Morgenthau Papers

Memorandum by the Secretary of the Treasury (Morgenthau)1

At a conference between the President and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill said that he would sum up the discussion that we had been having in regard to the future disposition of the Ruhr and the Saar. Pie said that they would permit Russia and any other of our Allies to help themselves to whatever machinery they wished, that the industries in the Ruhr and in the Saar would be shut down, and that these two districts would be put under an international body which would supervise these industries to see that they would not start up again.

This progamme for eliminating the war-making industries in the Ruhr and in the Saar is part of a programme looking forward to diverting Germany into largely an agricultural country.

The Prime Minister and the President were in agreement upon this programme.

  1. The source copy bears the following typewritten endorsement: “Draft 1. HMJr. dictated this.”

    Morgenthau dictated this paper in the early afternoon of September 15, 1944, when he and Cherwell withdrew from a Roosevelt–Churchill meeting for the express purpose of putting in writing an agreed position on Germany for Roosevelt and Churchill to approve. See ante, p. 361. Morgenthau and Cherwell then returned to the meeting of the Heads of Government and presented this paper, which was not acceptable to Churchill. For the paper which Churchill then dictated and which was initialed by Roosevelt and Churchill, see post, p. 466.