The Progressive War Against the Dead

OK, .. all images or references to MLK must go.

That should drive them Loony, not that they are not Loony already.

Hey, Dems erected the statues in the first place. They are trying to hide their past.

FDR signed off on the Morgenthau Plan which resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent people and Europe almost going Communist by 1947.

And by that are likely to repeat their history again.

That is exactly what they are trying to do.

There you go. These young Libs just don’t think before they act.

Next The democrat/taliban party will want the confederate soldiers dug up from the cemetery.
You can bet on it.

“The Progressive War Against the Dead”
WADAYAMEAN ?

PROGS BRING’EM BACK TO LIFE EVERY ELECTION !

OldSmaj: " Victor Davis Hanson does not speak for me, nor does he speak for "much of the country".
He is a political trash hack in worn-out conservative clothing.
As a registered democrat, he claims to have voted conservatively on more than one occasion, however, he lies."

You're too hard on him, SgtMaj.
Hanson supported Trump over Hillary.
He's a traditional conservative, but not a "never-Trumper".
He makes good, logical points in this article as in others.

Not saying he's right about everything, but right far more than wrong, imho.
So VDH is our FRiend, not our enemy.

Vehmgericht: " FDR signed off on the Morgenthau Plan which resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent people and Europe almost going Communist by 1947. "

Sorry, but the Morgenthau plan was never implemented, so you'll have to blame those deaths on the real perpetrators: national & international socialists.

Most people still remember the American plan which did get carried out.
It was called the Marshall Plan and it sent, in our dollars, many billions to help feed & economic recovery for post-war Europeans.

Time to take hold of yourself again OldSmaj!

BroJoeK, You have been reading conventional history by plagerists like Steven Ambrose. JCS 1067, directing US policy, was essentially the Morghenthau Plan. Like any complex plan it was not 100% like the original. If you demand 100% conformity, the Marshal PLan was never implemented. The Communist inspired (Harry Dexter White) plan was almost successful in driving all of Europe into the Soviet sphere. That is what made the Marshal Plan necessary. I agree that international socialist were to blame. The FDR administration was full of them

I forget where I first read about the Morgenthau Plan. I was appropriately appalled.

“We need to tear down columns on colonial style houses, since that is a remnant of our slave era.”

My middle name happens to be the surname of a now deceased, very famous singer. I expect soon that someone will take offense at some lyric he used to sing and demand that I change my middle name or just off myself. Maybe they won’t find out about my great grandfather the Confederate soldier. On the other hand my surname comes from the Norman French who conquered England at the battle of Hastings. One way or the other they will demand that I die.

Vermgerricht: "You have been reading conventional history by plagerists like Steven Ambrose.
JCS 1067, directing US policy, was essentially the Morghenthau Plan"

Here is what history says about it:

"While the Morgenthau Plan had some influence on Allied planning for the occupation of Germany, it was not adopted.
U.S. occupation policies aimed at "industrial disarmament",[2] but contained a number of deliberate "loopholes", limiting any action to short-term military measures and preventing large-scale destruction of mines and industrial plants, giving wide-ranging discretion to the military governor and Morgenthau's opponents at the War Department.[3][4]
From 1947 the US policies aimed at restoring a "stable and productive Germany" and were soon followed by the Marshall Plan.[3][5]

The Morgenthau Plan was seized upon by the Nazi German government, and used as part of propaganda efforts in the final months of the war which aimed to convince Germans to fight on."

