[MAY 11, 1891–FEBRUARY 6, 1967]

Author of a plan to rebuild post–World War II Europe

Henry Morgenthau served as secretary of the treasury in Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration from January 1, 1934, until July 22, 1945. Born in New York City into a German Jewish family, Morgenthau was a friend and a neighbor of Roosevelt in Hyde Park, New York. During the final months of the war, Morgenthau became a catalyst for the U.S. plan on punishing German war criminals that—although very different from what he had envisioned—was to become the core of the Nuremberg Charter.

Morgenthau's involvement in the question of punishing war criminals was a by-product of his deep interest in the overall question of the treatment of Germany after the war. Disturbed by the U.S. Army's Handbook for Military Government in Germany and other policy papers on the issue, Morgenthau succeeded in winning the president's support...