Main point missing and why all the others had not the recovery: no corruption Remember when you check the nightmare in eastern europe after EU expansion and for sure the UKRAINE, cause open the door kindly and ask for a permission or help, you will pay to get further but without getting a receipt, I mean this was the post 2014 experience in the Ukraine.
As a German, this was very informative for me. In school I learned Ludwig Erhard was just a footnote and the Marshall plan did the trick. It's fascinating how much single people can change the fate of entire countries - for better or worse.
What I find hard to comprehend is why they thought this was a good idea. The Morgenthau plan would have basically imposed severe and permanent economic hardship on Germany just like after WWI. But that's exactly what brought Hitler to power in the first place! To the contrary it was actually rapid economic growth, prosperity together with de-Nazification that created the Germany that we know today. As the saying goes, he who doesn't learn from history will have to relive it.
Morgenthau wanted all your factories destroyed and Germany reduced to an agricultural economy. He also wanted all the men castrated. Seriously. Germans were also marched, at gunpoint, from regions where they had lived for hundreds of years in the biggest ethnic cleansing in history.
@@davebarrowcliffe1289 It certainly wasn't anywhere near the biggest ethnic cleansing in history but yes, there was serious injustice committed after the war. In the Sudetes region of then-Czechoslovakia, the German-speaking population who lived there for generations was massively displaced to Germany based on a presumption of guilt. Essentially they had to actively prove that they didn't support or sympathise with the Nazis, otherwise they were deported and their homes and land confiscated.
@@jacobzimmermann59 WHAAT? You mean like broadcasting Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and smuggling in information had no effect on the people to bring about the fall of the Iron Curtain, that's why the USA has totally restrictive policies on Cuba and North Korea because we know they are going to collapse any day now (HEAVY sarcasm here, just in case it isn't obvious). I believe Merlin was the one who said, "For it is the doom of men that they should forget."
My dad came with the Gastarbeiter program. He said they came with translators to his village and every young person was asked if they were interested and if they have a profession. My dad is the son of a farmer and cared for the kettle or worked on fields. One friend of his said that is not enough, say something else. He said he cuts the hair of his family and was in. He worked more than 40 years as blacksmith in Ford company and pushed steel parts into the melting oven. Now he is retired.
An aspect not mentioned at all is the continuous education improvements, especially the apprenticeship mechanism is brilliant. By now I think it is a critical key-factor for continued success.
That is a great remark as indeed their education system is brilliant. They produce so many highly skilled workers compared to the uk or France. I also think that is the reason they are still producing so many goods rather then for example services like the uk!
@@cooswillemse7551 Fair point, France does produce more agricultural goods and less heavy machinery (though I'd question if highly mechanised modern agriculture is any less technologically demanding.) But in terms of value produced per hour worked (admittedly a fuzzy concept), France and Germany are nearly equal, and both are about 40% higher than Britain.
Dom Tweed Yes indeed but my post was about the genius education system Germany has imposed. That’s why they are the sole real production country in Europe when in the 90 ties all other countries plus the economy elite thought that production in Europe was over .
1:15 - Chapter 1 - The morgenthau plan 5:00 - Chapter 2 - The marshall plan 6:50 - Mid roll ads 8:05 - Chapter 3 - The father of the wirtschaftswunder 10:50 - Chapter 4 - Economic miracle
If it weren't for US consumers, Germany's economy would have taken much longer to develop. When I was a kid, I remember VW beetles and buses everywhere. They were relative inexpensive, reliable and easy to repair. I also remember everyone talking about the high quality of other German goods like washing machines, clothing, cheese, sausage and chocolate. It was a very good reputation to have, and the German people earned it.
Not just US consumers, the entire world. The entire world already had enormous respect for the quality of German goods, German technology, German manufacturing, and so when the factories began to get rebuilt there was an enormous rush to purchase finished goods from them.
The Marshall Plan was brought up during conversation at the Air Base I was stationed at in Western Germany (1978). We (the USAF) had a small detachment to JagBog 34, Memmingen and with that a canteen (bar/club) for all ranks to enjoy. A fellow from the Black Forest area was talking to me there and the Marshall Plan came up. He thanked me many times for the help afforded him and his family. They were dying of starvation after the war and the aid received was a godsend. And yes, cigs, booze and many other items were still bartered. I was issued a ration card for coffee, tea, butter, cigs, booze and more. A very interesting time for a young twenty year old. I love Germany and I got to marry a Bavarian Girl!
Germany was by far and away my best duty station. I would have stayed in a minute if it was possible. I wonder if the reason for the coffee, cigarettes and hard liquor ration cards goes back to the immediate post-war occupation.
The UK got the lion's share of Marshall Aid. USA walked away with billions of dollars in German rocket and jet technology, as well as rocket scientists as mentioned - space race and Apollo programme benefited hugely. Germany is great at both building and maintaining infrastructure.
Simon, in the spirit of this video, could you please do a video on one of your channels about how Finland proudly paid its reparations after WW2, to the penny, and ahead of schedule, and in the process of producing everything the USSR wanted, made a transformation into a real industrial nation...? Even the Soviets were so impressed that they retired their military base in Porkkala, Finland after only about 10 years of use, instead of the 50 years agreed on in the peace treaty. Of course there had to be some really careful tiptoeing between the east and the west for us during those times, and well after as well.
As far as I know, Finland was the only nation paying war reparations in full, for starting World War 2. And they didn't even start it, they were attacked by the Soviet Union while the Soviets were best buddies with Nazi Germany. Totally amazing that Finland somehow managed to get out of that mess as the most happy nation in the world! Must be sisu or something. 🙂
A great addition to this video would be the story of how British Major Ivan Hurst saw value in the Volkswagen production facility. He convinced his superiors to rebuild the factory to start producing and exporting the Volkswagen Type 1 a.k.a. “Beetle”.
I think perhaps one has to consider the people of Germany and their hand in the country's recovery. In 2008 and 2009 I worked in Europe, in connection with a large motorsport racing event. At the time I had never been to Europe. In the two years I was in Europe, I got to spend time in pretty much all of the Western European countries and also some of the Eastern European ones. One of the things that most dramatically stood out to me was how incredibly nice, smart and helpful the Germans were. I was extremely impressed (positively) by the Germans that I met, pretty much without exception. A country that has that kind of population is almost guaranteed to succeed.
The ROK President Park Chung Hee was so impressed by FDR's post-war recovery he visited FDR to learn more and use it as a model for the ROK's postwar recovery. He also sent many workers to FDR to gain knowledge and experience to bring back. The term "Miracle on the Han River" was coined after the phrase "Miracle on the Rhine" was used to refer to the economic rebirth of West Germany after World War II.😉
I mean South Korea was a dictatorship at that point, additionally, they also chaebolised the economy where they consolidated power in the hands of a few industrial tycoons.
Well, one should remember what Ludwig Erhard also did: 1) Turn to the Labour Unions and say: No wage increases - EXCEPT if productivity is increased commensurably. The upside to this was: Cheap imports - especially of food - as there would be no costoums protection. 2) Then to the employers saying - no wage increases - except in case of increased in case of increased productivity. The downside would be no protection against imports cutting prices. To increase productivity you need investments in modern productive equipment which meant that Germany could remain competitive and raise wages and salaries. In fact (I believe it was in 1962) Ludwig Erhard proposed to BUY East Germany from the Russians. At the time nothing came of that. But that was EXACTLY what Helmut Kohl did with the reunification. Having travelled a bit in Turkey: There are a lot of ordinary people in the market that speak fluently German. Now these former "Gastarbeitern" are not in the mood to accept the muslim ways - and are as hardnosed as they come.