And on JCS 1067:

"Walter M. Hudson describes JSC 1067 as less harsh than Morgenthau's plan: while core elements of the Morgenthau Plan were incorporated in JCS 1067, it was deliberately diluted, and permitted the military government to be more flexible than envisaged by the Morgenthau Plan.[92]

The German Federal Agency for Civic Education (BPD) asserts that the Morgenthau Plan was never implemented and was only briefly supported by Roosevelt,[93] and that JSC 1067, while treating Germany as a defeated enemy state instead of a liberated nation and aiming at the dismantling of German industries, also left loopholes that allowed a military governor to later implement more lenient policies.
The agency states that the purpose of JCS 1779, which replaced JCS 1067, was to increase German self-government at the regional level, limit dismantling of war industries, raise living standards, and remove dependence on subsidies.[94][95]"

And regarding Nazi propaganda:

"German historian Bernd Greiner (de) talks of the failure of Morgenthau and the backward-looking political minority that supported him, stating that by the end of 1945 Morgenthau's staff had returned to the USA despondent, and those then in charge were not interested in "industrial diarmament".[96]
However, according to Greiner, the "Morgenthau myth" (German: die Morgenthau-Legende) was perpetuated in West Germany by right-wing extremist historians echoing Nazi propaganda and railing against an "extermination plan" for Germany by Jews and the left-wing intelligensia in America, while in Communist East Germany the Morgenthau Plan was presented as a western imperialist plot to destroy Germany.[97]
Wolfgang Benz, director of the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin, states that the plan had no significance for the later occupation and Germany policy, though Nazi propaganda on the subject had a lasting effect and is still used for propaganda purposes by extreme right-wing organizations.[53][98][99]
German historian Rainer Gömmel criticises the common claim by historians, including Benz, that the Morgenthau Plan was never implemented, arguing that core elements of the plan, namely the proposals for deindustrialisation, were adopted in August 1945 and became part of Allied policy.[101]

The Norwegian economist Erik S. Reinert, states that "The Morgenthau Plan was abruptly stopped in Germany in 1947"..."

On the subject of mass starvation:

"During the war, Germans seized food supplies from occupied countries and forced millions of foreigners to work on German farms, in addition to food shipped from farms in eastern Germany.
When this ended in 1945, the German rationing system (which stayed in place) had much lower supplies of food.[30]:342–54
The U.S. Army sent in large shipments of food to feed some 7.7 million prisoners of war—far more than they had expected[30]:200—as well as the general population.[31]
For several years following the surrender, German nutritional levels were low...

In early October 1945 the UK government privately acknowledged in a cabinet meeting that German civilian adult death rates had risen to 4 times the pre-war levels and death rates amongst the German children had risen by 10 times the pre-war levels.[32]:280"

Finally, on Bacque's Other Losses:

"Maj. Ruediger Overmans of the German Office of Military History in Freiburg who wrote the final volume of the official German history of the war estimated that the total death by all causes of German prisoners in American hands could not have been greater than 56,000 approximately 1% of the over 5,000,000 German POWs in Allied hands exclusive of the Soviets."

But there are no numbers for Germans supposedly killed by the Morgenthau Plan.
Nazi propaganda tells us nine million Germans died post-war, but the historical number is about a million Germans who died while being expelled from Eastern Europe.
Total German deaths for the war, including military, were about 7 million, or 8% of the population.
For comparison: Greece lost 10%, Latvia 13%, Soviets 14%, Lithuania 15%, Poles 17%.

Indeed, you may remember, after the war there were four occupying powers -- Soviets, French, Brits & US.
Of the four, I could easily argue that Americans -- Morgenthau Plan or not -- treated Germans better than any others.

You disagree?

Lysandru: "I forget where I first read about the Morgenthau Plan.
I was appropriately appalled."

Note my post #35 above.
You should not have been appalled, for several reasons:

Morgenthau's was similar to plans by other allies -- Soviets, French & Brits -- but unlike those other powers, Morganthau's plan was never carried out.
Morganthau's plan was soon replaced by JCS 1067, which did incorporate some Morgenthau ideas, but gave US commanders flexibility to relieve suffering.
All such plans were intended to prevent Germans from doing after 1945 what they had done after 1919: re-militarize, rearm and reconquer what they lost in the previous war.
And the plans worked, of course, but it soon became obvious that Germans would serve much better as western allies against the Soviet Communist menace, and that became the reason for dropping economic restrictions on Germans after 1947.
In the end, the post-war removal of German industrial equipment meant they needed to build an all-new industrial base, which gave Germans a huge technological advantage from the late 1950s until, well, even today.

