US Presidency
1945

It means that Germany will have to make reparations in kind for the damage which has been done to the innocent victims of its aggression. By compelling reparations in kind, in plants, in machinery, in rolling stock, and in raw materials, we shall avoid the mistake that we and other Nations made after the last war, the demanding of reparations in the form of money which Germany could never pay. We do not want the German people to starve, or to become a burden on the rest of the world. Our objective in handling Germany is simple, it is to secure the peace of the rest of the world now and in the future. Too much experience has shown that that objective is impossible if Germany is allowed to retain any ability to wage aggressive warfare. These objectives will not hurt the German people. On the contrary, they will protect them from a repetition of the fate which the General Staff and Kaiserism imposed on them before, and which Hitlerism is now imposing upon them again a hundredfold.