Winston Churchill's unconventional vision for post-war Germany

It's 1945, February to be more precise, and a bunch of political and military leaders have secretly traveled thousands of kilometers to meet in the region of Yalta in Crimea, at the time part of the Soviet Union. The Yalta Conference, also known as the Crimea Conference, and which had the codename Argonaut, took place in the Livadia Palace and saw extremely important participants such as Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke of the United Kingdom, Fleet Admiral William Leahy of the United States or General Alexei Antonov of the Soviet Union. The conference was one of three major conferences of the Allied powers that took place at the final stages of World War II to define the future of the world after it, preceded by the Tehran Conference in 1943 and the Potsdam Conference in August of 1945. unconditional surrender, we may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing. As early as the Tehran meeting, there was a shared view among the participants that a post-war division of Germany was necessary, although disagreeing on the number and type of division needed. But let's get back to Yalta. Above all, the conference had three distinguished guests, President Roosevelt of the US, Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union and Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. I'm going to provide a brief amount of historical context for the conference and its goals here. If you want to skip to the Winston Churchill proposal, you can use the timestamps to find it. A fun fact, Roosevelt initially wanted this meeting to take place at a neutral location in the Mediterranean, such as Malta, Cyprus, Sicily, Athens or even Jerusalem. But Stalin insisted that his doctors opposed any long trips, proposing instead for them to meet at the Black Sea resort of Yalta. Apparently, his fear of flying was one of the major contributing factors in this decision. These three leaders represented the three major states involved in the conflict at that point. A point which, by the way, was very close to the end of the war. By then, the western allies had liberated all of France and Belgium and were fighting on the western border of Germany. In the east, Soviet forces were a mere 65 kilometers from Berlin, having already pushed back the Germans from Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. The question at this point wasn't if Germany was going to lose, it was when and what to do with it when the time came. Oh and also, France was oddly left out of the conference. General de Gaulle wasn't invited and was pretty offended by it, saying it was because Roosevelt hated him, but apparently the Soviets also didn't want him there. Anyway, the conference discussed various important topics and paved the way for the future of a lot of territories, such as Poland, Eastern Europe in general, Japan, Korea, the importance the UN among other things. World War 2 was a time when countries had to recruit a lot of their population to go fight for them as soldiers. However, it wasn't just forced conscription and a lot of people actually willingly enlisted, which brings us to the sponsor of this video, Enlisted. Enlisted is a new kind of first-person shooter that uniquely combines PvP with PvE combat. When you play, you take command of a squad of customizable AI soldiers and fight in huge battles against hundreds of other players. These massive battles were a big selling point for me. There's multiple campaigns you can play, from the outskirts of Moscow in 1941 to the heart of Berlin in 1945 when the Allies were close to complete victory. In fact, I have to say that these campaigns are so varied that they feel kind of like different games using the same engine. You get to experience really different environments, all historically accurate, and that is really cool. They also each feature their own unique equipment, weapons, and vehicles, and they have something I think is missing from other games which is realism. Taking down an infantry unit can be quick but vehicles take more damage. You can play now on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X or S or previous generation consoles through the link in the description. You will also get a free bonus pack including multiple weapons, soldiers and a premium account. Now let's get back to the video. I won't get into the other topics of the conference. If you want I can make a full video on it, here I will focus on one thing, Germany. Like I mentioned before, the post-war division of Germany was seen as key since the first conference of Tehran and it was in this meeting in Yalta that the way was paved for the effective separation of Germany after the war. This was a key difference, not only was Germany forced to unconditionally surrender as had been decided by the allies already, but they were also to be dismembered. We can actually read a telegram sent by the US ambassador in the UK to the American Secretary of State on April 12, 1945, stating, At my request, Mr. Eden called a meeting late Wednesday of the Committee on Dismemberment of Germany. I raised the question of informing the French, who, remember, hadn't been a part of the conference, of the inclusion of the word dismemberment in Article 12 of the Instrument of Unconditional Surrender for Germany and of French participation in the discussions on said dismemberment. This dismemberment or to use a simpler word separation as it ended up actually happening initially consisted of Polish annexation and Soviet occupation in the east and French, British and American occupation in the west along with the temporary creation of the Saar Protectorate near the French border with Berlin itself also being divided in four. Eventually these occupation zones were transformed into East and West Germany the first being a Soviet puppet state until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. However, this division wasn't set in stone in Yalta and only the occupied division of Berlin was agreed upon. For Germany as a whole, the door was still open regarding the type of division that would take place and whether or not it would be temporary or permanent. The Saar Protectorate itself could have been permanent too, it existed from 1946 to 1956. In that year, they voted on whether to be independent