"Country of origin Turkey" The majority of "guest workers" and family members who have moved to the Federal Republic of Germany come from Turkey. Here, the motives of the parties involved become particularly clear, as does the relevance of the conditions in the country of origin. The initiative for the German-Turkish recruitment agreement in 1961 came from Turkey. It had a considerable interest in sending part of its rapidly growing population abroad as "guest workers" for a limited period. Social and economic upheavals, high population growth and severe underemployment created a high "emigration pressure". In addition to relieving the pressure on its own labor market, the Turkish government expected urgently needed foreign exchange earnings and a boost to modernization from returning "guest workers" who would have acquired appropriate qualifications (around 77 percent of the workforce in Turkey at the time was employed in agriculture, only about ten percent in industry). The expected and planned foreign exchange earnings actually materialized: In 1972 alone, Turkish workers remitted DM 2.1 billion to their home country, more than offsetting Turkey's trade deficit of DM 1.8 billion. In 1973, too, foreign exchange transfers exceeded Turkey's foreign trade deficits. Strongest group as of 1972 The West German federal governments had initially seen no need to conclude a recruitment agreement with Turkey as well. For foreign policy reasons - Turkey secured NATO's southeastern flank - the decision was made otherwise. The 1961 recruitment agreement explicitly limited residence to a maximum of two years and made no mention of family reunification. At the insistence of the German employers' associations and the Turkish government, a revised version was signed in 1964 that no longer included the time limit. The recruitment of Turkish "guest workers" began at full speed relatively late - at the end of the 1960s. From 1968 to 1971, the number of Turkish workers tripled (from 152,900 to 453,100). In early 1972, Turkish "guest workers" replaced Italians as the strongest group. About 80 percent of the foreign workers were employed in the manufacturing and construction industries, 20 percent in the service sector. Most of them were semi-skilled or unskilled workers. In November 1973, the "recruitment stop" for "guest workers" from non-EC countries was imposed. Declining demand from industry and improving conditions in the home countries led, among other things, to around 42 percent of Greek and Spanish workers leaving the country. The number of Turkish "guest workers," however, declined only slightly - from 605,000 in 1973 to 578,000 in 1980. www.bpb.de/themen/europa/tuerkei/184981/die-anwerbung-tuerkischer-arbeitnehmer-und-ihre-folgen/
You should definitely do a video on the Soviet project to move its war industry and workers to the Urals in the face of Barbarosa. That was the mega project of all mega projects at that time!
Wonderful video! This really explains a lot of things for me in the stories my Oma used to tell. One of her favorites was how she and my grandfather met - because that black market you mentioned was in full swing at that time. "He had the coffee, but I had the sugar" she would say, and then laugh. Grandfather was US Army, and I suppose they must have faced a lot of difficulty from him marrying a German woman. She never talked about that kind of thing, instead focusing on all the Americans who were kind to her, both while she was in Germany and when she came to the States with her husband. She and my mother both regarded the "bounce back" as being 90% due to the hard work, sweat blood and tears, of Germans. This shows me how much of what they used to say was probably out of pride in their homeland and heritage - and how much was accurate. This also explains something that mystified me back in the 1990s (when I was learning German, and recent German history, in high school) - the immense tension regarding Turkish laborers. It didn't make any sense to me at that time - partly because I did NOT understand economics at all, but also because my fluency in the language made it very hard to understand articles in the German newspapers our teacher provided for study and practice. So this was a video that really touched on some old old questions for me!
"Losing" the war was the best thing that ever happened to Germany. It freed it from Hitler's insane regime and set it on a path to become a free, peaceful and incredibly prosperous nation.
Brilliant perspective! I did not even see it as loosing. You can still dig bomb duds from the ground where I live, and I literally have no bad emotions regarding them. Feels more like friendly fire. I explicitly thank the British for bombing Hitlers insane regime, even if that was mixed with the rest of Berlin.
@@shittymcrvids3119 I’m sorry that such a parasitic, vile ideology took root in your homeland. Germany has come a long way. The 1848 revolutionaries would be proud.
Thank you Simon for bringing this important lesson into broad light. It is something that has never fully been taught, when I was at high school. They just began with the Marshall Plan and concluded that this brought wealth back to europe. Also makes me feel a bit better, when I`m thinking about Germany today. The massive upsurge, that was created by clever thinking ahead and good circumstances.... I doubt, we could recreate that again these days. Seems like e have become used to the high standards and leaned back a bit to far. How about another history lesson on German reunification??
The video misses one huge important driver of the change from Morgenthau to Marshall plan which needs to be acknowledged. At the time the Morgenthau plan was introduced, the goal was to create a country similar to Holland, which was stable, prosperous, and essentially agrarian in nature and not militarily significant due to low level of industrialisation. An assumption underlying the feasibility of this plan however was a Germany based on its borders pre WWII. The Soviet Union however made this redundant. By insisting on holding onto the Eastern parts of Poland that the Soviet union had occupied under the terms of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact at the start of the war, the Soviets created a huge problem for the future of Poland. The solution was to in effect transfer Eastern parts of Germany to Poland in exchange for the Eastern parts of Poland retained by the Soviet Union. As a result East Brandenburg, Silesia, Pomerania, and West and (half of) East Prussia were transferred to Poland and in most cases significant proportions of the German population in those provinces expelled or chose to leave. The trouble is that those areas included a lot of Germany's best agricultural land (as well as some industrial resources in SIlesa, but on the whole its impact on Agricultural production was more significant.) It was soon realised that a Germany stripped of much of its best agricultural land, and taking millions of refugees from its former territories, could never be the prosperous and essentially agrarian country intended. Supporting a return of industrial production was seen as critical to creating an economy that would be self sufficient economically and not a perennial debtor nation given the territory it now occupied.
Herbert Hoover made some comment that the Morganthau plan would result in either mass starvation or make Germany permanently dependent on US food aid. Either way, the country would have been perpetually unstable and ungovernable.
A small insight form a german: Germany has also recovered from a large unemployment rate iin the 90s and now as a record employment rate, so much so, that the one of the most pressing issues is the lack of skilled labor. This was partly caused by a large increase in academic education and decreasing birth rate after the so called "Babyboomer" years in the 60s during the height of the "Wirtschaftswunder". Currently there is no solution to this and it is begining to take a toll on the GDP. A joke amongst skilled workers roughly translated to: In ten years a 70 yeahr old plumber will fix the drain of a 24 year old economist.
Germany introduced a sector with low wages with the Agenda 2010, something which had not existed before in this size. Some of these people had been unemployed before, now they deliver packages for 10,50 € per hour. At the same time the wages had been relatively constant over the 2000s, in combination with inflation this led to increased competitive over other European countries compared to the 90s. On the other hand this led to bigger differences in the society, like in the US where the middle class has decreased in size by far compared to the 70s.
@@TheBooban yes young healthy men have nothing better to do in their lives then "hang around in dark street corners" that's it you solved all our problems thank you for your service
This is an issue in all western countries due to low birth rates, and Covids affect can not be overlooked. 2% of healthy working age healthy workers have died. Doesnt sound like much.. but when there is already a shortage its not helping. Add to that too the nationalism and anti-imigrant fervor around the world, be it the US or Europe isnt helping.
When I was stationed in Germany, the Mittelstand particularly impressed me (once I understood what the term meant). I lived in a fairly small town near Mannheim and Darmstadt, but even this town had an outer ring of small and medium sized factories and industries. I soon learned that this wasn't exceptional, its actually the norm, especially in the more industrialized regions of Germany.
Volkswagen had it's rebirth thanks to the Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers needing transport in post war Germany. There's a part of their museum in Lyneham dedicated to it.
Yeah, as a German there are a lot of details that especially foreigners don't know about and the VW recovery is made possible with many thanks to the UK at that time!
It's so hard to make sense of this video without a side by side comparison of East AND West German GDP in a timeline. It's so incomprehensible to include both East AND West Germany into a single GDP because of the political guidelines that were involved. Its good to root for Germany for once but facts are facts.
I used to live in the middle of the Ruhrpott (the region... Ruhr is the river). It's very impressive with lots of industry and high tech companies and jobs. Can't forget about the cobblestone streets, shopping and amazing street food.
The German people are willing to undertake more drastic actions than what anyone here in the US would put up with. I was stationed in Bamberg in the early 70's, and during the fuel crunch driving on Sundays was subject to a huge fine, I think it was $5000 US. It was so weird to see all the roads in town empty except for transit and a very, very few other exemptions.
@@djzrobzombie2813 It's been so long ago I only remember the Warner Barracks in Bamberg, but I'll bet the beer was just as good in Nürnberg! Ein liter bitte.
The allies got Germany back on their feet, but Germany had a very deep and excellent engineering and manufacturing economy leading up to the war, which was one reason they were so hard to beat.
