On 15 September, Roosevelt and Churchill, in one of the most ill-considered decisions of the war, agreed the plan of Henry Morgenthau, the secretary of the Treasury, to split Germany up and turn it ‘into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in character’. Churchill had in fact expressed his revulsion at the plan when he first heard of it, but when the question of a $6.5 billion Lend–Lease agreement came up, he pledged his support.
