Winston Churchill's CRAZY Post-War Plan For Germany

Video Description

Play Enlisted now with my link, and get a free bonus pack including soldiers, weapons, and premium account: https://playen.link/generalknowledge Thanks to Enlisted for sponsoring this video. Support me on Patreon & get exclusive / ahead of time content! https://www.patreon.com/generalknowledge ▶ In this video I talk about Winston's Churchill proposed division plan for Germany after WW2. In the context of the three main conferences that took place at the end of the conflict; beginning in Tehran, continuing in Yalta and culminating in Potsdam, the Allied Powers were decided that a separation of Germany into various independent countries might be necessary to guarantee there would be no future German aggression. Despite agreeing on this principle, the three main Allied Powers of the United States, Soviet Union and United Kingdom disagreed on how Germany should be divided - how many countries should be created, and which ones. Because of this they decided to create a 'Committee on the Dismemberment of Germany' to determine whether de-industrialization and demilitarization were enough, or if this separation was effectively needed, and if yes, how it should be done. Various proposals were considered by the Committee, although it's uncertain which. Some reports point to a potential list of 6 countries being created from the territory of pre-war Germany. However, two main proposals for the division of Germany come across: first, a proposal by Winston Churchill to create a Protestant North German state (with little territorial loss) and a Catholic South German state which would be united with Austria, Hungary and Carpatho Ukraine, being named 'The Confederation of the Danube'; in addition to a third German state in the West, called the 'International Zone'. The second proposal was that of US Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, who proposed a division of Germany in similar fashion, except ceding more territory in the Saar basin to France, leaving out Austria and Hungary from the South German state, and expanding the International Zone to all of the North-West, reaching into Kiel. In either case, Poland would gain much less territory that it ended up gaining. Both of these proposals were refused, and the (almost unknown) work of the Committee was pointless due to the development of circumstances after German surrender and the beginning of the Cold War. An effective (temporary) division of Germany took place between East and West, resulting of the temporary occupation areas. But a further separation of the country was avoided by the Allies who seemed to prefer to have a solid post-war Germany as their ally against an ever-growing Soviet Union. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro 01:11 The initial idea 01:22 The Yalta Conference 03:02 Enlisted 04:21 The decision to break Germany apart 06:04 The Saar Protectorate 06:48 The Committee on the 'Dismemberment' of Germany 07:31 How did this Committee work? 07:52 The main proposals considered 08:19 The objectives of the Committee 09:32 Winston Churchill's plan for separating Germany 12:11 Henry Morgenthau's plan for separating Germany 13:37 President Roosevelt's Opinion on the idea 14:42 The Cold War impact on these plans 16:26 Summary ▶ Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GKonYoutube ▶ Join the Discord Server: https://discord.com/invite/f4neAVWZfF ▶ Business Contact: [email protected] ▶ Thanks for watching, remember to subscribe to catch future videos!