or to effectively reincorporate with West Germany, with the latter winning with 67% of the vote. An interesting fact was that German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer actually campaigned for independence of the region, something the French wanted. In fact, after World War I, the Saar-Basin Protectorate was also created after the war, being ruled by France and the British from 1920 to 1935, also reuniting with Germany after a referendum. The prosperity of the region really made the French want it, or at least want the Germans not to have it, also safeguarding more of their border from being in direct contact with Germany. But anyway, this was another tangent, let's get back to Yalta. Because of this desire to separate Germany and the disagreement between the Allies on how to do it, a decision was taken to create a committee on the dismemberment of Germany, the one mentioned in that earlier telegram. Within the actions of that committee were the considerations of various proposals for the separation of Germany into various nations, among them one that actually took place but also one, the point of this video, proposed by Winston Churchill at that same Yalta conference, at least arguably. What we're going to do now is go through very briefly the way the committee worked, what it stated and what the main options for the division were, focusing on the Churchill one given its audacity and difference from the rest. So what did this committee actually do? Its purpose was to decide whether Germany was to be divided into several nations and if so, what borders and interrelationships the new German states were to have. Up to six German nations were considered being created by the committee, although I only found this in text sources and no maps or descriptions of which these nations would be and where and only three main proposals for the division are commonly registered. The Churchill Plan, the Morgenthau Plan and the Effective Division Plan that took place. We'll go through each of these in a minute. Still to be honest, the division plan seems to have been based solely on the separately decided upon occupation plan, then transforming into East and West Germany due to that occupation more than any other plan for division. It seems perhaps that the point of the committee was not fulfilled. In fact, there's very little to be found about the proceedings of the committee. All I could come across on my research were these telegrams seemingly sent to the Secretary of State of the US by the same US ambassador to the UK, John Winant. In one from March 29, 1945, he states that he attended the first meeting of the committee and that they outlined their main considerations in fulfilling their task. First, how to prevent future German aggression, second, how to achieve this goal, considering the destruction of German industry as an aid to demilitarization and the armament and third, if for this first consideration to be fulfilled, the division of Germany was needed and how. Further on he also states that the Soviet government understands the Crimea conference decision in respect to Germany's dismemberment not as an obligatory plan for dismemberment but as a possibility in exercising pressure on Germany with an aim of rendering it harmless in case other means should prove inadequate. So perhaps the role of the committee was more to allow a threat by the allies towards defeated Germany of abide by our rules or we'll split you up. Now let's effectively take a look at the two main proposals for separation other than the one that ended up taking place. What was Winston Churchill's plan? Some people claimed the plan had been abandoned by 1944 already and so he couldn't have presented it in Yalta, but still it existed. Churchill's plan was odd especially when compared to other ones. He only attributed land lost to Germany's pre-war borders in eastern Prussia, the territorially disconnected territory, which would be attributed to an independent Poland, although allowing the Soviets to keep eastern Polish territories they had gotten through the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. A North German state would therefore exist. In the Saar Basin, a West German state, which would separate part of the main industrial area from the rest of the Germans, stopping them from firing up their war machine in the future, being an international zone controlled by allied powers, taking away Germany's coal, steel and industry. And oddest of all, a South German state, composed of Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg, but also including Austria, Hungary and Carpatho-Ukraine. Austria would be reasonably understandable, they have a Germanic culture and even share a Roman Catholic religion with southern Germany, but why Hungary and Carpatho-Ukraine, regions that are necessarily very culturally different? Perhaps he thought Austria-Hungary worked well together, their empire was chaotic, but in reality more because of their Balkan territories and not necessarily the Austro-Hungarian Union itself. It's said that his goals were to divide Germany into a monarchist Catholic and a Protestant state, cementing their division and avoiding future reunification by drawing the borderline here. Second, spare southern Germany given that historically militarism had emanated from Prussia in the north. And third, protect Hungary and Carpatho-Ukraine from falling under the Soviet and communist sphere of influence that came from Eastern Europe. Oddly enough, it wasn't the first time in history that a confederation of the Danube was proposed, although with a different territory. In 1850, Hungarian statesman Lajos Kossuth proposed the creation of the state following the Hungarian War of Independence in 1848 against Austria. It's interesting to mention that Austria itself was also the subject of a divided occupation by the Allies and the Soviet Union after the war exactly in the same manner, but I feel like this isn't really talked about. They had four areas, belonging to the Allies in the West and Vienna also being divided within the Soviet area. This lasted from 1945 to 1955, being occupied and divided, it is reasonable that it would be included in a post-war territorial reorganization plan for Central Europe. The plan was eventually abandoned, arguably by Churchill himself, but