When you are fighting a war, you have one objective-winning. My question revolves around this…clearly, by mid-1943 it was obvious the Germany was going to lose.
The allied airforce chiefs were planing their attacks on Germany-at what point did they start to think about what should be saved (as it would be necessary in post war Europe)?
Take the giant Krupp factories-was some of it “spared” from bombing, because it would be needed to rebuild Germany, after the war?
I can find very little in the history books about this.
From the wiki on the Marshall plan, it seems that planning began in late 46 and that up til that point Germany was under a trade embargo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan
So no it does not seem that the Allies preserved the factories of Germany for post war use, I wish I could ask my grandfather about this, he was there
CAPT
Tehran was the first time the Big Three sat around a table to discuss it, but no doubt it had been discussed in private beforehand.
The original plan was to “de-industrialize” Germany after the war. This was the reason for the embargo lasting after the war and remaining factories being removed/destroyed.
This plan was only abandoned in the late 40’s, when people realized that limiting Europe’s largest state to being a nation of farmers and shepards was going to hold back the European economy as a whole.
The Morgenthau Plan was the main plan of the US (and a reluctant UK) as of 1944 and continuing as the basic concept well into 1946. Very harsh and overridden by a more realistic approach later. See the Wikipedia article for background, related plans, etc.
It was more than just that, it was the fear if we didn’t do something the Russians were going to take over the entire continent.
I never heard about anything deliberately sparing German targets. There are accusations about American company oil refineries not being targeted in the Ploesti “Operation Tidal Wave” raid. But that seems to be more of a combination of first rate Axis defenses and breakdowns in trying to carry out a highly complex plan.
The city of Kyoto in Japan was not bombed early on and there were thoughts of using it for the atomic bomb raids. But Secretary of War Henry Stimson objected, he had spent his honeymoon there.
Stimson and others also objected to the Morgenthau Plan because they felt that drastically reducing the Germans standard of living would turn them into bitter enemies after the war and forget the atrocities the Nazis committed.
Yes, I remember this. The British realized that this would be a disaster for their economy (trade with North Germany was a big part of the British economy).
In any event, Germany was a big manufacturing power-did the Allies expect that they would stand for this?
What do you mean, “stand for it”? The German military was utterly destroyed, the country was occupied, and the allies were in no mood for another peace that would lead to another war in a decade or two. Germany was going to be transformed, whether the Germans liked it or not.
I’ll bet they started planning as soon as the war began. I doubt any of those plans came to fruition since no one had any idea how it would all end up. When the end of the war, and the condition of Europe at that time became apparent, there must of been a sudden collision of reality and idealism that made all previous plans inoperable.