Well... as we heard at the start, the Allies took from Germany, they certainly didn't build anything - that was down to nothing but blood, sweat and tears from the German people. A strong Germany was in the Allies' interest as a bulwark against communism, Germany was projected to be the main battlefield of WW3. So no, the Allies didn't get Germany back on her feet, they merely followed their own interests. Which is nothing bad at all. The Allies allowed Germany to get back on her feet. But they didn't do much for it, they allowed the country to do it herself.
"So, I really hope you found this video interesting. If you did, please hit that thumbs-up button below...". The closing of all Simon's videos. I always check to see if his shirt changed, showing that it was pre-recorded and pasted onto the end of this video. I watch too many videos.
This is amazing, those quick reforms sounding a lot like what happened in Chile and Korea a little later on. My grandfather still talks to me about Chile transforming from a place where most people wouldnt wear shoes outside of winter to almost everyone having a TV, refridgeration, cars, etc. Though there are factors that made these transitions altogether less successful than Germany, these liberalized policies turning away from collectivism have worked in various different countries.
The "Wirschaftswunder" fizzled out in the early 80s, but it built enough of an infrastructure and human resources basis that subsequent crises could be weathered.
There's much more to that actually. It's a fascinatingly cruel plan. You should look it up. Morgenthau also wrote a book titled "Germany must perish" in which he proposed to 'reduce' Germanies population by a third or so after the war. Fighting genocide with genocide... Good that Morgenthau was US and not Soviet.
Not letting Germany "get strong" was based out of fear, that some would say was justifiable. In the early days the Allies continued to encounter hardened pockets of resistance during denazification. Once denazification began to produce results, the fear subsided somewhat and cooler heads like Marshall AND Erhard were finally allowed to prevail.
Summarized and shared to Facebook: "No, it wasn't the Marshall Plan that should be credited with the amazing recovery of West Germany after WW2. That US subsidy amounted to only about 5% of German GDP. Instead, it was the free market and hard currency policies of Ludwig Erhard. He reduced currency in circulation by 93%, thus taming inflation, and eliminated wage and price controls. It was not government spending that allowed Germany to recover it's position as an economic powerhouse in Europe. It was free market policies. And we should adopt those today, if we care about the poor."
The Federal Republic has always had a social market economy, with a lot of policies especially as regards public ownership, that many people in places like the UK or US would think are "socialist".
@@Korschtal There is no pure free market on the planet, and no pure socialism, either. All nations exist on a spectrum from more government control to less. My point is that Germany had a relatively free market economy, and it was that, not the Marshall Plan that was the primary cause of German economic success after WW2. I agree with you that there are socialistic elements in every nation's economy, including that of the US.
@@freesk8 The term socialist makes little sense though. The roots of the German welfare system was created by Bismarck, an autocratic monarchist and militarist. The reasoning for it is not grounded in socialism but a) in preventing it and b) Christian values. In the same German socialism developed into social democracy which removes key assumptions of socialist theories and replaces it with freedom and democracy as the best basis for a prospering society, including the entire populace. So ordo liberalism is actually supported and was created out political ideologies other countries consider incompatible as you have German conservatives and liberals creating supposedly socialist policies and German socialists embracing supposedly capitalist and liberal policies.
@@mangalores-x_x Socialism is state ownership of the means of production. Some nations nationalize some industries, but not others. Railroads in England, health care just about everywhere... So there is a spectrum from more government ownership at the socialist end, and much less government control at the other (free market) end. The USSR, Cuba, and N. Korea are examples of the left (socialist) end. Switzerland or Hong Kong before 2000 are examples of the free market end. All nations appear somewhere in the middle. France and China and Russia are in the middle. Some nations have a lot of ownership of the means of production, and still have democratic elections. Others have more free markets and still have democratic elections. Democracy and socialism are independent of each other. Though when socialism is more completely implemented, the quality of the democracy tends to be eroded. Single parties and rigged elections are more common with more complete implementations of socialism. Also, the more free market the economy, the more legitimate and democratic the elections tend to be. Switzerland and Ireland and Australia have much better democracy than does Russia and China.
Too binary. The Marshall Plan although smaller, did still provide the early stimulus needed to pull Germans out of the funk. The Marshall Plan was not a mistake, deindustrialization was. The Marshall Plan was the first furtive step at reversing deindustrialization. Stop pushing zero sum binary knee-jerk reactionary thinking where one thing automatically excludes another.
I found this video from a reaction video and wanted to watch the original. A REALLY GOOD EXPLANATION. I mean it's REALLY GOOD and IMO totally unbiased and objective. Thank you very much, best wishes from a German.
Just imagine how eastern European countries could grow if allies have did not sell those to USSR in Yalta and all that Marschall plan money was given to them. I do understand the need of having a strong and big ally in Europe but it could be somebody else but not the nation that started the fire. As a Pole, I still find it unfair - Churchill had completely forgotten what our pilots did during the Battle of Britain and later in Europe. Roosevelt did not care at all and let Stalin put his hands wherever he wanted. Later on, during the Nuremberg trial, very few Nazis were convicted guilty. Plenty of them had a good life in post-war Germany working for the government or big industry. Even Adenauer admitted that without them it would be difficult to grow. While millions of people suffered communism for way too long.
this is very big shame for the west, that how eastern Europe after ww2 was left for Stalin tyranny, millions of people were tortured and killed after ww2.
Agree with you. Britain treated the Poles very badly AFTER they had helped win the Battle of Britain. Yalta was a disgraceful betrayal... just ask the Cossacks.
I hear this a lot from Poles. The British did not want Poland to be under Soviet rule, afterall, we entered the war precisely because the Nazis invaded you. Unfortunately, the Soviets amassed a huge army to defeat the Nazis, and there was nothing we could do to stop the Soviets without going to war with them too. This is the fate of nations. Britain was once ruled by Romans for over 400 years. All we can do is pick ourselves up and do our best. Complaining won't change the past.
@@pierrebuffiere5923 And what do you think we could have done? Fight the Soviets too? How many wars do we have to fight for others? Hitler wanted peace with Britain, but we fought him to free Europe. In the end it didnt work out, but we Brits sacrificed a lot to defeat the Nazis, and without us there would be no Poland now.
Simon says the economists estimated the Marshall's plan contribution to have been only 5% to the growth of Germany, yes Germany started the war but it has done a lot since then, and it would still have done alot on its own with or without the Marshall plan given its own industrial, intellectual & pioneering history. Most EU members Poland included has benefited immensely from German Investment and Infrastructure development through the EU, I honestly doubt Poland could have achieved all that Alone.
Understandable though. We lost WW1. Bounced back from everything and set everything up on the bomb. Would you a) have a low industrial Agrar Germany b) give us a hand to rebuild and watch us eat the whole arm
I’ve always had a sense of admiration for people and nations who were stripped of everything they pretty much had and still managed to get back on their feet and become a big contributor to the world we live in. Japan and Germany are great examples
I wonder if that, at least in part, explains the poor reputation of the UK's cuisine (which in my experience, is unjustified, but old stereotypes die hard).
one of my uncles lived in Germany for a few decades being in the Army he was stationed there so when he retired he stayed . he had married a German woman and in the early 90's when she retired they both moved to the US . that's when I found out how bad it was being an employee in the US compared to working in Germany. they made 6 to 8 times what we did on average and had far better health care and full dental they had month long set vacations yearly and more holiday time then even us in the US all paid . I did get to drink a lot of good German beer so it kind of made up for how pissed off I was over the news about getting screwed weekly by our government
Germany faces a lot of problems today. The Infrastructure is old. Many bridges are closed for to heavy Trucks. Innovation is to slow. We have to manage more and more older People. We need a Another miricale for the future. But at the end i Love my Country
@@HingerlAlois Yes, but as a German as well that had some experience with foreign work ethic, the Germans in general have a "I work concentrated now to have free time later". But in many countries not the quality of the output, but only the time clocked counts, so people slack off. This I think is the main difference in upbringing, the "when I do it, I do it right/correct/serious from the start!"
I work with German companies like BASF and Siemens. Their major concern is the ability to innovate, not to optimize or extend existing technologies. Right now they're very worried about battery technology disrupting existing petroleum fuel vehicles, an area where right now they feel very comfortable. This is why Volkswagen will stop development of the latter technology in 2025 but will not commit to a completely electric future until 2035. They feel they need those ten years to catch up, but the actual time is not based on anything except a reasonable estimate of how long innovation takes, not how to accomplish it.
