Customer Reviews

The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945

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World War II has been one of the most popular subjects in book publishing in the last few years. But much of those books like Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation series and the late Stephen Ambrose's books focused on the average foot soldier's experiences. Presidential historian Michael Beschloss' The Conquerors looks at the men at the highest ranking of power, most notably Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mr. Beschloss is an obvious devotee to FDR and he considers him the most important world leader of the 20th century, but the book is even-handed in its assessment of FDR's handling of the war and post war Germany. Most notable is FDR's take on the Holocaust and his Treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau's efforts to convince FDR to take a more active role in stopping the concentration camps. The fact that FDR was reflecting the views of day toward Judaism is not an excuse in Mr. Beschloss' mind for his passive attitude towards dealing with that most harrowing of situations. Though much of the subject matter has been recounted in far too many other books to note, Mr. Beschloss' writing style is more entertaining than most. While he deals with high-minded subject matter, he presents it in an intelligent, yet ease to digest manner.

I first heard about this book when I read an excerpt from it it Newsweek Magazine in October. The excerpt's big story was that Franklin D. Roosevelt was asked to bomb Auschwitz and other death camps to stop the Holocaust and refused -- almost without thinking about it. I have read many books about this and never knew that he made that decision himself. The book reports why Roosevelt said he would not bomb.
When I bought this book, I could not stop reading it. This book shows a whole new view of how World War 2 was fought against Germany -- why Roosevelt made Stalin and Churchill go for unconditional surrender, even though that strategy ended up killing many more British and American soldiers.
This book shows how for most of the war, Roosevelt resisted pleas to do something to try to save Jewish refugees and stop the killing of the Jews. I heard the author on TV or radio saying that Roosevelt said that the U.S. is a Protestant country and that the Catholics and Jews were only here because they were tolerated. There is a lot of that in the book, as well as Roosevelt saying that if there was a U.S. demagogue who went against the Jews, more blood would flow through New York City's streets than Berlin.
The book also shows how sick FDR was at the end of the war, even forgetting that he had signed certain documents and then asserting that he had not signed them. The book says that when Roosevelt died, he was planning to quit being President and give the job to Harry Truman and then become secretary of the U.N.
It also shows Roosevelt's antipathy toward the Germans, saying that they all should be castrated at the end of the war or that 50 or 100 thousand German officers should be murdered at the end of World War II.
The book tells all about what Roosevelt and Churchill and Stalin really said to each other in secret about Hitler and the Nazis and the Jews, and makes you feel as if you are sitting with them and listening to what they are saying. Beschloss got tapes of President Roosevelt's conversations with people around him and makes these talks sound as if they happened today. Roosevelt was oftentimes a cruel man in fighting with his employees and making them fight with each other, but we have to also remember and never forget he was the one who won the war.
This book is more interesting than any recent novel I have read and is really the way people should write history. I had read a lot of World War 2 books before (my wife thinks I have read every book on World War 2 that has ever been printed) and did not understand that, before reading this book, I understood as little as I did about that war. When I got to the end of the book, I was sorry that it ended.

A subject which is not so commonly explored in the history of WWII is the struggle to decide the future of Germany in order to avoid yet another war. This is thr subject of historian Michael Beschloss's latest work. The title is a little misleading in that it does not focus solely or even primarily on Roosevelt and Truman. Rather Beschloss, in a manner similar to David Halberstam and Stephen Ambrose takes a narrative, expositional and non-scholarly linear approach to the subject. One character who plays a major role in this book is Henry Morgenthau, Roosevelt's Jewish Treasury secretary. Sickened by what he learns of German atrocities, Morgenthau is convinved to promote a plan that calls for Germany to be turned into a series of agricultural cantons with all its industry destroyed. Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Secretary of War Henry Stimson are opposed to the plan and work to undermine it. Roosevelt is seen as an increasingly distant figure. His method of playing one aid off another while keeping his true thoughts to himself ultimately undermines his successor Truman, who upon taking office knows nothing of Roosevelt's thinking and is forced to improvise, Churchill is reduced to irrelevance, his ideas largely ignored by FDR. I do not fully agree with Beschloss's thesis. As far as I can see, no comprehensive plan for the fate of Germany was ever agreed upon. During the earlier years of the war, through June 1944, Roosevelt was overly concerned with keeping Stalin happy for important reasons. He was afraid Stalin would make a separate peace with Hitler. He failed to foresee the break down of the alliance and the need to check the Soviets. As it turned out, none of the plans worked out as well as the reality. No one foresaw the permanent division of Germany or that Conrad Adenaur would turn West Germany firmly towards the orbit of the United States and away from reunion with the East,thereby destroying forever the old style German nationalism. Beschloss spends a lot of time chronicling the various plans that were proposed and not enough on why none of those plans ever came to pass. The book makes for easy reading and you do not have to know much history of this era to enjoy it. I learned a lot about some figures such as Morgenthau of whom I knew little. I would recommend it but do not take it as gospel.

Beschloss is at the top of his game. For the first time, the book shows that Roosvelt- not some underling- refused to bomb Auschwitz and the other death camps to save the Jews From Hitler. The role of Henry Morgenthau, in trying to get Roosvelt to make the war against Hitler broader while still trying to get a total surrender from Germany, is very engaging.
Very Best history book I've read in years.

