Should Historical Films be Accurately Portrayed?

[Jonn]

The Morgenthau Plan, which was a long term political plan, had opposition against it among both US government. What was implemented, was the JCS 1067, a short term military doctrine. Morgenthau wasn't happy of such diminishing of his ideas.

Mate, we have met an impasse.
This is turning into a debate.

If you don't agree with my opinion, fine.
You are in no position to change mine.
As such, we will have to agree to disagree.

CIAO.

 

[UFO]

This whole subject is not my "special interest" so inaccuracies might be around, but I tried to fact check things and names.

Damn. I can't abandon the subject yet, as there were inaccuracies. I say few more things that should have been said in the first place. I don't mean that I want Jonn to read and respond, and I don't mean to keep up the debate about opinions how to interpret facts (though I would be happy to be corrected or given another perspective), it is just meant to be a complement to my previous info dump:

First of all, my main indignation is about combined "murder them through starvation, because can't poison the water supply" accusations, not about the fact that period from 1945 to 1947 had consciously caused malnutrition that turned to an outright famine killing hundreds of thousands both directly and indirectly. If it would have been just "allies murdered through starvation" or "allies deliberately caused starvation" I wouldn't have had anything to comment (thought I frown to loaded language of the first phrase).

Secondly, to be clear, Morgenthau did have a very cold-hearted approach: His plan accepted and demanded that the German population must shrink to match the Germany's agricultural capacity. He didn't specifically say that Germans should be exterminated, but accepted that there will deaths, and it is hard to not agree that it sounds like intentionally caused famine deaths. If Morgenthau's Plan would have been implemented, I agree that it would have been outright planned mass murder. Nastiest thing is that most criticism inside the government wasn't even about the morals of the plan, only about its feasibility because of its spillover effects to the recovery of the rest of Europe.

However, while JCS 1067 either followed or allowed to follow the Morgenthau's Plan in many parts, it distanced US from its most controversial parts, dropped out the dedication to the "shrinking population", and it didn't contain long-term plans about Germany's future. JCS 1067 was also more compliant with Haag Conventions. There was no political interest of being accused doing exactly same that Nazis were doing, and consequently that and the distribution of calories were a continuous matter of debate in US Senate ("starvation policy" was often mentioned).

However, the practical implementation of JCS 1067, despite taking a little softer approach than Morgenthau's Plan, still had same kind of consequences: For example, in 1945-46 when actions against malnutrition were taken, the rest of the Europe was prioritized (as part of that "don't let German people be better than neighbors"-thing), resulting that when other Western countries (ones not under Soviet rule) were just hungry (Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy getting worst of it), Germany ended up actually starving (together with Austria, despite it not being a target of JCS 1067 policies). It actually is debatable if calories given to Germans would have been higher or not if physical conditions (logistics, infrastructure, organizational disarray...) would have been better. If they wouldn't have been, the case for attempted murder by famine would be stronger. We can't know that because the policy was changed so quickly.

 

[Jonn]

I will not reply to your post because I am disciplined.

Spoiler

D'oh! I just did!

 

[BewilderedPerson]

In my opinion, yes.

 

[Cyber]

First of all, my main indignation is about combined "murder them through starvation, because can't poison the water supply" accusations, not about the fact that period from 1945 to 1947 had consciously caused malnutrition that turned to an outright famine killing hundreds of thousands both directly and indirectly. If it would have been just "allies murdered through starvation" or "allies deliberately caused starvation" I wouldn't have had anything to comment (thought I frown to loaded language of the first phrase).

Secondly, to be clear, Morgenthau did have a very cold-hearted approach: His plan accepted and demanded that the German population must shrink to match the Germany's agricultural capacity. He didn't specifically say that Germans should be exterminated, but accepted that there will deaths, and it is hard to not agree that it sounds like intentionally caused famine deaths. If Morgenthau's Plan would have been implemented, I agree that it would have been outright planned mass murder. Nastiest thing is that most criticism inside the government wasn't even about the morals of the plan, only about its feasibility because of its spillover effects to the recovery of the rest of Europe.