80% of German heavy industry was intact at the end of the war, thanks to measures by Albert Speer to protect and disperse them and demanding and getting heavy anti aircraft protection in selected regions. This subsequently helped considerably in the rebuilding after the war.
The story of the inflation of the Papiermark would be a fascinating video for one of your other channels. Imagine having a 100,000,000,000,000 mark banknote, then imagine it being essentially worthless. With inflation like that, it’s easier to see how someone like Hitler could come to power.
I mean they already had one of the worlds largest industries before and during the war. Also they had some of the world best scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs. If you consider that, it’s not hard to believe that they recovered quickly after the war. It’s not like it was a third world country that had nothing to begin with…
Ludwig Erhard should have received the Nobel Prize for Economics. His methods might not have worked everywhere, but they worked miracles for his homeland’s economy, in ruins after the war. The Marshall Plan also helped, of course.
As a German I'm very confused about your last question "Will the wirtschaftswunder press on?". OF COURSE NOT, the Wirtschaftswunder was the extreme fast recovery after WW2. I like the video, but i missed something closely connected to the Wirtschaftswunder, the state of Germany after WW2. Yes, many people were dead and much was destroyed, but besides that, really many industrial complexes still were functional. What was most missing was infrastructure, more concrete roads and railroads. There is no difference whether a fabric is destroyed, its workers are dead or it has no connection anything outside its premises, it can't do anything, and that's what was disrupted so good by war. Not the actual fabric. Says a channel Simon could know: VisualPolikDE th-cam.com/users/VisualPolitikDE, sister channel of VisualPolitikEN
There definitely were a ton of destroyed factories after the war, and destroyed infrastrcture as well, but not enough to be the biggest problem, lots of factories had been refitted to manufacture warmachines and/or equiment, that all had to be replaced as well. I really can´t believe how dumb that first plan was tho... Why destroy factories if your aim is to help rebuild? Stupid^^
@@iron_side5674 Germany was rebuilt to serve as a market for American goods. At the end it was a clever investment for the US. Additionally West Germany was a buffer zone for other European nations like France in cold war. If the Soviets would have taken West Germany too Communists would have been standing directly at the Rhine and the France border
@@simonm1447 Did you know about the nuclear bombs, the US stationed close to the East German border? There were special holes in the roads, where the bombs should be placed in case of a Russian attack... and turn the borderland into a nuclear wasteland.
Among the economic effects that were not known was the repatriation of large savings in the Swiss banks. Huge quantities of gold was sent there during the war. This was unknown until one Swiss citizen violated their banking secrecy laws and disclosed it decades later. Into W. Germany this cash transfer was greater than the amount of the Marshal Plan invested into W. Germany. Without the Marshal Plan these transfers would have impossible to hide.
This is why economic history should be taught on par with political and military history. Schools focus so much on the history of destruction and war - what if we focused more on history of creation and prosperity?
Simon I know this isn't brain blaze where you joke around more and insert the finest vintage memes when you read about the 5 Ds after Germany's surrender to play the Deez nuts clip. I was holding my breath waiting for it but you failed me Simon.....failed me.
Lots of people also migrated away after the war, there was a huge brain drain going on after the war. However that was a limited option, because a lot of people thought every German speaker is a Nazi, as long as there wasn't a Swiss passport at hand.
@@MaxiTB Well to be fair the most famous German emigrant who can be counted as part of the 'brain drain' was a certain Wernher von Braun. He kinda /was/ a Nazi.
Well, as a German I have to say that these days it looks like that Germany loses its grip on things with to little innovation and education in the tech-sector. We abandoned nuclear (one of the most important industrial sectors in the future) still dont produce good batteries or chips and are more interested in virtue signaling than our own economic interests.
in east germany i did NOT learn that the russians moved just about any bits of industry out, they could possibly move. With the cold war starting, East Germany paid all of "Germanys" reparations to the soviets alone. A fact conveniently ignored when people complain about the costs of reunification. In other words, East and West started the war togetherbut the East paid for it mostly alone. Not that East german schools or auhtorities or russian overlords would ever say that out loud. While the Marshall gave the West at least a good kick, the east was bled out. The British and France also removed stuff for reparations but the Marshall plan and the Wirtschaftswunder soon replaced those with new, better ones. So the UK for example ended up with some old german industry and Germany with NEW one. When the cold war kicked in , with East Germany right in the geographical "socialism" shop Window, It was allowed to get going at least abit. But by then said socialism had already kicked in and made real progress famously impossible. And no, there was not, is not and very likely will never be "communism" anywhere in the world (in a larger scale). It's silly to cal the USSR or GDR that, it is downright brainkillingly idiotic to do it with todays China. On a much lighter note: Funny that Wernher von Braun became (the highly successful) Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center.
FFS can we stop comparing monies used in the past *when they cost what they actually cost to what it may of cost today.* It is never gonna happen now so the comparison is bloody pointless.
I would like to see a video on the F15 program, last year they revealed a new version of this plane. The strike eagle version holds the only air to air kill with a (2000lb) bomb.
I think we now devalue and ignore the concrete quality of what people did with what they had at the time in favour of abstract qualities like economic theory. Both are important, but I've payed attention to the former because of an opinion based upon observation my step-father said when he was in both Germany and Japan almost immediately after the war: he was surprised and impressed by the “old women who were picking up bricks, chipping the concrete off them, and placing them in a pile for reuse” in situations like you see at 13:30. Unfortunately, it's against the current _gleichschaltung_ to say that maybe, just maybe, not all cultures are equal, and that some are more productive or better than others.
A now deceased friend who had several friends in Germany told me at the time of reunification that the former East Germans initially had a hard time getting most of the West Germans out of the Communist mindset and lack of initiative towards working. He told me one German friend said to him “sooner or later… zey vill vork”… implying they will shape up or else…
It wasn't the workers' fault - they were just as well educated as those in the West. It was the state-planned economy that was unproductive. An economy cannot function if there is no healthy competition between manufacturing companies. In principle, East Germany has eaten itself.
Maybe your script writers should look outside of US sources if they think the US had to persuade anyone to not follow a US inspired idea. Look into the re-setup of VW for example, nothing to do with US influence.
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biggest lesson of this video???
The " economic miracle " occurred when government got out of the way!!!!
Main point missing and why all the others had not the recovery: no corruption
Remember when you check the nightmare in eastern europe after EU expansion and for sure the UKRAINE, cause open the door kindly and ask for a permission or help, you will pay to get further but without getting a receipt, I mean this was the post 2014 experience in the Ukraine.
Most of these companies were nazis
With slaves
As a German, this was very informative for me. In school I learned Ludwig Erhard was just a footnote and the Marshall plan did the trick. It's fascinating how much single people can change the fate of entire countries - for better or worse.
What I find hard to comprehend is why they thought this was a good idea. The Morgenthau plan would have basically imposed severe and permanent economic hardship on Germany just like after WWI. But that's exactly what brought Hitler to power in the first place! To the contrary it was actually rapid economic growth, prosperity together with de-Nazification that created the Germany that we know today. As the saying goes, he who doesn't learn from history will have to relive it.
Morgenthau wanted all your factories destroyed and Germany reduced to an agricultural economy.
He also wanted all the men castrated.
Seriously.
Germans were also marched, at gunpoint, from regions where they had lived for hundreds of years in the biggest ethnic cleansing in history.
@@davebarrowcliffe1289 It certainly wasn't anywhere near the biggest ethnic cleansing in history but yes, there was serious injustice committed after the war. In the Sudetes region of then-Czechoslovakia, the German-speaking population who lived there for generations was massively displaced to Germany based on a presumption of guilt. Essentially they had to actively prove that they didn't support or sympathise with the Nazis, otherwise they were deported and their homes and land confiscated.
@@jacobzimmermann59 Tell me about East Prussia and the Volga Germans...
@@jacobzimmermann59 WHAAT? You mean like broadcasting Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and smuggling in information had no effect on the people to bring about the fall of the Iron Curtain, that's why the USA has totally restrictive policies on Cuba and North Korea because we know they are going to collapse any day now (HEAVY sarcasm here, just in case it isn't obvious). I believe Merlin was the one who said, "For it is the doom of men that they should forget."
