainted with a pernicious part of the AFD plan.

The three-part path to restoring Germany to health is classic Trump: 1) cut taxes, 2) close the border, 3) restore energy (restart nuclear). But Frau Weidel's energy plan is more than starting nuclear power plants, it involves the entire restoration of gas intake from Russia but, even more, it involves a pro Russia stance and clearly an anti-American posture.

The AFD's policy toward America verges on outright hostility. It would expel all American forces from Germany, especially nuclear, and open trade with Russia and China. Indeed, AFD leaders have expressed a desire to extricate Germany from both EU and NATO.

Clearly both the intent and effect of AFD's policies would be to extricate Germany from any close association with America and its allies and commit Germany to some sort of intimate relationship, especially involving trade, with both Russia and China.

The result is a nightmare for America and the West, a unity hostile to us embracing the entire Eurasian landmass from Germany to the Pacific. If you believe as I do that the threat to America is not from invasion by boots on the ground on the beaches of the Atlantic and Pacific, but a gradual and inexorable strangulation of our strategic situation as one Allied and neighboring nation is peeled away after another and succumbs to Chinese influence. The loss of Europe would, of course, be part of this isolating trend but Asia and Latin America would soon follow.

At some point the left in America will do what they do best, surrender and open our institutions along with our border to an invasion, not of soldiers, but of Masters who will operate through leftist quislings in America. Our nuclear defenses will deter Chinese enemies, but that will not avail because our domestic left-wing Will simply surrender us.

Germany can be a linchpin in this disintegration, the global significance of which is made clear by the consequences of the Hitler/Stalin pack in 1939.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

Not many are aware of the Morgenthau Plan. I’ve been saying for several months that Germany was finally implementing the plan themselves.

[Redmen4ever]

In this essay, Hanson fails to consider the incentives implicit in NATO.

In NATO, member nations are protected independent of their commitment to mutual defense. Therefore, the incentive to member nations WITHIN the defense perimeter is to shirk their duty. Member nations at the defense perimeter will meet their obligation as will the U.S., each for their own reasons. So, Poland and the U.S., nowadays, will meet their obligation, while Germany does not.

Turn the clock back to before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and West Germany - then a member nation on the periphery - met its obligation.

An economist such as myself naturally looks at incentives. Historians, even good historians such as Hanson, may or may not look at incentives.

At some point, we need to reconsider the incentive structure of NATO. It should seem obvious that a credible alliance of the democratic countries of the world would overwhelm any potential threat from any or all of the non-democratic countries of the world. But, instead, the non-democratic countries believe they can sow dissension in the democratic countries, including the inclination to let somebody else bear the burden of defense.

In the big picture, Ronald Reagan remarked on how the oceans of the world protected the United States during its infancy and growth. Then, come WWII, we were powerful enough to come to the rescue of the world. Isolationism had been the best policy. But, not any more.

Even Reagan’s thinking missed part of the big picture. From the onset, we recognized that isolation wasn’t an immutable fact. So, in the Monroe Doctrine, we declared that any attempt of the European powers to re-colonize the republics of this hemisphere would be a threat to us.

Getting back to Reagan, he also saw an end to the only real option left to the autocrats of the world. They could not defeat us with conventional weapons. But, they could cause untold damage with nuclear weapons. This is why Reagan broached the zero option.

Now we have a new President with a background in deal-making in the business world. We know he hates war and that he isn’t naive about terrorism or autocrats. Let’s see what he does to enliven our alliances and better secure peace and freedom in the world.

[ckilmer]

Interesting take.

I live in Virginia. I’ve thought about these things for many years- in ways similar to yours and for similar reasons. I understand AFD’s POV. The problem with the USA is that the culture is toxic to the extreme and becoming increasingly alien (and Canada and the UK even more so because they’re all blue.).

Both Trump and Musk are fighting against that culture. Musk supports the AFD, and Trump wants an end to the Uke war.

However, I have seen articles from both Australia and China that say that the Chinese only have about 2 years to invade Taiwan. After that, their window of opportunity closes.

I have further read from the Chinese that they believe when the Ukrainian war ends, the USA and Russia will mend relations and draw closer.

What will happen is a reversal of field that occurred in 1971, when Kissinger created the rapprochement with China to counterbalance the Russians.

In that context the AFD’s plans are in line with the larger agenda of the west. (Remove the toxic culture, get rid of the communists in the universities, encourage western population growth, stop or even reverse the foreign invasion, restore the best values of western civilization, do the sorts of things that make economies grow and people flourish.

There are plenty of downsides to that world but right now the whole deal pulling back from the cliff west is going over.

[Larry Lucido]

Norm MacDonald (RIP) on World War II:

“Listen, Germany, you don’t get to be a country no more. That’s on account of you keep attacking the WORLD. What do you think you are, Mars, or something? You think you’re Mars?”

[ridesthemiles]

THE DEMANDS FOR “CLEANER” POWER SOURCES IS KILLING THE GERMAN MANUFACTURING COMPANIES.

[nathanbedford]

I have further read from the Chinese that they believe when the Ukrainian war ends, the USA and Russia will mend relations and draw closer.

I think this is a reasonable bet. In order to end this disastrous war in Ukraine, Trump will no doubt negotiate by offering carrots as well as sticks and the resumption of trade, especially energy trade, will be foremost among the carrots that might motivate Putin to a reasonable accommodation. The AFD continues to see both Russia and China as lucrative trading partners so they are equally inclined to settle the Ukrainian war ASAP. But to gain that trade, these Germans would throw America overboard and some and that party would even relish doing so.

I wholly agree with your comments underscoring the need for domestic reforms so that the left cannot surrender our country out from under us. My contribution is to argue that the single most important reform that can take place, even including indispensable border reform, is solving our looming fiscal crisis.

Without a healthy, indeed without a viable economy which the crisis threatens, there will be no border policy, no energy policy, no tax policy but only contrivances for survival. There will be no effective foreign policy, there will be no deterrence because there will be no credible military force.

A prosperous America is a secure America, an impoverished, indebted America is looking like late stage Rome.

[grey_whiskers]

[Taxman]

ping

[Bob Wills is still the king]

“The AFD’s policy toward America verges on outright hostility. It would expel all American forces from Germany, especially nuclear, and open trade with Russia and China. Indeed, AFD leaders have expressed a desire to extricate Germany from both EU and NATO.

Clearly both the intent and effect of AFD’s policies would be to extricate Germany from any close association with America and its allies and commit Germany to some sort of intimate relationship, especially involving trade, with both Russia and China.”
__________________________________________________________

The AfD is nothing more than a Russian neo-Nazi party, born under Putin’s vision, and supported by Russia.

[ckilmer]

single most important reform that can take place, even including indispensable border reform, is solving our looming fiscal crisis.
......
agree.

hopefully if the powers that be can avoid a crack up in the next 12 months or so—the fiscal crises will abate—because both here and in germany the smart guys know the relationship between the price of energy, everything and everything including finance.

we’ll see. It looks like 2025 will be just as topsy turvy as 2024— and how things shake out is anyone’s guess.

Longer term imho there are some seriously science fiction like things coming.