How did World War 2 affect post-war Germany?

Answer 1

Germany suffered a devastating defeat, and emerged morally bankrupt. Its reputation as a cilivized country was in tatters.

The infrastructure was heavily damaged, but about 60% of the industrial capacity still remained. Besides, the advent of the Cold War led to massive aid from the western allies (especially through the US Marshall Plan) flowing into what was to become the Federal Republic of Germany. From 1947-48 onwards life improved in general and only some 10 years later the "Wirtschaftswunder" (economic miracle) made West Germany became the 3rd largest economy on the planet. Things weren't that good for the Soviet-occupied GDR, they did not get much help at all but at least they managed to become the eastern-bloc state with the highest standard of living (roughly comparable to Ireland at one stage).

In the early stages the conditions in Germany were very bad indeed. In the last few months of WWII the transport system had been very severely damaged, which caused immense problems for the distribution of goods, including food. It's all very well having 60% of industrial capacity intact, but there's no point in producing goods that can't be moved to markets ... Nearly every German city with a population of 80,000 or more had been very severely bombed. In many places in city centres the carriageway was only about 3-4 feet wide (because of rubble from bombing) and couldn't be used by vehicles: in other words, movement within urban areas was difficult, not only intercity transport. One of the first priorities was to clear the rubble. As so many men were held as prisoners of war by the Allies, the rubble had to cleared mainly by women. It was very demanding manual labour.

A high proportion of the housing stock was in ruins; most kids only got 2-3 hours of schooling in the early stages and food was in very short supply. The expulsion of about 12 million Germans from Poland and other areas added enormously to the problems.

It wasn't till the about 1950s that West Germany returned to normality.

Then, as a result of the Cold War, the two parts of Germany merged into their respective 'blocs'. For many decades it seemed that many West Germans, unable to take much pride in being German, wanted to submerge themselves in a European identity.

Germany separated by the the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall into two parts for a while, but then eventually got back together when they broke down the wall after several years.

Answer 2

Millions of Germans were killed, most of its cities were bombed and shelled to rubble, its highways and railroads were destroyed, it was split into two countries for 46 years and even today it is synonymous with tyranny and genocide. WW2 also led to the expulsion of about 11.7 million ethnic Germans from Poland, Czechoslovakia and other countries in Eastern Central Europe.

[Germany] "is synonymous with tyranny and genocide". This is an exaggeration. The Third Reich damaged Germany's reputation, probably for ever. The chief 'victims' of this are young Germans, who were born long after 1945 and cannot be proud to be German except in a cultural sense. However, there is widespread agreement among those who know Germany well that it is one of the most soundly based democracies in Europe. It is also a committed and respected founder member of the European Union. Moreover, there have been serious attempts in by Germans from a wide range of walks of life to confront the country's past. This is in marked contrast to attitudes in Japan, for example.

Answer 3

Germany was total defeated, divided into 4 zones.German cities were in ruins from massive bombing campaign.Most of the contient was in ruins.

Answer 4

- Occupation

- Some were sentenced, others went to Americas, Russia

-Reunification

Answer 5

yes