above all by the circumstances which took place in the post-war period. The only other Another mainly known plan considered by this committee, contrasting to the one presented by the UK, was one presented by US Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau. In another telegram, from January 10, 1945, Morgenthau addresses President Roosevelt about this. It becomes clear that his goal above the division of Germany was the destruction of its industry and the division was merely a means to achieve that. In the Morgenthau plan, some land losses would take place in the east to Poland, although not as many as there ended up being in reality. In the north some land would also be given to Denmark and France would annex the Saar Basin area. Then three not two German states would be created, North Germany, South Germany and an international zone in the Ruhr area, Germany's most industrialized zone. South Germany would also enter a customs union with Austria, who would regain its pre-war borders. While North and South would be independent, the Ruhr would be controlled by a UN organization that would oversee the complete destruction of all industrial equipment, similar to Churchill's idea but with an expanded zone that reached up to the northern coast and the important Kiel port and canal. An investigation concluded the plan was unworkable and would result in up to 25 million Germans dying from starvation, although Morgenthau disputed the claim. Without support from his own government there was no real consideration for this plan to take place. It's very interesting to also see FDR's position on these. For instance, on a telegraph from April 6, 1945, he states, I've just read Special German Series No. 2 from Winnendt. I think our attitude should be one of study and postponement of final decision. My original thought, which I still maintain, is with the purpose of elimination of the word Reich, making it clear that regardless of the choice of separation, this was a key point for a future Germany. However, an earlier telegram from January that year, forwards a memorandum which states that, to prevent World War III, the Allied powers must avoid an enforced partition of Germany into two or three autonomous states, unless they result from a referendum by the German people. It therefore seems that, despite the wish for a separated Germany by all Allied powers during the war, this wish ended up not taking place after the war was done. Sure, East and West Germany were divided, first in their occupation zones and then into two Germanys, but I believe this was more a direct consequence of that occupation policy rather than a plan for the division of Germany itself as a result of the work of the committee. In fact, I would argue that the creation of those two states is itself directly related to the reason why a further division of Germany into several independent states didn't take place, which is the beginning of the Cold War. For the Western Allies, it suddenly became more important to have a resilient post-war West Germany that would stop Soviet advances into Western Europe. Even though the initial occupation plan presented the option for Britain to release a Northern German state and the US to release a Southern German state, instead of unifying it into the Federal Republic as they ended up doing, as well as the Soviets could have done in the East instead of keeping a puppet state, this alone would have created a set of three German countries. In addition, it seems that the demilitarization of Germany had been enough to remove the danger of future conflict, at least considering the new emergent threat of the Soviet Union at the time. In fact, there was even another unfollowed Churchill plan called Operation Unthinkable which would see an attack on the Soviet Union in 1945 with British, American and German soldiers. Despite this not taking place, I believe it proves the point of how the Soviets were suddenly seen as the major threat even leading them to consider the post-war Germans as possible allies. I think it was this evolution and the growing Soviet threat that above all rendered the work of the committee irrelevant and allowed for them to ignore not necessarily Churchill or Morgenthau's proposals which were refused for being too harsh or unrealistic but other options for the division of Germany into several sovereign states. Furthermore it's arguable that this new scenario also paved the way for European internal cooperation, perhaps paving the way for the European coal and steel community and even the modern European Union. So that was a brief overview of the crazy plan by Winston Churchill to divide Germany as well as Austria and Hungary into various states, providing some historical context as to when this proposal came up, the Yalta conference being preceded by the conference in Tehran and followed by the one in Potsdam. Understanding how from the Yalta conference came the creation of a committee on the dismemberment of Germany, even getting to look at some historical telegrams that speak of these matters and learning about at least one other proposal for German separation, the Morgenthau plan. Then concluding how this committee's plans were not really fulfilled and the only effective division of Germany was the one that happened as a consequence of the separately decided occupation zones with the issue of further separation being abandoned likely due to the new threat of a Cold War with the Soviets. Again there were limited sources on this so leave a comment below with any additional information you may have or any corrections if you notice mistakes on my part. Do you think the Allies should have pursued this war objective and pushed for an effective division of Germany into various states perhaps even including neighboring nations and what do you think that division should have been? Or was the temporary East-West split along with significant loss of territories enough to along with the militarization achieve the same goal thanks again to Enlisted for sponsoring this video they were a great fit topic wise and their game is truly interesting so if you want to experience fighting in World War II remember to use the link below to play Enlisted today thanks so much for watching this video subscribe if you want and i will see you next time for more general knowledge