Of course, Nazi propaganda exaggerates and blames the Morgenthau Plan for everything evil in Germany.
But none of it is true.

People naturally minimize their involvement in crimes. After the war everyone was a member of the resistance. No one was a collaborator during the German occupation. Likewise, progressive historians minimize or ignore crimes committed by progressive politicians.

You claim, “Here is what history says about it: ‘While the Morgenthau Plan had some influence on Allied planning for the occupation of Germany, it was not adopted.’” “History” is actually Wikipedia. They have banned my book for being “unreliable.” They are frequently “unreliable.” You might check http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/126705 for information on Steven Ambrose’s credibility. Many German sources can be sited denying the MP was carried out. I don’t know if this is Stockholm Syndrome or what.

Perhaps the person with the most reliable opinion on whether the MP was carried out was Henry Morgenthau: President Truman signed JCS 1067 on May 10, 1945. Morgenthau considered this “a big day for the Treasury.” He also hoped “somebody doesn’t recognize it as the Morgenthau Plan.” (Blum, Years of War 1941-1945 From the Morgenthau Diaries, p. 460.)

A lie must be plausible. Ruediger Overmans’ 1% estimate of POW fatalities is not realistic. If these POWs were sent to health spas there fatality rate would have been higher than 1%. Also in Amrose’s Eisenhower and the German POWs, Professor James F. Tent claimed, “By the spring of 1947, and thereafter to the end of the military occupation, the number and variety of supplemental programs expanded to the point that some observers asked with only slight irony if there were any normal consumers – that is, those consuming 1,550 calories per day – left in the British and American zones.” Tent appears to be saying that the food crisis was over by 1947. Yet, the same text includes a photo of seven German infants “picked at random” from a Catholic hospital in Berlin in various stages of malnutrition dated October 1947.

It is unfortunate that the more accurate historical account is used by the extreme right to justify anti-Semitism or other nefarious causes. This encourages people to support the false narrative. People are still repeating the lampshade myth.

Vehmgericht: "After the war everyone was a member of the resistance.
No one was a collaborator during the German occupation."

People of the time knew who was which:

Vehmgericht: "Likewise, progressive historians minimize or ignore crimes committed by progressive politicians."

I would include both Hitler & Stalin as "progressives" and find no minimizations there.
As for western progressives like FDR or Churchill, nobody minimizes the numbers of Japanese-American civilians interned by FDR, or the effects of western policies restricting Jews from emigrating to Palestine or the US.

But what you refer to by "minimiza", I'd call fake-history or even pro-Nazi Propaganda.

Vehmgericht: " “History” is actually Wikipedia.
They have banned my book for being “unreliable.”
They are frequently “unreliable.” "

Wikipedia is simply an online encyclopedia.
They reliably summarize "conventional wisdom" -- standard history and recognized historians.
They also present opposing opinions, though perhaps not so well researched.

In the realm of WWII history, there are whole schools of anti-history "historians" from IHR to David Irving & who-knows-what?
We don't see them here, but I'd imagine the Russians have their own pro-Stalin historians, Italians pro-Mussolini and Japanese pro-Asian Prosperity Zone historians.
They would all attempt to explain the inexplicable, defend the indefensible, make the good seem wicked and evil good.

Most of these enjoy very little success or even notoriety, but sometimes they achieve both.
David Irving comes to mind.

These days, however, they all seem to me as fewer & farther between than they were some decades ago.
My guess is that fewer & fewer wealthy donors are willing to support them, and time takes its toll on us all.

Vehmgericht: "You might check http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/126705 for information on Steven Ambrose’s credibility."

I read about Ambrose's problems many years ago.
He is not the sole source of any information on this subject.

Vehmgericht: "Many German sources can be sited denying the MP was carried out.
I don’t know if this is Stockholm Syndrome or what."

You well know that, factually, the Morgenthau Plan was never implemented.
But you claim that it was, under the name "JCS 1067".
That plan was significantly different and allowed US commanders to make exceptions as seemed to them appropriate, which they did.

