The Conquerors

Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945

Michael R. Beschloss

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2002
• eBook ISBN: 9780743260855
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

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.

As Presidents Roosevelt and Truman led the United States in World War II in Europe, they dealt with the question of what kind of government should be imposed on Nazi Germany to ensure that Germany could never again drag the world into war. The Conquerors tells the story with much intimate detail and color of how FDR and Truman privately struggled in their own minds and with titanic allies like Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin, through summits and secret messages, to answer that question.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Colophon
• Books by Michael Beschloss
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Preface
• Contents
• Epigraph
• Chapter One The Plot to Murder Hitler
• Chapter Two “Unconditional Surrender”
• Chapter Three “Fifty Thousand Germans Must Be Shot!”
• Chapter Four “On the Back of an Envelope”
• Chapter Five The Terrible Silence
• Chapter Six The “One Hundred Percent American”
• Chapter Seven “Oppressor of the Jews”
• Chapter Eight “We Will Have to Get Awfully Busy”
• Chapter Nine “Not Nearly as Bad as Sending Them to Gas Chambers”
• Chapter Ten “Somebody’s Got to Take the Lead”
• Chapter Eleven “Christianity and Kindness”
• Chapter Twelve “It Is Very, Very Necessary”
• Chapter Thirteen “Do You Want Me to Beg Like Fala?”
• Chapter Fourteen “A Hell of a Hubbub”
• Chapter Fifteen “As Useful as Ten Fresh German Divisions”
• Chapter Sixteen “Lord Give the President Strength”
• Chapter Seventeen “The Only Bond Is Their Common Hate”
• Chapter Eighteen “Arguing About the Future of the World”
• Chapter Nineteen “No Earthly Powers Can Keep Him Here”
• Chapter Twenty “What Will We Make of It?”
• Chapter Twenty-One “I Was Never in Favor of That Crazy Plan”
• Chapter Twenty-Two “You and I Will Have to Bear Great Responsibility”
• Chapter Twenty-Three “How I Hate This Trip!”
• Chapter Twenty-Four “We Are Drifting Toward a Line Down the Center of Germany”
• Chapter Twenty-Five “The Spirit and Soul of a People Reborn”
• Chapter Twenty-Six The Conquerors
• Author’s Note and Acknowledgments
• General Sources
• Notes
• Index