Long before an Allied victory was assured during World War II, the Big Three--Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin--began discussing how to prevent Germany from ever again threatening the world. The fact that Germany today is a peaceful, democratic ally of the U.S. is "one of America's great twentieth-century international achievements," writes esteemed historian Michael Beschloss. How such a transformation was accomplished is the subject of The Conquerors.

Drawing on thousands of previously unreleased documents, secret audio recordings, private diaries, and other information recently made available, Beschloss details the complex diplomacy between the Allied leaders, including their differences over whether to demand Germany's unconditional surrender; how, if at all, to divide Germany after the war; and how to effectively punish Germany without creating the kind of resentment that led to the rise of Hitler. The relationship between the three leaders, and later, Truman, is fascinating, as Beschloss reveals private conversations, ulterior motives, and numerous back-channel deals that took place. Of particular interest is the maneuvering of Roosevelt and Churchill, who were both concerned that the Soviets would attempt a postwar power grab in Western Europe if given the chance. The book also deals with Roosevelt's reluctance to deal with Germany's systematic extermination of the Jews, and the role that his old friend and Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., played in pushing the President into action. After learning of the Holocaust, Morgenthau became obsessed with punishing Germany severely, drafting a plan that called for the complete destruction of their mines and factories as a way of forcing Germany into subsistence farming--ideas that put him at odds with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, and many others in the administration.

The Conquerors is a superbly written, if brief, treatment of the political events leading up to the defeat of Germany, with the main players brought vividly to life by Beschloss's keen eye for detail and his ability to expose the human strengths and weaknesses of the participants. --Shawn Carkonen


From Publishers Weekly
Beschloss provides an engaging, if not revelatory, narrative of key events leading up to the conferences at Yalta (Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin) and Potsdam (Truman, Churchill, Stalin) and the Allies' decisions about how to prevent future aggression by post-WWII Germany. In his preface, Beschloss makes much of the fact that this study draws on newly released documents from the former Soviet Union, the FBI and private archives. But Beschloss has unearthed nothing to change accepted views of how FDR developed and then began to implement his vision for postwar Germany. The tales Beschloss gathers here are no different from those already told in such books as Eric Larrabee's Commander-in-Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants and Their War (1987) and Henry Morgenthau III's Mostly Morgenthaus: A Family History (1991). With reference to the latter volume, one of Beschloss's major subplots traces Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s efforts to interest FDR in a draconian, retributive plan (the "Morgenthau Plan") to destroy what little might remain of Germany's infrastructure after the war. Wisely, FDR demurred. Although breaking no new ground, this book by noted presidential historian Beschloss (who has published a trilogy on Lyndon Johnson's White House tapes) will fill the bill for those who need a readable account of how American officials and their Allied counterparts came to draw the map of postwar Europe. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Beschloss draws on newly opened archives to show how Roosevelt and Truman decided Germany's fate. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Listening to Michael Beschloss read The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany is like listening to a good college lecture. It's understandable, fast-paced enough to remain interesting, and slow enough to allow for memory. The book is really a Cabinet view of WWII from mid-1943 to the postwar period. Beschlossús reading is solid. He is neither overly emotive nor unduly dry. He allows his voice to rise to express surprise or anxiety, but it's controlled. The tape opens with the actual voices of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. But Beschloss reads the quoted passages in the rest of the book. He did this, he says, because he doesn't have tapes of everything and he sometimes quotes from written messages. To move back and forth between archival tapes and his reading could have made understanding difficult. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
As German forces were driven back in 1943-45, American leaders were anxious that in 20 years, just as it had done after its defeat in 1918, a vengeful Germany would start another world war. To prevent this, two schools of thought flowed through DC's salons of power: punishment or rehabilitation. The outstanding specialist in this venue of history writing, Beschloss covers the meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo political battle between the two approaches, whose chief advocates were Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, favoring the lash, and War Secretary Henry Stimson, the carrot. Neither could definitively draw out a mortally ill Franklin Roosevelt who, as Beschloss witheringly observes, palavered about his jejune memories of childhood visits to Germany, a characteristic deflection of demands on him for decisions. So under the influence of cabinet conflict and Roosevelt's inattention, what to do to or with Germany became a political football. Beschloss' comprehensive research and narration into every nuance opens a significant perspective on bureaucratic politics' effect on the Germany that eventually formed in the early cold war. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Jim Hoagland The Washington Post An incomparable account.