Michael Beschloss has not only added a great deal to the study of World War II and the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, he has given us a clear picture of how FDR and Truman laid the groundwork for America's victory in the Cold War. It seems that even though FDR has been raked over the coals for years for not taking a stronger stand against Stalin, he did in fact know what he was doing. This book shows just what FDR was up to in wonderfully interesting detail. Beschloss manages to draw the reader into the story almost as if it were a classic novel. He never assumes the reader will know all about Henry Morgenthau, Cordell Hull, or Henry Stimson. Instead he gives even the most novice reader of World War II material enough background to help explain their respective positions, both in relation to FDR and on policy.

There are some very troubling things about FDR however that one learns in this book. It is fairly well known that he didn't keep Truman up to date on anything, but in this book one finds that no one seemed to know what FDR wanted or intended to do about almost everything. His ego seemed to tell him that he didn't really need anyone else, or even if he did, he wasn't going to let anyone but himself get the credit for any administration accomplishment. To keep everyone in line he played little games with people's minds and played one department head off against another. That in itself explains why he let Morgenthau run amuck for so long. Unfortunately, it also seems that FDR himself may not have known what he wanted to do with a defeated Germany and may have actually leaned toward Morgenthau's plan for a while. When one considers just how sick FDR was, and that he may have actually been considering turning the Presidency over to Truman, the mass chaos he fostered in his administration was really inexcusable.

Most damaging of all to FDR's place in history is that it was he who refused to allow the bombing of the Nazi death camps. There were several in his administration who argued against the bombings using rather flimsy arguments. No matter whether FDR chose to accept any of those arguments, or just decided it was bad politics, it is a black mark in American history that will never go away. Truth be told, I can understand Morgenthau's frustration and desire to make Germany pay for her sins.

Truman only comes into play toward the last of the book. Fortunately, the new President had a clear head and a keen mind, so that he was able to step into the mess he inherited. The fact that Henry Wallace or Jimmy Byrnes might well have been in Truman's place is indeed scary.

Finally, there is a lot of new material in this book. As new records in the U.S., Britain, and Russia come open, many a new surprise may await us. Beschloss has already uncovered a few and in fact put off finishing this book until some files he needed were available to him. In short, there is a lot of new knowledge to be gained by reading this book, and there is also a slightly different spin on some already know facts. Well-written, well-researched, GREAT BOOK!

In his book, The Conquerors, Michael Beschloss, media-historian, has produced an inviting and commercialized version of American policy making at the moment of Allied victory over Nazism. Roosevelt's Dutchess County neighbor and Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, is the central figure in this many-chaptered, trim account. While the cover jacket depicts confident images of Roosevelt and Truman, the book might have been better titled, Morgenthau's Folly. Roosevelt and Truman are secondary actors in this page-turning chronicle. As the author meticulously relates, Morgenthau was a belated advocate of Jewish interests. He sought a cold-fisted, post-war policy of de-industrialization of Germany. The bulk of the narrative recounts the policy dance surrounding Morgenthau's pleadings. The author's treatment, while nicely footnoted, is not without the common warts of popular histories. At one point (page 167), Beschloss gives fresh currency to an old rumor about Harry Hopkins without shedding light on its authenticity. For readers interested in Second World War policy brawls, the book may be a curious delight.

I brought to my reading of this book an obviously inflated opinion of FDR. Born in the depression, I grew up idolizing him. The details Beschloss presents here add up to a not very flattering view of FDR. His indesiviveness, his practice of setting one aide against another, his absolutely astounding decision to keep Truman in the dark, his vaccilation about the Jewish crisis in Germany--all contribute to a bit of disillusion. The fact that Truman had NEVER been in the war room, had no knowledge of the developing atom bomb (despite being chairman of the Senate committee concerned therewith), was never shown the correspondence from Stalin and Churchill, was not even given a full report on the various great conferences held by Churchill/Roosevelt/Stalin--all this makes me wonder how FDR did as well as he did in the economic crisis of the 1930's. This is an interesting, informative book, but get ready for some information you might not particularly want to learn.

Easy to read account of how Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin negotiated the dividing of Germany at the end of the war. The book is of particular interest for the way in which one sees how the personal politics of these individuals and their assisants/cabinet ministers etc. influenced the eventual outcome.
Office politics, oneupmanship, as well as personal likes and dislikes are no less meaningful in the Oval Office than they are in your office.

One way of looking at a book is how important the subject was. And this book shows how we were saved from the danger of having to fight Germany again.
The credit goes to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman and this history shows how they managed to do that. I now understand what these people were like in private and how they dealt with people like Churchill and Joseph Stalin. The Conquerors brought all that to life for me.
And another thing that a history book should do is show how certain things and people were more important than we realized. That is obviously why the author tells us who Henry Morgenthau was and why he had such influence on Franklin Roosevelt, his closest friend, when he tried to fight the Holocaust and get Roosevelt to make sure that postwar Germany did not grow another Hitler and wage another war.
Sometimes some people get unsettled when they read a book like this one that shatters old cliches in other books published before. I now see that Morgenthau should have been a much more important character in earlier biographies and histories of FDR and HST and World War Two.
This is a book that I am proud to own and have been talking to all my friends about since reading it.

Fascinating account of the personal and professional relationships between President Roosevelt and his Cabinet, and how FDR's policies affected world history. Beschloss says "Roosevelt's silence may have emboldened Nazis to pursue the Jews of Europe with greater vigor, presuming that they would have to pay no special postwar penalty for their offense in case the Allies won." A harsh indictment. This book is a must read for anyone wanting to understand WWII, Roosevelt, Truman, the history of Europe in the 20th century, and the Holocaust. Readers should keep in mind that it is one scholar's opinion.