Also Germans in the US occupation zone were treated markedly better than those in other zones -- certainly the Soviets' and arguably French & even Brits.
Brits we would expect treated Germans correctly, but they had nowhere near the resources Americans deployed to help out those in desperate need.

Vehmgericht: "Morgenthau considered this 'a big day for the Treasury.'
He also hoped 'somebody doesn’t recognize it as the Morgenthau Plan.' (Blum, Years of War 1941-1945 From the Morgenthau Diaries, p. 460.)"

Sure, but there's more to it:

"The U.S. diplomat James Dobbins writes that an early draft of JCS 1067 had been written while the plan was still understood to be U.S. policy, and '[b]ecause nothing replaced the Morgenthau plan once it had been disavowed, the final version of JCS 1067 contained many of the harsh measures and all the intent of a hard peace toward Germany'.[82]
However, according to Dobbin, in May 1945 – shortly after its approval in April 1945 – the newly appointed deputy military governor, General Clay, implied that the directive was unworkable and initially wanted it to be revised; after the deliberate loopholes were pointed out to him, General Clay did not press further for a revision but 'took great liberties in interpreting and implementing JCS 1067'...

Dobbins remarks that the harsh punitive measures shifted toward reform over time as the US faced with the problem of feeding millions of Germans and the Soviet expansion.[83]"

Vehmgericht: "Tent appears to be saying that the food crisis was over by 1947.
Yet, the same text includes a photo of seven German infants “picked at random” from a Catholic hospital in Berlin in various stages of malnutrition dated October 1947."

You don't say which zone that hospital was in -- the Soviet Zone?
But one key point to remember here is that Americans did not feed Germans -- Germans fed themselves, using the same rationing system they'd used during the war.
Germans fed themselves from stocks of food that German farmers grew, that they purchased from other countries and food contributed by charitable nations like the United States.
The distribution of food to Germans -- men, women, old, babies, sick, workers, etc., etc. was controlled by Germans themselves.
If people were hungry or sick, Germans found resources to feed & heal them.
Americans oversaw some of it, and helped out where they could.

Vehmgericht: "People are still repeating the lampshade myth."

So, what other "myths" will you debunk for us on Free Republic, the Holocaust "myth"?
Seriously?

Here's a problem with your entire argument: the German\ Nazis themselves told the world clearly and unequivocally how they wished to be treated in defeat.
In every atrocity, in every mass murder, in every careless civilian death they caused, in every concentration camp, in every starving ghetto, in every Death Camp, German Nazis put up, in effect, huge bill-board signs saying: this is how Germans should be treated in defeat.

But no Allied government -- not even the wicked Soviets -- none did to Germans what German Nazis so clearly asked for in their own behavior during the war.
By Nazis own standards, they were treated with grace and forgiveness beyond all reasonable measure.

Here's the bottom line: all told, fewer than two million German civilians died from the war, as opposed to about 25 million Allied European civilians -- more than 10 to one.
So Germans have much to be grateful for, and much about which to pray for God's forgiveness.

(to h & H: this is the first time in years I've had such a debate, thought it might interest you!) ;-)

By Nazis own standards, they were treated with grace and forgiveness beyond all reasonable measure.

From the western allies, yes. But from the Soviets, not so much. But Soviets treated everyone like dirt, including their own people.

I had some long chats with CougarGA7 when he posted here, and another guy on The History Channel forum several years ago, regarding the Germans' general knowledge of the Holocaust. The general consensus was that as a rule, they may not have known all of the details, but they knew enough.

Having said that, and despite the brutality of the Nazi nightmare in Europe, our allies the Soviets were actually worse. The Poles had the best take: "With the Germans we lose our country, with the Russians we lose our souls." So while I make no excuses for the Germans, our alliance with the Soviets to defeat the Germans was one of those no-win arrangements for many people. They certainly didn't "liberate" Eastern Europe.

And let's not forget that today's Antifa groups are the legacy of Stalin's USSR. Sure, they profess to hate the Nazis, but only because they are the competing brand of the same product.

Incisive article by VDH. I shared it on Twitter.