My dad came with the Gastarbeiter program. He said they came with translators to his village and every young person was asked if they were interested and if they have a profession. My dad is the son of a farmer and cared for the kettle or worked on fields. One friend of his said that is not enough, say something else. He said he cuts the hair of his family and was in. He worked more than 40 years as blacksmith in Ford company and pushed steel parts into the melting oven.
Now he is retired.
Damn, your dad saw a lot of history go down in his life.
My dad was a german electrician, i found his old black uniform with 2 thunder in the shoulder.
An aspect not mentioned at all is the continuous education improvements, especially the apprenticeship mechanism is brilliant. By now I think it is a critical key-factor for continued success.
That is a great remark as indeed their education system is brilliant. They produce so many highly skilled workers compared to the uk or France. I also think that is the reason they are still producing so many goods rather then for example services like the uk!
@@cooswillemse7551 French and German hourly labour productivity is almost equal. The UK is the one way behind.
Dom Tweed I am talking about the producing industry. Exports . Heavy goods
France is way behind. France produces agricultural products
@@cooswillemse7551 Fair point, France does produce more agricultural goods and less heavy machinery (though I'd question if highly mechanised modern agriculture is any less technologically demanding.) But in terms of value produced per hour worked (admittedly a fuzzy concept), France and Germany are nearly equal, and both are about 40% higher than Britain.
Dom Tweed
Yes indeed but my post was about the genius education system Germany has imposed. That’s why they are the sole real production country in Europe when in the 90 ties all other countries plus the economy elite thought that production in Europe was over .
1:15 - Chapter 1 - The morgenthau plan
5:00 - Chapter 2 - The marshall plan
6:50 - Mid roll ads
8:05 - Chapter 3 - The father of the wirtschaftswunder
10:50 - Chapter 4 - Economic miracle
If it weren't for US consumers, Germany's economy would have taken much longer to develop. When I was a kid, I remember VW beetles and buses everywhere. They were relative inexpensive, reliable and easy to repair. I also remember everyone talking about the high quality of other German goods like washing machines, clothing, cheese, sausage and chocolate. It was a very good reputation to have, and the German people earned it.
Germany has a VERY high standard for everything.
Becoming a butcher/brewer/construction worker takes three years.
Not just US consumers, the entire world.
The entire world already had enormous respect for the quality of German goods, German technology, German manufacturing, and so when the factories began to get rebuilt there was an enormous rush to purchase finished goods from them.
The Marshall Plan was brought up during conversation at the Air Base I was stationed at in Western Germany (1978). We (the USAF) had a small detachment to JagBog 34, Memmingen and with that a canteen (bar/club) for all ranks to enjoy. A fellow from the Black Forest area was talking to me there and the Marshall Plan came up. He thanked me many times for the help afforded him and his family. They were dying of starvation after the war and the aid received was a godsend. And yes, cigs, booze and many other items were still bartered. I was issued a ration card for coffee, tea, butter, cigs, booze and more. A very interesting time for a young twenty year old. I love Germany and I got to marry a Bavarian Girl!
Germany was by far and away my best duty station. I would have stayed in a minute if it was possible.
I wonder if the reason for the coffee, cigarettes and hard liquor ration cards goes back to the immediate post-war occupation.
@Patrick So win-win in your case... As the Bavaria is the land of the finest beer im the world!!! 😃
Very interesting. May I ask you, are you 100 years old now? In your 20s at the time plus ~85 years after WW2.
The UK got the lion's share of Marshall Aid. USA walked away with billions of dollars in German rocket and jet technology, as well as rocket scientists as mentioned - space race and Apollo programme benefited hugely. Germany is great at both building and maintaining infrastructure.
Simon, in the spirit of this video, could you please do a video on one of your channels about how Finland proudly paid its reparations after WW2, to the penny, and ahead of schedule, and in the process of producing everything the USSR wanted, made a transformation into a real industrial nation...? Even the Soviets were so impressed that they retired their military base in Porkkala, Finland after only about 10 years of use, instead of the 50 years agreed on in the peace treaty. Of course there had to be some really careful tiptoeing between the east and the west for us during those times, and well after as well.
As far as I know, Finland was the only nation paying war reparations in full, for starting World War 2. And they didn't even start it, they were attacked by the Soviet Union while the Soviets were best buddies with Nazi Germany. Totally amazing that Finland somehow managed to get out of that mess as the most happy nation in the world! Must be sisu or something. 🙂
I also want a vid on this because I didn't even know it was a thing
Same! I would love to see a video on this.
Now blowing it by joining NATO. Very stupid.
A great addition to this video would be the story of how British Major Ivan Hurst saw value in the Volkswagen production facility. He convinced his superiors to rebuild the factory to start producing and exporting the Volkswagen Type 1 a.k.a. “Beetle”.
I think perhaps one has to consider the people of Germany and their hand in the country's recovery. In 2008 and 2009 I worked in Europe, in connection with a large motorsport racing event. At the time I had never been to Europe. In the two years I was in Europe, I got to spend time in pretty much all of the Western European countries and also some of the Eastern European ones. One of the things that most dramatically stood out to me was how incredibly nice, smart and helpful the Germans were. I was extremely impressed (positively) by the Germans that I met, pretty much without exception. A country that has that kind of population is almost guaranteed to succeed.
You mean DESPITE diversity?
The ROK President Park Chung Hee was so impressed by FDR's post-war recovery he visited FDR to learn more and use it as a model for the ROK's postwar recovery. He also sent many workers to FDR to gain knowledge and experience to bring back. The term "Miracle on the Han River" was coined after the phrase "Miracle on the Rhine" was used to refer to the economic rebirth of West Germany after World War II.😉
Maybe that’s why Germany has such a strong economic relationship with them.
@@davinnicode it is.
I mean South Korea was a dictatorship at that point, additionally, they also chaebolised the economy where they consolidated power in the hands of a few industrial tycoons.
Well, one should remember what Ludwig Erhard also did:
1) Turn to the Labour Unions and say: No wage increases - EXCEPT if productivity is increased commensurably. The upside to this was: Cheap imports - especially of food - as there would be no costoums protection.
2) Then to the employers saying - no wage increases - except in case of increased in case of increased productivity. The downside would be no protection against imports cutting prices.
To increase productivity you need investments in modern productive equipment which meant that Germany could remain competitive and raise wages and salaries.
In fact (I believe it was in 1962) Ludwig Erhard proposed to BUY East Germany from the Russians. At the time nothing came of that. But that was EXACTLY what Helmut Kohl did with the reunification.
Having travelled a bit in Turkey: There are a lot of ordinary people in the market that speak fluently German. Now these former "Gastarbeitern" are not in the mood to accept the muslim ways - and are as hardnosed as they come.
great comment my friend
"Country of origin Turkey"
The majority of "guest workers" and family members who have moved to the Federal Republic of Germany come from Turkey. Here, the motives of the parties involved become particularly clear, as does the relevance of the conditions in the country of origin.
The initiative for the German-Turkish recruitment agreement in 1961 came from Turkey. It had a considerable interest in sending part of its rapidly growing population abroad as "guest workers" for a limited period. Social and economic upheavals, high population growth and severe underemployment created a high "emigration pressure". In addition to relieving the pressure on its own labor market, the Turkish government expected urgently needed foreign exchange earnings and a boost to modernization from returning "guest workers" who would have acquired appropriate qualifications (around 77 percent of the workforce in Turkey at the time was employed in agriculture, only about ten percent in industry). The expected and planned foreign exchange earnings actually materialized: In 1972 alone, Turkish workers remitted DM 2.1 billion to their home country, more than offsetting Turkey's trade deficit of DM 1.8 billion. In 1973, too, foreign exchange transfers exceeded Turkey's foreign trade deficits.
Strongest group as of 1972
The West German federal governments had initially seen no need to conclude a recruitment agreement with Turkey as well. For foreign policy reasons - Turkey secured NATO's southeastern flank - the decision was made otherwise. The 1961 recruitment agreement explicitly limited residence to a maximum of two years and made no mention of family reunification. At the insistence of the German employers' associations and the Turkish government, a revised version was signed in 1964 that no longer included the time limit.
