The Society for the Prevention of World War III was an organization set up in the U.S. in 1944 during World War II that advocated a harsh peace for Germany in order to completely remove Germany as a future military threat.
The Organization was a spin-off of the Writers' War Board, with both headed by (anti-German)[1][2] novelist Rex Stout and the organization's monthly publication mainly republishing material produced by the War Board.
It succeeded in hardening attitudes towards Germany both in the media and in the government. However, by 1948 it had failed in its overall mission, with JCS 1067 rescinded and the Marshall Plan helping West Germany's economic recovery, along with the rest of Europe.[3]
- ^ Rex Stout Papers "1943 Adopts extreme anti-German attitude after war. Publishes "We Shall Hate or We Shall Fail," an essay which elicits much criticism.". Religion: Moral Poison, Monday, Feb. 22, 1943, Time Magazine "Stout wanted to rouse hatred against those Germans "who accept, either actively or passively, the doctrine of the German master race . . . [or] who, reluctant to join the Nazis, nevertheless failed, through lack of courage or conviction, to prevent the Nazis from . . . plunging the world into this filthy swamp of destruction."
- ^ "We Shall Hate, or We Shall Fail" (PDF), The New York Times, January 17, 1943, with response by Walter Russell Bowie and reply from Rex Stout; at The Wolfe Pack. Retrieved 2014-06-12.
- ^ Casey, 2005.