Editing Henry L. Stimson (section)

===Morgenthau Plan===
[[File:Stimson Touring Italian Battlefront.jpg|thumb|Lt. Gen. [[Jacob L. Devers]] pointing out landmarks at devastated [[Battle of Monte Cassino|Cassino]] to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson touring the Italian battlefront]]

Stimson strongly opposed the [[Morgenthau Plan]] to deindustrialize and to partition Germany into several smaller states.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ZNha4UcszYC&q=morgenthau+plan+1945&pg=PA118 |title=Morgenthau-Plan |date= 2003-10-07|access-date=2014-07-20|isbn=9780743244541 |last1=Beschloss |first1=Michael R.|publisher=Simon and Schuster }}</ref> The plan also envisioned the deportation and the summary imprisonment of anybody suspected of responsibility for [[war crimes]]. Initially, Roosevelt had been sympathetic to the plan, but Stimson's opposition and the public outcry when the plan was leaked made Roosevelt backtrack. Stimson thus retained overall control of the U.S. occupation zone in Germany, and despite the plan's influence on the early occupation, it never became official policy. Explaining his opposition to the plan, Stimson insisted to Roosevelt that 10 European countries, including Russia, depended upon German trade and its production of raw materials. He also stated that it was inconceivable that the "gift of nature," which was populated by peoples of "energy, vigor, and progressiveness," should be turned into a "ghost territory" or "dust heap."

What Stimson most feared, however, was that a subsistence-level economy would turn the anger of Germans against the Allies and thereby "obscure the guilt of the Nazis and the viciousness of their doctrines and their acts." Stimson pressed similar arguments on [[Harry S. Truman]], when he became president, in the spring of 1945.<ref>Arnold A. Offner, "Research on American-German Relations: A Critical View" in Joseph McVeigh and Frank Trommler, eds. ''America and the Germans: An Assessment of a Three-Hundred-Year History'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990) v2 p. 176; see also Michael R. Beschloss, ''The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941–1945'' (2002)</ref>

Stimson, a lawyer, insisted, against the initial wishes of both Roosevelt and British Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]], on proper judicial proceedings against leading war criminals.<ref>{{cite journal | surname = McHugh | first=Melissa S. | year = 2011 | title = The Legacy of International Cooperation at the Nuremberg Trials | journal = Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse | volume = 3 | issue=10 | url = http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=580 | access-date = 30 July 2023}}</ref> He and the War Department, drafted the first proposals for an International Tribunal, which soon received backing from Truman. Stimson's plan eventually led to the [[Nuremberg Trials]] of 1945–1946, which have strongly influenced the development of [[international law]].