The recruitment of Turkish "guest workers" began at full speed relatively late - at the end of the 1960s. From 1968 to 1971, the number of Turkish workers tripled (from 152,900 to 453,100). In early 1972, Turkish "guest workers" replaced Italians as the strongest group.
About 80 percent of the foreign workers were employed in the manufacturing and construction industries, 20 percent in the service sector. Most of them were semi-skilled or unskilled workers. In November 1973, the "recruitment stop" for "guest workers" from non-EC countries was imposed. Declining demand from industry and improving conditions in the home countries led, among other things, to around 42 percent of Greek and Spanish workers leaving the country. The number of Turkish "guest workers," however, declined only slightly - from 605,000 in 1973 to 578,000 in 1980.
www.bpb.de/themen/europa/tuerkei/184981/die-anwerbung-tuerkischer-arbeitnehmer-und-ihre-folgen/
Thanks for sharing
Aber toll..
Nie GEHORT
You should definitely do a video on the Soviet project to move its war industry and workers to the Urals in the face of Barbarosa. That was the mega project of all mega projects at that time!
Great idea 💡
They already have some hour long documentary’s on that
@@MikeSmith-vl5em who is they?
@@MikeSmith-vl5em share link please
Simon has multiple channels under his channel tab. I’m not sure which one but operation Barbarossa did get a video
Wonderful video! This really explains a lot of things for me in the stories my Oma used to tell. One of her favorites was how she and my grandfather met - because that black market you mentioned was in full swing at that time. "He had the coffee, but I had the sugar" she would say, and then laugh. Grandfather was US Army, and I suppose they must have faced a lot of difficulty from him marrying a German woman. She never talked about that kind of thing, instead focusing on all the Americans who were kind to her, both while she was in Germany and when she came to the States with her husband. She and my mother both regarded the "bounce back" as being 90% due to the hard work, sweat blood and tears, of Germans. This shows me how much of what they used to say was probably out of pride in their homeland and heritage - and how much was accurate. This also explains something that mystified me back in the 1990s (when I was learning German, and recent German history, in high school) - the immense tension regarding Turkish laborers. It didn't make any sense to me at that time - partly because I did NOT understand economics at all, but also because my fluency in the language made it very hard to understand articles in the German newspapers our teacher provided for study and practice.
So this was a video that really touched on some old old questions for me!
Regarding turkish immigrants, you might want to check DW Euromaxx, Meet the Germans (MTG), German-Turkish culture.
I've really learned something new things from this video, thank you Simon and the Mega projects team
Yet another thing I didn't learn in my highschool history class.
Y'all are definitely making me smarter!
"Losing" the war was the best thing that ever happened to Germany. It freed it from Hitler's insane regime and set it on a path to become a free, peaceful and incredibly prosperous nation.
Brilliant perspective! I did not even see it as loosing. You can still dig bomb duds from the ground where I live, and I literally have no bad emotions regarding them. Feels more like friendly fire. I explicitly thank the British for bombing Hitlers insane regime, even if that was mixed with the rest of Berlin.
As a German I do not want to live in a reality where "we" would wave won.
@@shittymcrvids3119 I don't think that anyone would want to live that, mein Freund, although latey Putin seems to be trying hard.
@@shittymcrvids3119 I’m sorry that such a parasitic, vile ideology took root in your homeland. Germany has come a long way. The 1848 revolutionaries would be proud.
@@shittymcrvids3119 As a Czech, I would, as crazy as it sounds.
Awesome video, you should one on japan's post war Rise to their current status as a technological powerhouse, would be pretty interesting
My mother and father met in germany working on the Marshall plan..my family still have friends in germany. Love the place
Thank you Simon for bringing this important lesson into broad light. It is something that has never fully been taught, when I was at high school. They just began with the Marshall Plan and concluded that this brought wealth back to europe.
Also makes me feel a bit better, when I`m thinking about Germany today. The massive upsurge, that was created by clever thinking ahead and good circumstances.... I doubt, we could recreate that again these days. Seems like e have become used to the high standards and leaned back a bit to far.
How about another history lesson on German reunification??
Love you stuff man! You should do one on the logistics of making, manufacturing, and distributing the covid vaccines, feel like that’d be interesting
The video misses one huge important driver of the change from Morgenthau to Marshall plan which needs to be acknowledged.
At the time the Morgenthau plan was introduced, the goal was to create a country similar to Holland, which was stable, prosperous, and essentially agrarian in nature and not militarily significant due to low level of industrialisation.
An assumption underlying the feasibility of this plan however was a Germany based on its borders pre WWII. The Soviet Union however made this redundant. By insisting on holding onto the Eastern parts of Poland that the Soviet union had occupied under the terms of the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact at the start of the war, the Soviets created a huge problem for the future of Poland.
The solution was to in effect transfer Eastern parts of Germany to Poland in exchange for the Eastern parts of Poland retained by the Soviet Union. As a result East Brandenburg, Silesia, Pomerania, and West and (half of) East Prussia were transferred to Poland and in most cases significant proportions of the German population in those provinces expelled or chose to leave. The trouble is that those areas included a lot of Germany's best agricultural land (as well as some industrial resources in SIlesa, but on the whole its impact on Agricultural production was more significant.)
It was soon realised that a Germany stripped of much of its best agricultural land, and taking millions of refugees from its former territories, could never be the prosperous and essentially agrarian country intended. Supporting a return of industrial production was seen as critical to creating an economy that would be self sufficient economically and not a perennial debtor nation given the territory it now occupied.
I was unaware of this, I appreciate the quick history lesson.
Herbert Hoover made some comment that the Morganthau plan would result in either mass starvation or make Germany permanently dependent on US food aid. Either way, the country would have been perpetually unstable and ungovernable.
De-Industrialization was a cruel idea. Fortunately all the people who were calling the shots refused to go along with this evil idea.
No, they should have gone along with it.
@@geoffreycharles6330 why?
A small insight form a german:
Germany has also recovered from a large unemployment rate iin the 90s and now as a record employment rate, so much so, that the one of the most pressing issues is the lack of skilled labor. This was partly caused by a large increase in academic education and decreasing birth rate after the so called "Babyboomer" years in the 60s during the height of the "Wirtschaftswunder".
Currently there is no solution to this and it is begining to take a toll on the GDP.
A joke amongst skilled workers roughly translated to:
In ten years a 70 yeahr old plumber will fix the drain of a 24 year old economist.
Germany introduced a sector with low wages with the Agenda 2010, something which had not existed before in this size. Some of these people had been unemployed before, now they deliver packages for 10,50 € per hour.
At the same time the wages had been relatively constant over the 2000s, in combination with inflation this led to increased competitive over other European countries compared to the 90s.
On the other hand this led to bigger differences in the society, like in the US where the middle class has decreased in size by far compared to the 70s.
I don't believe this at all. Every western country has piles and piles of young healthy men doing nothing at all but hang around dark street corners.
@@TheBooban yes young healthy men have nothing better to do in their lives then "hang around in dark street corners" that's it you solved all our problems thank you for your service
This is an issue in all western countries due to low birth rates, and Covids affect can not be overlooked. 2% of healthy working age healthy workers have died. Doesnt sound like much.. but when there is already a shortage its not helping. Add to that too the nationalism and anti-imigrant fervor around the world, be it the US or Europe isnt helping.
@@GoinManta
That’s total nonsense. You’ve been lied to.
What is missing is the Mittelstand, also the strong emphasis on apprenticeship.
When I was stationed in Germany, the Mittelstand particularly impressed me (once I understood what the term meant). I lived in a fairly small town near Mannheim and Darmstadt, but even this town had an outer ring of small and medium sized factories and industries. I soon learned that this wasn't exceptional, its actually the norm, especially in the more industrialized regions of Germany.
Totally missing
Volkswagen had it's rebirth thanks to the Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers needing transport in post war Germany. There's a part of their museum in Lyneham dedicated to it.
Yeah, as a German there are a lot of details that especially foreigners don't know about and the VW recovery is made possible with many thanks to the UK at that time!
