M. was born to Jewish parents in New York City, the son of Henry Morgenthau Sr., a prominent real estate mogul and diplomat and Josephine Sykes. He attended what is now The Dwight School. Later, he studied architecture and agriculture at Cornell University. In 1913, he met and became friends with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. During World War I, he worked for the U.S. Farm Administration. In 1929, Roosevelt, as Governor of New York, appointed him chair of the New York State Agricultural Advisory Committee and to the state Conservation Commission.

In 1933, Roosevelt became President and appointed M. governor of the Federal Farm Board. In 1934, Roosevelt appointed M. Secretary of the Treasury. He retained his office until 1945. The persistence of M. in bypassing State resulted in the executive creation of the US War Refugee Board in January 1944. It allowed 200,000 Jews to enter the U.S. In the same year, M. proposed the 'Morgenthau Plan' for postwar Germany, calling for Germany to be dismembered, partitioned into separate independent states, stripped of all heavy industry and forced to return to an agrarian economy. M. persuaded the initially very reluctant British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to agree to the plan, using a $6 billion Lend Lease agreement to do so.

General George Marshall complained that German resistance had strengthened: "The Morgenthau Plan was worth thirty divisions to the Germans." On May 10, 1945 Truman signed the U.S. occupation directive JCS 1067, and M. told his staff that it was a big day for the Treasury, and that he hoped that "someone doesn't recognize it as the Morgenthau Plan." In occupied Germany M. left a direct legacy through what were called "Morgenthau boys". These were US Treasury officials whom General Dwight D. Eisenhower had loaned in to the Army of occupation. These people ensured that JCS 1067 was interpreted as strictly as possible. They resigned when in July 1947, after the start of the 'Cold war', JCS 1067 was replaced by JCS 1779 which stressed that "An orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany."

M. died in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1967.

Letzte Änderung / Last update: 11.11.2010 

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