The London Conference - 1947
("It is far easier to make war than to make peace" - Georges Clemenceau - French Statesman, 1919)
2009 is the year for a lot of milestone anniversaries. The Moon landing in 1969, Tiananmen Square, the reunification of Germany, the first open elections in Glasnost-era Soviet Union and Solidarity's sweep to power in Poland - all in 1989. Pretty impressive year.
Post World War 2 has always been a fascination with me. Certainly the Cold War, the dissolving of former colonies and the emergence of Nuclear Superpowers were major factors in shaping Foreign Policy as we know it today. The role of Secretary of State became much more prominent during this time, probably more than any other in our history. George C. Marshall is mostly remembered as the author of The Marshall Plan and the system of Foreign Aid in helping rehabilitate countries devastated by the war.
But antagonisms between the Soviet Union and the former Allies began pretty much from the get-go, when the question of what to do about Germany came up.
Germany was unified in 1989 - it didn't happen overnight. Beginning in 1947, as this clip from Marshall's return from a failed London Conference points out, The Soviet Union was dead against any idea of unification. A stand which would eventually lead to the construction of the infamous Berlin Wall
The issue was simple - it was whether or not Germany was to continue divided, or whether the Allies could agree to recreate a unified Germany. Unless this could be achieved, all other questions relating to Germany would remain academic.
I've read that the Marshall Plan might more accurately have been called the Truman Plan because rebuilding Europe was something President Truman believed very strongly in. However, because Truman was unpopular and Marshall was highly popular as a General who had been key to winning WW2, the Truman administration passed it through congress under Marshall's name.
after WW2 the Allies wanted to turn Germany into an agricultural Country and destroy all industry.
They had already started when the tensions with the Russians grew to a point where the Allies had to wonder if they might one day become a threat or not.
By leaving Germany as said agricultural Country it would have been easy to invade and Germans did not really like the Russians and would probably fight if they could.
And that meant being able to hold off the Russians until the Allies could do something. i.e. act as a meat shield.
Thus the Marshall plan was born.
So this was all done out of political 'protecting our own ass' reasons.
So let's not paint these people out to be saints they are not.
these people are truly amazing. the bravery and sacrifice. the g.i. bill a reward/social government system has a lot to do with where this country was/is.
Sacrifice is the key word. Now it's all I, me, mine, gimme gimme gimme.
far left loon >.<
47 was a bummer yr the economy sucked!
Kindergarten. I was 5. My dad earned $12 a week delivering laundry, my mom cleaned other people's houses. We were poor I guess but I was always a happy kid. The little one room schoolhouse is still standing.
A few years back, I was working as a clerk in a bookstore, when a young fellow of about 18 or 19 came in with his mother. They needed help finding a good, general, introductory book about the American Presidents. The impression I got was that the young man had, after having concluded 12 years of free public schooling, decided that 19 might be a good age to begin his education and that his first step was to learn ALL there was to know about the presidents.
It was apparent after I'd asked him a few questions that he knew next to nothing so I ended up steering him as tactfully as I could to an 'Idiot's Guide' or 'The American Presidents For Dummies' or suchlike.
I was walking with the two of them to the register when the young man volunteered that he needed to learn about ALL the presidents, 'except Truman.' He knew about Truman, he related with a chuckle. I was surprised he even knew who Truman was, so I asked him just what was it he knew about Truman. 'President Truman', he informed me, 'was the President who was so fat that he couldn't fit in the White House bathtub.' He was very proud of this bit of knowledge, so I didn't have the heart to correct him. I hope that book had some effect on him, though I tend to think it didn't.