It's so hard to make sense of this video without a side by side comparison of East AND West German GDP in a timeline. It's so incomprehensible to include both East AND West Germany into a single GDP because of the political guidelines that were involved. Its good to root for Germany for once but facts are facts.
I used to live in the middle of the Ruhrpott (the region... Ruhr is the river). It's very impressive with lots of industry and high tech companies and jobs. Can't forget about the cobblestone streets, shopping and amazing street food.
Every time Simon randomly mentions Mission Impossible, TopGun, or Tom Cruise, someone escapes the cult of scientology.
The German people are willing to undertake more drastic actions than what anyone here in the US would put up with.
I was stationed in Bamberg in the early 70's, and during the fuel crunch driving on Sundays was subject to a huge fine, I think it was $5000 US. It was so weird to see all the roads in town empty except for transit and a very, very few other exemptions.
Lol greetings from Nürnberg do you know the merral barracks .?
@@djzrobzombie2813 It's been so long ago I only remember the Warner Barracks in Bamberg, but I'll bet the beer was just as good in Nürnberg! Ein liter bitte.
Americans will learn in time. History humbles all in the end. Americans are still brash and spoiled.
Thank you for serving.
The allies got Germany back on their feet, but Germany had a very deep and excellent engineering and manufacturing economy leading up to the war, which was one reason they were so hard to beat.
Well... as we heard at the start, the Allies took from Germany, they certainly didn't build anything - that was down to nothing but blood, sweat and tears from the German people. A strong Germany was in the Allies' interest as a bulwark against communism, Germany was projected to be the main battlefield of WW3. So no, the Allies didn't get Germany back on her feet, they merely followed their own interests. Which is nothing bad at all. The Allies allowed Germany to get back on her feet. But they didn't do much for it, they allowed the country to do it herself.
Richtig
richtig und wichtig@@dagmarvandoren9364
"So, I really hope you found this video interesting. If you did, please hit that thumbs-up button below...". The closing of all Simon's videos. I always check to see if his shirt changed, showing that it was pre-recorded and pasted onto the end of this video.
I watch too many videos.
Erhart didn't remove all price controls: He kept price controls on key industrial inputs.
This is amazing, those quick reforms sounding a lot like what happened in Chile and Korea a little later on. My grandfather still talks to me about Chile transforming from a place where most people wouldnt wear shoes outside of winter to almost everyone having a TV, refridgeration, cars, etc. Though there are factors that made these transitions altogether less successful than Germany, these liberalized policies turning away from collectivism have worked in various different countries.
Thank you for making a video about a Germany's economy what a great video thank you keep the good work up
The "Wirschaftswunder" fizzled out in the early 80s, but it built enough of an infrastructure and human resources basis that subsequent crises could be weathered.
This is the first time I've heard of the morgenthau plan. This just sounds like a bad idea asking for more trouble
There's much more to that actually. It's a fascinatingly cruel plan. You should look it up. Morgenthau also wrote a book titled "Germany must perish" in which he proposed to 'reduce' Germanies population by a third or so after the war.
Fighting genocide with genocide...
Good that Morgenthau was US and not Soviet.
03:55 I didn't know that. But the idea of not letting Germany get strong again went away quickly, with the growing conflict between USA, and USSR.
Not letting Germany "get strong" was based out of fear, that some would say was justifiable. In the early days the Allies continued to encounter hardened pockets of resistance during denazification.
Once denazification began to produce results, the fear subsided somewhat and cooler heads like Marshall AND Erhard were finally allowed to prevail.
Summarized and shared to Facebook: "No, it wasn't the Marshall Plan that should be credited with the amazing recovery of West Germany after WW2. That US subsidy amounted to only about 5% of German GDP. Instead, it was the free market and hard currency policies of Ludwig Erhard. He reduced currency in circulation by 93%, thus taming inflation, and eliminated wage and price controls.
It was not government spending that allowed Germany to recover it's position as an economic powerhouse in Europe. It was free market policies.
And we should adopt those today, if we care about the poor."
The Federal Republic has always had a social market economy, with a lot of policies especially as regards public ownership, that many people in places like the UK or US would think are "socialist".
@@Korschtal There is no pure free market on the planet, and no pure socialism, either. All nations exist on a spectrum from more government control to less. My point is that Germany had a relatively free market economy, and it was that, not the Marshall Plan that was the primary cause of German economic success after WW2. I agree with you that there are socialistic elements in every nation's economy, including that of the US.
@@freesk8 The term socialist makes little sense though. The roots of the German welfare system was created by Bismarck, an autocratic monarchist and militarist. The reasoning for it is not grounded in socialism but a) in preventing it and b) Christian values.
In the same German socialism developed into social democracy which removes key assumptions of socialist theories and replaces it with freedom and democracy as the best basis for a prospering society, including the entire populace.
So ordo liberalism is actually supported and was created out political ideologies other countries consider incompatible as you have German conservatives and liberals creating supposedly socialist policies and German socialists embracing supposedly capitalist and liberal policies.
@@mangalores-x_x Socialism is state ownership of the means of production. Some nations nationalize some industries, but not others. Railroads in England, health care just about everywhere... So there is a spectrum from more government ownership at the socialist end, and much less government control at the other (free market) end. The USSR, Cuba, and N. Korea are examples of the left (socialist) end. Switzerland or Hong Kong before 2000 are examples of the free market end. All nations appear somewhere in the middle. France and China and Russia are in the middle. Some nations have a lot of ownership of the means of production, and still have democratic elections. Others have more free markets and still have democratic elections. Democracy and socialism are independent of each other. Though when socialism is more completely implemented, the quality of the democracy tends to be eroded. Single parties and rigged elections are more common with more complete implementations of socialism. Also, the more free market the economy, the more legitimate and democratic the elections tend to be. Switzerland and Ireland and Australia have much better democracy than does Russia and China.
Too binary. The Marshall Plan although smaller, did still provide the early stimulus needed to pull Germans out of the funk. The Marshall Plan was not a mistake, deindustrialization was. The Marshall Plan was the first furtive step at reversing deindustrialization.
Stop pushing zero sum binary knee-jerk reactionary thinking where one thing automatically excludes another.
I found this video from a reaction video and wanted to watch the original. A REALLY GOOD EXPLANATION. I mean it's REALLY GOOD and IMO totally unbiased and objective. Thank you very much, best wishes from a German.
Just imagine how eastern European countries could grow if allies have did not sell those to USSR in Yalta and all that Marschall plan money was given to them. I do understand the need of having a strong and big ally in Europe but it could be somebody else but not the nation that started the fire. As a Pole, I still find it unfair - Churchill had completely forgotten what our pilots did during the Battle of Britain and later in Europe. Roosevelt did not care at all and let Stalin put his hands wherever he wanted. Later on, during the Nuremberg trial, very few Nazis were convicted guilty. Plenty of them had a good life in post-war Germany working for the government or big industry. Even Adenauer admitted that without them it would be difficult to grow. While millions of people suffered communism for way too long.
this is very big shame for the west, that how eastern Europe after ww2 was left for Stalin tyranny, millions of people were tortured and killed after ww2.
Agree with you. Britain treated the Poles very badly AFTER they had helped win the Battle of Britain. Yalta was a disgraceful betrayal... just ask the Cossacks.
I hear this a lot from Poles. The British did not want Poland to be under Soviet rule, afterall, we entered the war precisely because the Nazis invaded you. Unfortunately, the Soviets amassed a huge army to defeat the Nazis, and there was nothing we could do to stop the Soviets without going to war with them too. This is the fate of nations. Britain was once ruled by Romans for over 400 years. All we can do is pick ourselves up and do our best. Complaining won't change the past.
@@pierrebuffiere5923 And what do you think we could have done? Fight the Soviets too? How many wars do we have to fight for others? Hitler wanted peace with Britain, but we fought him to free Europe. In the end it didnt work out, but we Brits sacrificed a lot to defeat the Nazis, and without us there would be no Poland now.
Simon says the economists estimated the Marshall's plan contribution to have been only 5% to the growth of Germany, yes Germany started the war but it has done a lot since then, and it would still have done alot on its own with or without the Marshall plan given its own industrial, intellectual & pioneering history. Most EU members Poland included has benefited immensely from German Investment and Infrastructure development through the EU, I honestly doubt Poland could have achieved all that Alone.