Book Description
From one of America's most respected historians, The Conquerors reveals one of the most important stories of World War II. As Allied soldiers fought the Nazis, Franklin Roosevelt and, later, Harry Truman fought in private with Churchill and Stalin over how to ensure that Germany could never threaten the world again. Eleven years in the writing, drawing on newly opened American, Soviet and British documents as well as private diaries, letters and secret audio recordings, Michael Beschloss's gripping narrative lets us eavesdrop on private conversations and telephone calls among a cast of historical giants. The book casts new light upon Roosevelt's concealment of what America knew about Hitler's war against the Jews and his foot-dragging on saving refugees; FDR's actions so shocked his closest friend in the Cabinet, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., that Morgenthau risked their friendship by accusing the President of "acquiescence" in the "murder of the Jews." After the Normandy invasion, "obsessed" by what he had learned about the Nazis and the Holocaust, Morgenthau drew up a secret blueprint for the Allies to crush Germany by destroying German mines and factories after the European victory. As The Conquerors shows, FDR endorsed most of Morgenthau's plan, and privately pressured a reluctant Churchill to concur. Horrified, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Secretary of War Henry Stimson leaked the plan to the press at the zenith of the 1944 campaign. Hitler's propagandist Joseph Goebbels denounced the Roosevelt-Churchill "Jewish murder plan" and claimed it would kill forty-three million Germans. Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey charged that by stiffening German resistance, publicity about Morgenthau's plan had cost many U.S. soldiers' lives. The Conquerors explores suspicions that Soviet secret agents manipulated Roosevelt and his officials to do Stalin's bidding on Germany. It reveals new information on FDR's hidden illnesses and how they affected his leadership -- and his private talk about quitting his job during his fourth term and letting Harry Truman become President. It shows us FDR's final dinner, in April 1945, in Warm Springs, Georgia, at which the President and Morgenthau were still arguing over postwar Germany. Finally it shows how the unprepared new President Truman managed to pick up the pieces and push Stalin and Churchill to accede to a bargain that would let the Anglo-Americans block Soviet threats against Western Europe and ensure that the world would not have to fear another Adolf Hitler.


Download Description
"A New York Times bestseller, The Conquerors reveals how Franklin Roosevelt's and Harry Truman's private struggles with their aides and Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin affected the unfolding of the Holocaust and the fate of vanquished Nazi Germany. With monumental fairness and balance, The Conquerors shows how Roosevelt privately refused desperate pleas to speak out directly against the Holocaust, to save Jewish refugees and to explore the possible bombing of Auschwitz to stop the killing. The book also shows FDR's fierce will to ensure that Germany would never threaten the world again. Near the end of World War II, he abruptly endorsed the secret plan of his friend, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, to reduce the Germans to a primitive existence -- despite Churchill's fear that crushing postwar Germany would let the Soviets conquer the continent. The book finally shows how, after FDR's death, President Truman rebelled against Roosevelt's tough approach and adopted the Marshall Plan and other more conciliatory policies that culminated in today's democratic, united Europe. "


About the Author
Michael Beschloss has been called by Newsweek "the nation's leading Presidential historian." Author of six previous books on the history of American Presidents and global affairs, including Mayday (1986), The Crisis Years (1991) and the first two volumes of a trilogy on the Lyndon Johnson tapes, he is a frequent lecturer and regular commentator on ABC News and PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Born in Chicago, he is a trustee of the White House Historical Association, the National Archives Foundation, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. He lives with his wife and their two sons in Washington, D.C.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Armed with information gleaned from newly opened archives, popular historian Michael Beschloss has penned a fascinating look at how Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived at, and Harry Truman instituted, a plan for the reconstruction of postwar Germany.

Bechloss breathes new life into this well-known history. He shows how Roosevelt evolved from embracing the Morgenthau Plan, which called for the reduction of Germany to a pastoral country devoid of industry, to accepting British prime minister Winston Churchill's desire for a revived but divided Germany. He also provides fascinating insight into Roosevelt's style, depicting the ever-astute president playing members of his cabinet against one another as they presented various visions of a post-Hitler Germany.