Even if this plan was proposed, it clearly wasn't implemented. In the 1940s social engineering projects using eugenics were still being pushed based on faulty science so the concept of population shedding of low IQ or a criminal underclass was still popular. Did Morgenthau follow this line of thinking that Germany was a nation prone to inflict war on the rest of Europe and so its population needed to be "thinned" ? I don't know, but the fact he was a prominent Jewish American plays into antisemitic tropes that the so called Elders of Zion/Jewish elite planned retribution on Germany for the holocaust which is a dangerous line of argument and one I would be careful to not engage.

It's clear the Americans opted for a policy of a strong industrialised Germany as a bulwark against Stalin's expansionism and spreading communism and USSR's sphere of influence across the world.

 

[Jonn]

Even if this plan was proposed, it clearly wasn't implemented

<sigh>
Starvation is the most effective form of genocide, and it has been used throughout history.
And yes, the spirit of The Morganthau Plan, with the intention of harm, was implemented in the first two years after the war, (based on my in-depth research), despite what the biased Wikipedia says.
Wikipedia is NOT a reliable source of information.
It can only be used as a guide.
This is why CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS ARE ESSENTIAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, yes, the plan was replaced by the Marshall Plan directly as a result of the Red Peril being a major threat.

There were a zillion pieces of information, and my profound understanding of the damaged human psyche, that led to my conclusion, hence my refusal to budge on my opinion.

What many people seem to miss is how disinformation is deliberately inserted into the public media/history to satisfy a narrative.
Think in terms of the assertion that, read my lips, there was absolutely no possibility of a lab leak of the COVID virus.
POLITICAL reasons trumped the search for the Truth.
This is nothing new.

This is the final post I will be making on the subject...

Spoiler

...depending on how I feel at the time...

 

[Cyber]

And, yes, the plan was replaced by the Marshall Plan directly as a result of the Red Peril being a major threat.

There were a zillion pieces of information, and my profound understanding of the damaged human psyche, that led to my conclusion, hence my refusal to budge on my opinion.

What many people seem to miss is how disinformation is deliberately inserted into the public media/history to satisfy a narrative.

Yes, the Marshall plan.

 

[Cyber]

Ultimately we can only go by evidence to what transpired after Germany's surrender. I'm often reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's famous quote (paraphrased here) in searching for the truth...when it's finally revealed, truth is always stranger than fiction. Basically from where I see it, human behaviour (individual and group) and motivation is very difficult to predict.

 

[UFO]

Did Morgenthau follow this line of thinking that Germany was a nation prone to inflict war on the rest of Europe and so its population needed to be "thinned" ?

Years ago I have read a lot of stuff, including Morgenthau's Germany is our Problem. But I don't have an eidetic memory so now I re-read (well, skimmed thru) that Morgenthau's text to be sure, and noticed that I misremembered its content.

Morgenthau actually quoted some research saying "If it were true, as some people have asserted, that thirty million Germans would starve through the elimination of their heavy industry, their misery could become a menace to peace." He didn't directly accept that as an inevitability as I remembered, he actually questioned it ("if it were true...") and argued that "But a study of the facts shows that their best chance of getting an adequate diet within a reasonable time is by growing their own food and not by returning to steel mills and synthetic plants."

He actually thought that dividing about 120 000 square kilometers by 70 million people would be enough land to feed whole people. About 40 x 40 square meters per a person sounds a quite little, thought my farm days are limited to childhood visits at my grandparents.

 

[Cyber]

He actually thought that dividing about 120 000 square kilometers by 70 million people would be enough land to feed whole people. About 40 x 40 square meters per a person sounds a quite little, thought my farm days are limited to childhood visits at my grandparents.

During the Bengal Famine of 1943 it's possible Churchill made similar mathematical equations when he allowed 4 million Bengalis to starve to death. During the Japanese occupation of Burma, Great Britain took a policy of a) scorching fields of rice in Bengal so incoming Japanese troops had no food and b) diverting harvested grain stores to British troops, war industries and civil servants stationed in India.

It was during this precise time Churchill made conspicuously disparaging comments about Indians and I would not be surprised if he (like Morgenthau) sat in boardroom in London and just decided 4 million Indians could be thinned from the population. the fact he expressed no remorse for his decision suggests he was satisfied with the outcome benefiting British interests.