Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity | Morgenthau, Henry

[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 for a comprehensive memorandum, entitled Program to Prevent Germany from Starting a World War III, which he presented to Roosevelt on September 5, 1944. The Morgenthau Plan, as it became known, had two major themes: the complete demilitarization and deindustrialization of Germany, and the severe punishment of all Germans involved in perpetrating war crimes. Morgenthau did not try to hide his prime motive—to eliminate once and for all Germany's threat to world peace, and to take revenge for the atrocities Germany committed during World War II.

Morgenthau's stand on punishing suspected war criminals corresponded with his overall view favoring the harsh treatment of Germans. The treasury secretary suggested the preparation of a list of arch-criminals whose guilt had generally been recognized by the United Nations (UN). Anyone on the list who was apprehended and identified by military authorities would be executed by firing squads made up by United Nations soldiers. Morgenthau also suggested establishing military commissions to deal with crimes that had been committed "against civilization during this war." In this category he included the killing of hostages and execution of victims because of their nationality, race, creed, color, or political conviction. Morgenthau advocated that any person convicted by such a military commission "be sentenced to death, unless the military commissions, in exceptional cases, determine that there are extenuating circumstances, in which case other punishment may be meted out, including deportation to a penal colony outside of Germany. Upon conviction, the sentence shall be carried out immediately." In this respect, Morgenthau's Plan much resembled the suggestions Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill had made to the British War Cabinet in late 1943 in anticipation of the war's end.

Fearing that Allied military authorities would be unable to tackle the enormous number of cases of war criminals, Morgenthau called for the detention, until the extent of their guilt had been determined, of all surviving members of the SS and Gestapo; high-ranking officials of the police, SA, and other security organizations; high-ranking government and Nazi Party officials; and all leading public figures closely identified with Nazism.

Morgenthau's Plan was vehemently opposed by U.S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who argued that in the long run it would prevent the achievement of world peace. Stimson also strongly disapproved of Morgenthau's proposals about the treatment of war criminals for their failure to include at least the rudimentary aspects of the Bill of Rights, namely, notifying the accused of the charge, giving them the right to be heard, and within reasonable limits allowing them to call witnesses in their defense. Instead, Stimson envisaged an international tribunal to try the chief Nazi officials on the charge of committing offenses against the laws and rules of war, whereas those who had committed war crimes in Nazi-subjugated territories would be tried by military commissions of the countries involved.

The Stimson-Morgenthau collision over the question of the treatment of postwar Germany formed a watershed in Washington's handling of the war criminals problem. In spite of the fact that Morgenthau enjoyed the president's support as well as Churchill's in principle, Stimson won out by taking advantage of Roosevelt's political weakness prior to the elections of November 1944 and the press criticism of the Morgenthau Plan. The president was compelled to withdraw his backing for the summary execution of major criminals.

Morgenthau's involvement in the war criminals issue, however, did produce important achievements: First, it prompted the administration to finally take the problem seriously, and second, it led the United States to include within the rubric of "war crime" the notion of crimes the enemy had committed against its own nationals from 1933 on. The prevailing stand in Washington had been not to view as a war crime any massacre of Axis nationals. As late as September 1944 Stimson drew an analogy to lynching in a letter to Roosevelt, arguing that Allied courts would be in the same predicament that foreign courts would be if they attempted to prosecute lynching in the United States.

Stimson's eventual decision to include crimes against nationals of Axis countries in the War Department's plan to punish war criminals, which became the essence of the final U.S. plan, was more the result of political calculation rather than moral or legal considerations on his part, that is, to appease Morgenthau and to dispel accusations that he supported the soft treatment of Germany. In effect, Stimson was convinced that Morgenthau's position derived from the fact that he was Jewish. As of mid-1943 Morgenthau had demonstrated growing concern for the fate of Europe's Jews, and in early 1944 he played a significant role in galvanizing Roosevelt to seek a halt to the Nazis' ongoing extermination of the Jews. Roosevelt's executive order of January 22, 1944, establishing the War Refugee Board, which was mandated to take all measures within its power to rescue and assist the victims of enemy oppression, was the administration's main operative action on behalf of the Jews during World War II. After Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945, Morgenthau's influence within the White House significantly diminished, and he resigned from President Harry S. Truman's administration in July 1945.

SEE ALSO Jackson, Robert; London Charter; Nuremberg Trials; United Nations War Crimes Commission; War Crimes

Arieh Kochavi