Tom, no surprise there.

“For nine months, I kept quiet,” Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said today at Mosque Maryam in Chicago, “because I saw that the good words that I spoke about this beautiful young man” — President-elect Obama — “at our Saviours’ Day convention and the way they were misused. I decided it would be better for me to just be quiet rather than be drawn into the controversy that was swirling around his pastor, Father Pfleger, and others.”

“I feel freer today to say the things that are in my heart,” said the controversial religious leader.

I suspect the next Saviours’ Day at Mosque Maryam will be very special indeed.

Translated versions of your webpage use an unclear verb tense, but the dates that are referred to for the specific events in question match with mine.

The fact that anti-communism was the goal of the Marshall Plan does not change the fact that the previous proposals were intentionally designed to avoid a punitive element, even if they were designed to be restrictive of Germany’s future military capacity.

The Marshall Plan was not established until July 1947. The Restatement of Policy on Germany which heralded it in September 1946 was based on a policy of reconstruction aimed at preventing those perenially boisterous Germans from being swayed toward communism, as Froylein states. However, the restatement was necessary as these newfound anti-communist priorities were not a part of the original plan – the Morgenthau Plan, the plan to which I referred.

Morgenthau’s original proposals called for the de-industrialization of Germany and its reduction to a “pastoral state”, to keep with the spirit of preventing a reconstitution of its military machinery. No punitive reparations were demanded, as I correctly stated, and those that were called for were part of restitutions for looted property, etc.

Even Morgenthau’s proposals, despite a lack of punitive reparations, were criticized by many, including former president Herbert Hoover, on humanitarian grounds, not due to political considerations vis a vis the Soviets:

“There is the illusion that the New Germany left after the annexations can be reduced to a ‘pastoral state’. It cannot be done unless we exterminate or move 25,000,000 people out of it.”

His statement above and others along with it are argued to have led to the change in policy.

In fact, on 10 May 1945 President Truman approved JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff policy)1067 which directed the U.S. forces of occupation in Germany to “…take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany [nor steps] designed to maintain or strengthen the German economy”.

Fears of communism ultimately became the stated purpose of the Marshall plan. However, to pretend that the two years of disease and starvation that preceded it were not equally if not more persuasive doesn’t seem likely, let alone persuasive.

In The Conquerers, historian Michael Beschloss documents Truman’s bitter disputes with Morgenthau. Truman, whose inclinations toward post-war Germany were arguably much more humanitarian than Roosevelt’s, had contentious disagreements with Morgenthau over the potential disaster of an overly harsh and vindictive plan. These disagreements sometimes boiled over into arguments that form part of the basis of work on the degree to which Truman harbored more anti-Semitic or philo-Semitic attitudes. Beschloss had stated in interviews for his book that Truman demanded a policy from Morgenthau toward Germany that would be decidedly “Christian”. This was probably said in an effort to irritate Morgenthau by invoking a sense of moral superiority over him and his original plans, but Truman’s ultimate intentions regarding how harsh the recovery would or would not be is clear. And that sentiment that is reflected (along with others) in such statements.

The foremost consideration behind the Marshall Plan was to stabilize Western Germany against Soviet Communism, thus reinforce Western free market systems against the initial lure of communalized property and class warfare. Those were thorough political considerations not driven by humility, otherwise they’d also have pertained to previously German soil, e.g. the Alsace and Eastern Belgium, but they didn’t. Forging history to adapt it to catchphrases just emphasizes the perception referred to above.

Good thing the Allies were wise enough to be a little more humble and more open to other people’s perceptions the second time around. You never know what angry people who live only inside their own perceptions are liable to do.

Tom: You’re welcome to some pints of Guinness, a dozen Killians, and many other fine, non-German beers on me anytime. Non-worriers are always allowed.

Worriers have to understand that their perceptions alone don’t make reality for others – after which they’ll be welcome to drinks aplenty as well.

Of course, being drunk is a much better excuse for living confined to one’s own perceptions.

But hey, at least it gave you post after post with which to lengthen the thread and pretend that the original arguments didn’t matter.