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Joseph Stalin’s reaction to the Warsaw uprising was not a priority for the leaders; the focus of these talks was on how Germany should be treated postwar. Roosevelt was keen on a radical plan proposed by his treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, that would destroy German industry. In this plan, the Ruhr Valley, the heart of Germany’s industrial power, would be stripped of all industry within six months of the war’s end. Equipment would be transported to Allied nations as reparations . Churchill was alarmed by the proposal, calling it “unnatural, un-Christian and unnecessary.” He said, “it would be like chaining oneself to a dead German.”
Soviets flush Germans out of a village
Several days later, after the two countries had signed an agreement for Great Britain to receive a one billion dollar American aid package, Churchill appeared to change his mind. Though he re-worked the Morgenthau Plan slightly, he agreed to destroy all of German industry after the war.
But for now, the war raged on. In Poland, most of the country was now under the control of a puppet government installed by Stalin. It seemed that one tyranny was replacing another.