Beschloss recounts the conferences of the Big Three -- Roosevelt, Churchill, and Soviet premier Josef Stalin -- revealing how these leaders used the German question in their maneuvering for power in the postwar world. He also shows that after FDR's death, Truman assumed the presidency with little knowledge of the issue, because FDR had kept him at arm's length through the great deliberations. Nevertheless, Truman was able to successfully assert his authority at the Potsdam Conference because he was the only world leader whose nation possessed an atomic bomb.

Beschloss has given us an enthralling work that illuminates this amazing period of history. With keen observation and graceful prose, he shows how FDR and Truman made it possible for Germany to rise from the ashes and become a peaceful and democratic country. Glenn Speer

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A New York Times bestseller, The Conquerors reveals how Franklin Roosevelt's and Harry Truman's private struggles with their aides and Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin affected the unfolding of the Holocaust and the fate of vanquished Nazi Germany. With monumental fairness and balance, The Conquerors shows how Roosevelt privately refused desperate pleas to speak out directly against the Holocaust, to save Jewish refugees and to explore the possible bombing of Auschwitz to stop the killing. The book also shows FDR's fierce will to ensure that Germany would never threaten the world again. Near the end of World War II, he abruptly endorsed the secret plan of his friend, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, to reduce the Germans to a primitive existence -- despite Churchill's fear that crushing postwar Germany would let the Soviets conquer the continent. The book finally shows how, after FDR's death, President Truman rebelled against Roosevelt's tough approach and adopted the Marshall Plan and other more conciliatory policies that culminated in today's democratic, united Europe.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Beschloss provides an engaging, if not revelatory, narrative of key events leading up to the conferences at Yalta (Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin) and Potsdam (Truman, Churchill, Stalin) and the Allies' decisions about how to prevent future aggression by post-WWII Germany. In his preface, Beschloss makes much of the fact that this study draws on newly released documents from the former Soviet Union, the FBI and private archives. But Beschloss has unearthed nothing to change accepted views of how FDR developed and then began to implement his vision for postwar Germany. The tales Beschloss gathers here are no different from those already told in such books as Eric Larrabee's Commander-in-Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants and Their War (1987) and Henry Morgenthau III's Mostly Morgenthaus: A Family History (1991). With reference to the latter volume, one of Beschloss's major subplots traces Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s efforts to interest FDR in a draconian, retributive plan (the "Morgenthau Plan") to destroy what little might remain of Germany's infrastructure after the war. Wisely, FDR demurred. Although breaking no new ground, this book by noted presidential historian Beschloss (who has published a trilogy on Lyndon Johnson's White House tapes) will fill the bill for those who need a readable account of how American officials and their Allied counterparts came to draw the map of postwar Europe. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

World War II is the most intensively studied conflict in history, and nearly 60 years after its end, fresh information is still emerging. Beschloss' account of U.S. policy toward Germany during the war integrates new archival research to place some of the war's crucial actors and events in illuminating new perspective. In particular, Beschloss's account of the relationship between Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau and the president he served for 12 years leads to surprising and disquieting insights into Franklin Roosevelt's failure to publicize — much less to obstruct — the Holocaust. John McCloy emerges from these pages with a reputation considerably enhanced. Often singled out as the official responsible for blocking proposals to bomb Auschwitz or its feeder railroads, McCloy is shown here to have acted under direct and specific orders from Roosevelt — a source he loyally concealed for decades after the war. Beschloss' sensitive portrayal of the difficulties of assimilated, educated Jews such as Morgenthau with a political culture still strongly influenced by antisemitism is both disturbing and moving. Some of the material he handles is radioactive, such as antisemitic comments from Roosevelt and Harry Truman against the background of the Holocaust, yet Beschloss neither palliates evil nor imposes the standards of the present on the past.

Library Journal

Beschloss draws on newly opened archives to show how Roosevelt and Truman decided Germany's fate. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile

Listening to Michael Beschloss read The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany is like listening to a good college lecture. It's understandable, fast-paced enough to remain interesting, and slow enough to allow for memory. The book is really a Cabinet view of WWII from mid-1943 to the postwar period. Beschloss￯﾿ﾽs reading is solid. He is neither overly emotive nor unduly dry. He allows his voice to rise to express surprise or anxiety, but it's controlled. The tape opens with the actual voices of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. But Beschloss reads the quoted passages in the rest of the book. He did this, he says, because he doesn't have tapes of everything and he sometimes quotes from written messages. To move back and forth between archival tapes and his reading could have made understanding difficult. R.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews