THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY                
 
                         WASHINGTON                         
 
 
January 10, 1945.
 
 
 
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
 
 
During the last few months we have been giving further study to the
problem of what to do with Germany after her defeat.
 
 
We are more convinced than ever that if we really mean to deprive
Germany of the ability to make war again within a few years it is
absolutely essential that she be derived of her chemical,
metallurgical, and electrical industries.  We don't think that this
alone will gaurantee peace, but that is one of the steps we must take
now.
 
 
We base this conclusion on the following premises, which seem to us
unassailable:
 
 
(1) The German people have the will to try it again.
 
 
(2) Programs for democracy, re-education and kindness cannot destroy
this will within any brief time.
 
 
(3) Heavy industry is the core of Germany's war-making potential.
 
 
Nearly all Americans grant the first point.  A few, such as Dorothy
Thompson, appear to disagree with the second; but all that we know and
have learned recently -- our experience with war prisoners, for
instance -- seems to argue against them.  As to the third, America's
own accomplishments in four years seem to us a shining lesson of what
an equally versatile people can do.  Our industry was converted from
the world's greatest peacetime producer in 1940 to the world's greatest
producer of military weapons in 1944.  The Germans are versatile.
Leave them the necessary heavy industry to build on and they can work
as fast and as effectively as we.