0
*
0
*
1450
2025
book-filter
Edition cover

The conquerors

  • Michael R. Beschloss

0

0 ratings

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.

Genres

  • World War, 1939-1945
  • Diplomatic history
  • Politics and government
  • Reconstruction (1939-1951)
  • Foreign relations
  • Large type books
  • New York Times reviewed
  • Weltkrieg <1939-1945>
  • Roosevelt, franklin d. (franklin delano), 1882-1945
Already read

1

people already read

Currently reading

0

people are currently reading

Want to read

3

people want to read

About the author

  • Michael R. Beschloss

    born 30 November 1955

    0

    0 ratings · 22 works

Editions

  • Edition cover

  • Edition cover

    Simon & Schuster trade paperback ed.

    Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, Simon & Schuster

    2007

  • Edition cover

    Thorndike Press

    2003

  • Edition cover

    Simon & Schuster

    2002

Truman, harry s., 1884-1972
  • Morgenthau, henry, 1891-1967
  • World war, 1939-1945, germany
  • Reconstruction (1939-1951), germany
  • World war, 1939-1945, diplomatic history
  • United states, foreign relations, 1933-1945
  • United states, politics and government, 1933-1945
  • Edition cover

    Simon & Schuster, Limited

    2002

  • Edition cover

    s.n.

    2008

  • Edition cover

    s.n.

  • Edition cover

    Simon & Schuster

    2002