Chutzpah

p. 137

Contrary to the widely held view that in Japan and Germany after WW II the United States was at its finest because of the way it raised former enemy nations back on their feet, Dershowitz argues that “the rebuilding of postwar Germany into one of the world’s most affluent nations is a moral disgrace.” Germany should have had to suffer at least a generation of poverty. But instead of requiring the German people to live at subsistence level for twenty or thirty years, we immediately rewarded them with the Marshall Plan. We also pardoned convicted Nazi criminals who could help rebuild West Germany. We rewarded the lives of the past to confront the more “pressing” concerns of the future. The ultimate reward? “Reunification of the German nation—a belated accomplishment of one of Hitler’s goals.”