Hawk1981
VIP Member
- Apr 1, 2020
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By the end of the Second World War, Germany had had its existence almost obliterated. The country was a wreck and it took a long time for its people to begin moving out of the physical and psychological ruins the war left behind. The psychological scars were worse than the material destruction. The Germans had, in 1933, joined up with a disastrous political scheme. Right to the end of the war they had embraced the lie, and the breakdown in National Socialism was therefore utterly demoralizing.
Getting any form of economic activity going again in post-war Germany was difficult, and in the first years Germans were dependent on handouts from the victorious powers. The only way of obtaining goods beyond the bare necessities was through the black market.
Churchill, Truman, and Stalin
The wartime allies had a hard time deciding what to do with Germany. The French and some Americans suggested its total dismemberment as a state; one American plan proposed the abolition of its industrial potential and its reinvention as an agricultural economy. Agreeing to zones of occupation was the easy part at first.
The Soviets got 40 percent in the east (reduced to 28 percent when Stalin transferred German territory to Poland). The remainder was shared between Britain, the United States, and a smaller zone in the southwest for France. Within weeks of the German surrender, the discussion about Germany's long-term future was overwhelmed by its immediate needs.
None of the occupying powers wanted to contribute more to the German economy than what they were getting out of it. Half joking, the cash-strapped British referred to "paying reparations to the Germans." Compounding the difficult economic situation for the western allies, the Potsdam agreements allowed the Soviets to receive some of their reparations from the western zones. So while the Americans and British were paying for the upkeep of their former enemy, the Soviets were busy dismantling surviving German industries in the Ruhr and shipping them east.
Through the summer of 1946, the American and British military governments suspended reparation deliveries from their zones. The Soviets were furious, but could do little about it. Neither could their hinder the Americans and the British from joining their two zones, for economic purposes, at the end of 1946. The so-called "Bizonia" was supposed to be a temporary measure. But in reality it laid the foundation for a separate West German state. As described at the Moscow foreign ministers' meeting in March 1947, it became clear that both the two main western allies were edging closer to George Kennan's view from 1945, that "we have no choice but to lead our section Germany . . . to a form of independence so prosperous, so secure, so superior, that the East cannot threaten it." By mid-1947, after the authorities in Bizonia had in effect given up on the de-Nazification of German industry, some economic activity had restarted in western Germany.
As on so many other matters involving post-war policy, Stalin found it difficult to decide what the Soviet attitude toward Germany should be. Lenin had mentored that Germany was the big prize for socialism in Europe; only with a Communist Germany, Lenin had believed, could the Soviet Union continue to exist in the long run. But instead of going socialist, Germany had been taken over by the Nazis in the 1930s and, after Stalin's attempts at accommodation had failed, had started a war in which the Soviet Union itself almost perished.
If a neutral Germany could gradually be linked to the Soviet Union, then the Cold War in Europe would be won. But if the Americans succeeded in turning the part of Germany it occupied into an arsenal for a US-led attack on the USSR, then Communism would be stamped out. Stalin had to be cautious not to misstep, again, on Germany.
Getting any form of economic activity going again in post-war Germany was difficult, and in the first years Germans were dependent on handouts from the victorious powers. The only way of obtaining goods beyond the bare necessities was through the black market.
Churchill, Truman, and Stalin
The wartime allies had a hard time deciding what to do with Germany. The French and some Americans suggested its total dismemberment as a state; one American plan proposed the abolition of its industrial potential and its reinvention as an agricultural economy. Agreeing to zones of occupation was the easy part at first.
The Soviets got 40 percent in the east (reduced to 28 percent when Stalin transferred German territory to Poland). The remainder was shared between Britain, the United States, and a smaller zone in the southwest for France. Within weeks of the German surrender, the discussion about Germany's long-term future was overwhelmed by its immediate needs.
None of the occupying powers wanted to contribute more to the German economy than what they were getting out of it. Half joking, the cash-strapped British referred to "paying reparations to the Germans." Compounding the difficult economic situation for the western allies, the Potsdam agreements allowed the Soviets to receive some of their reparations from the western zones. So while the Americans and British were paying for the upkeep of their former enemy, the Soviets were busy dismantling surviving German industries in the Ruhr and shipping them east.
Through the summer of 1946, the American and British military governments suspended reparation deliveries from their zones. The Soviets were furious, but could do little about it. Neither could their hinder the Americans and the British from joining their two zones, for economic purposes, at the end of 1946. The so-called "Bizonia" was supposed to be a temporary measure. But in reality it laid the foundation for a separate West German state. As described at the Moscow foreign ministers' meeting in March 1947, it became clear that both the two main western allies were edging closer to George Kennan's view from 1945, that "we have no choice but to lead our section Germany . . . to a form of independence so prosperous, so secure, so superior, that the East cannot threaten it." By mid-1947, after the authorities in Bizonia had in effect given up on the de-Nazification of German industry, some economic activity had restarted in western Germany.
As on so many other matters involving post-war policy, Stalin found it difficult to decide what the Soviet attitude toward Germany should be. Lenin had mentored that Germany was the big prize for socialism in Europe; only with a Communist Germany, Lenin had believed, could the Soviet Union continue to exist in the long run. But instead of going socialist, Germany had been taken over by the Nazis in the 1930s and, after Stalin's attempts at accommodation had failed, had started a war in which the Soviet Union itself almost perished.
If a neutral Germany could gradually be linked to the Soviet Union, then the Cold War in Europe would be won. But if the Americans succeeded in turning the part of Germany it occupied into an arsenal for a US-led attack on the USSR, then Communism would be stamped out. Stalin had to be cautious not to misstep, again, on Germany.