The only President of the 20th century with only a High School diploma. Ran for Missouri state Senate, I believe, because he was a WWI vet, and the local maker of politicians (notoriously crooked) thought it a winning strategy. Same guy was shocked when he ran for the Senate seat in Washington, thinking he unqualified. Completely kept out of Roosevelt's inner circle (sort of like how John Adams was, if you saw the series on HBO, only much worse) and was Vice President less than 100 days when he assumed the Presidency. If ever someone was inexperienced, it was Truman. But I do believe Harry was a tireless worker and expended much effort in good faith, eventually arriving at Potsdam to hammer out the details of the end of WWII. Made the fateful decision to drop two atomic bombs, and had to sack his most famous General, Douglas MacArthur. Unfortunately, America did not learn her lesson after Korea and is repeating the same mistakes today.
Radix Omnium Malorum Avaritia
Yes, I saw one of those "Presidents" episodes on PBS about Truman. I found it interesting that FDR really didn't give a crap about him and basically ignored him as VP.
1947 - A year that lives in infamy.
The National Security Act, the invention of the CIA, the National Security State, the Military Industrial Complex and 60 years of running roughshod over the entire world.
Taft Harley and rise of the anti union state.
That was the year that was.
In the War, the Soviets suffered over ten million military deaths and an even greater number of civilian deaths. Maybe 25,000,000 combined. Eisenhower could have taken Berlin, he left it to the Soviets, they lost 200,000 people in two weeks taking it.
Why would they have wanted to put Germany back together?
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Hold that thought - I am digging up Radio Moscow's answer to the question of German unification in 1947 and should have it up hopefully by next week!
It was 14 yrs before I wzs born. From what I read truman was in a tough spot but he rose to the job. Obama is in just as tough a spot but I believe he will rise to the job.
..the common good. The Soviet Union put the cabash on Germany and Eastern Europe with the block headed stubboness mentality.
Remind you of any political party today?
Truth be told; the Marshall Plan started the Cold War. The Americans wanted to create one big integrated European economy. Now think about this from the Soviet perspective. They had just lost millions of people fighting one big integrated European economy. Fascism, capitalism what's the difference; both were equally hostile towards commmunism. All this would mean to the Russians is that Europe could rebuild and come after them again. Truman wasn't a dummy. He knew this. The last thing America wanted was friendly relations with people who opposed capitalism. Better to divide Europe. God forbid if we are friendly to the Soviets and some of their radical ideas immigrate over to America.
If your travels ever take you to Virginia, go to Lexington (a relatively unspoiled town) and visit the George Marshall Museum.
Germany was actually reunified on 3rd October 1990, it's just that Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
... was that the Russians had sound reasons to fear the reunification of Germany. By 1947, it was already becoming obvious that the Nazis, while losing the combat phase of WW2, were well on their way to winning a separate peace with the West: they were regaining positions in the German government and in industry, and were infiltrating Western intelligence agencies. With the help of the Vatican and fascists in Spain, Italy and South America, tens of thousands of top Nazis including Martin Bormann, were able to escape, with sizable assets. (By the '60s, "rehabilitated" Nazis could be found in the oddest places. The head of the West German bureau charged with investigating Nazi war criminals was himself a Nazi war criminal; NATO's military commission was chaired by a former Wehrmacht general who had ordered "anti-partisan" measures in Russia which included the retaliative murders of innocent civilians.)
In his 1950 book "All Honorable Men," James Stewart Martin offers an insider's view of how Wall Street bankers succeeded in blocking the de-Nazification of German industry (a lengthy synopsis of the book can be found here: http://theviewfromthepoopdeck.blogspot.com/
...Martin Borman didn't make it out of Berlin alive.
... your information is incorrect. Bormann's sojourn in South America is well-documented. See, for example, "Aftermath: Martin Bormann and the Fourth Reich," by Ladislas Farago (Simon & Schuster, 1974), and "Martin Bormann, Nazi in exile," by CBS war correspondent Paul Manning (Stuart, 1981).
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/dna-test-cl...
The man who actually was the major force in postwar foreign policy was Dean Acheson, who was more responsible for the Truman Doctrine than Truman and for the Marshall Plan than Marshall, and for the creation of NATO. Acheson was not only "present at the creation", he was the major creator.
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