Simmons, just wanted to let you know, my fraternity used Square space to power our website. It is a fantastic product that you have endorsed!
interesting, sounds like people back then actually didn't learn from the aftermath of wwi, but fortunately changed course afterward
Understandable though.
We lost WW1.
Bounced back from everything and set everything up on the bomb.
Would you
a) have a low industrial Agrar Germany
b) give us a hand to rebuild and watch us eat the whole arm
That's very interesting, but where did post-war Germany get the capital to pay for all their new and rebuilt factories?
I’ve always had a sense of admiration for people and nations who were stripped of everything they pretty much had and still managed to get back on their feet and become a big contributor to the world we live in. Japan and Germany are great examples
Another very interesting video. Thank you for making the economics and maths easy to understand 😊
there was almost no math in the video...
Funfact: Food rationing in Britain went on longer than it did in defeated Germany...
Unfortunately, as a small island with a large population, we are dependent on imports.
@@dickmonkey-king1271 Agreed.
But the fact remains that food rationing went on longer than it did in defeated Germany.
I wonder if that, at least in part, explains the poor reputation of the UK's cuisine (which in my experience, is unjustified, but old stereotypes die hard).
@@eurodoc6343 One thing we do have here is no shortage of good restaurants.
Seriously!
@@davebarrowcliffe1289 I agree. I've eaten very well in the UK.
And for the feel good factor let’s not forget The Miracle of Berne in WC 1954, cementing (West) Germany’s rehabilitation
Thanks
Please can we have an episode on the Eurofighter typhoon? It is a very beautiful aircraft and it was certainly a Mega Project.
one of my uncles lived in Germany for a few decades being in the Army he was stationed there so when he retired he stayed . he had married a German woman and in the early 90's when she retired they both moved to the US . that's when I found out how bad it was being an employee in the US compared to working in Germany. they made 6 to 8 times what we did on average and had far better health care and full dental they had month long set vacations yearly and more holiday time then even us in the US all paid . I did get to drink a lot of good German beer so it kind of made up for how pissed off I was over the news about getting screwed weekly by our government
I finally have a cool idea! Please do a episode on the hidden bomber factory I think was in Long Beach during ww2
Germany faces a lot of problems today. The Infrastructure is old. Many bridges are closed for to heavy Trucks. Innovation is to slow. We have to manage more and more older People. We need a Another miricale for the future. But at the end i Love my Country
And this is why the country-balls memes always show Germany as saying "Wörk-wörk!" :P
Germans really don’t work that much, there are plenty of vacation days, holidays and usually not that many hours per week.
@@HingerlAlois I know, but memes aren't supposed to be correct. That being said, the Germans I've worked with have all had impeccable work ethics.
@@HingerlAlois Yes, but as a German as well that had some experience with foreign work ethic, the Germans in general have a "I work concentrated now to have free time later". But in many countries not the quality of the output, but only the time clocked counts, so people slack off.
This I think is the main difference in upbringing, the "when I do it, I do it right/correct/serious from the start!"
I work with German companies like BASF and Siemens. Their major concern is the ability to innovate, not to optimize or extend existing technologies. Right now they're very worried about battery technology disrupting existing petroleum fuel vehicles, an area where right now they feel very comfortable. This is why Volkswagen will stop development of the latter technology in 2025 but will not commit to a completely electric future until 2035. They feel they need those ten years to catch up, but the actual time is not based on anything except a reasonable estimate of how long innovation takes, not how to accomplish it.
80% of German heavy industry was intact at the end of the war, thanks to measures by Albert Speer to protect and disperse them and demanding and getting heavy anti aircraft protection in selected regions. This subsequently helped considerably in the rebuilding after the war.
The story of the inflation of the Papiermark would be a fascinating video for one of your other channels. Imagine having a 100,000,000,000,000 mark banknote, then imagine it being essentially worthless. With inflation like that, it’s easier to see how someone like Hitler could come to power.
I mean they already had one of the worlds largest industries before and during the war. Also they had some of the world best scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs. If you consider that, it’s not hard to believe that they recovered quickly after the war. It’s not like it was a third world country that had nothing to begin with…
MEGA PROJECT - U.S. military industrial complex
I wonder why Britains version of project paper clip wasn't mentioned
Ludwig Erhard should have received the Nobel Prize for Economics. His methods might not have worked everywhere, but they worked miracles for his homeland’s economy, in ruins after the war. The Marshall Plan also helped, of course.
As a brit, I have to say, I love Germany....Did somebody say Nurburgring???
As a German I'm very confused about your last question "Will the wirtschaftswunder press on?". OF COURSE NOT, the Wirtschaftswunder was the extreme fast recovery after WW2.
I like the video, but i missed something closely connected to the Wirtschaftswunder, the state of Germany after WW2. Yes, many people were dead and much was destroyed, but besides that, really many industrial complexes still were functional. What was most missing was infrastructure, more concrete roads and railroads. There is no difference whether a fabric is destroyed, its workers are dead or it has no connection anything outside its premises, it can't do anything, and that's what was disrupted so good by war. Not the actual fabric. Says a channel Simon could know: VisualPolikDE th-cam.com/users/VisualPolitikDE, sister channel of VisualPolitikEN
Fabric is a false friend and means Stoff. Factory is the word you're looking for.
You nazis also murdered many of your own highly productive citizens, Yes that bit of fabric as you put it is what you b@stards murdered.
There definitely were a ton of destroyed factories after the war,
and destroyed infrastrcture as well, but not enough to be the biggest problem, lots of factories had been refitted to manufacture warmachines and/or equiment, that all had to be replaced as well.
I really can´t believe how dumb that first plan was tho...
Why destroy factories if your aim is to help rebuild? Stupid^^
@@iron_side5674 Germany was rebuilt to serve as a market for American goods. At the end it was a clever investment for the US.
Additionally West Germany was a buffer zone for other European nations like France in cold war. If the Soviets would have taken West Germany too Communists would have been standing directly at the Rhine and the France border
@@simonm1447 Did you know about the nuclear bombs, the US stationed close to the East German border? There were special holes in the roads, where the bombs should be placed in case of a Russian attack... and turn the borderland into a nuclear wasteland.
Hi Simon Hopefully you would also do one on Japan and South Korea
Talk about buying the dip
Among the economic effects that were not known was the repatriation of large savings in the Swiss banks. Huge quantities of gold was sent there during the war. This was unknown until one Swiss citizen violated their banking secrecy laws and disclosed it decades later. Into W. Germany this cash transfer was greater than the amount of the Marshal Plan invested into W. Germany. Without the Marshal Plan these transfers would have impossible to hide.
This is why economic history should be taught on par with political and military history. Schools focus so much on the history of destruction and war - what if we focused more on history of creation and prosperity?
Simon I know this isn't brain blaze where you joke around more and insert the finest vintage memes when you read about the 5 Ds after Germany's surrender to play the Deez nuts clip. I was holding my breath waiting for it but you failed me Simon.....failed me.
They also have HK, who also makes the USP. Which would make a good video
Such a great video. Lots of data. Now I got the answer to my query
It was the same with Japan.
Either you give up or get on with it.
That's your only choice.
Lots of people also migrated away after the war, there was a huge brain drain going on after the war.
However that was a limited option, because a lot of people thought every German speaker is a Nazi, as long as there wasn't a Swiss passport at hand.
@@MaxiTB Well to be fair the most famous German emigrant who can be counted as part of the 'brain drain' was a certain Wernher von Braun.
He kinda /was/ a Nazi.
Well, as a German I have to say that these days it looks like that Germany loses its grip on things with to little innovation and education in the tech-sector. We abandoned nuclear (one of the most important industrial sectors in the future) still dont produce good batteries or chips and are more interested in virtue signaling than our own economic interests.
When Germany recommenced reparations payments in 1953, why did it agree to that on the condition that only Australia was excluded from payments?
Looking casual today, Simon
Nice research done in this video, I approve this message, keep it going.
in east germany i did NOT learn that the russians moved just about any bits of industry out, they could possibly move. With the cold war starting, East Germany paid all of "Germanys" reparations to the soviets alone. A fact conveniently ignored when people complain about the costs of reunification. In other words, East and West started the war togetherbut the East paid for it mostly alone. Not that East german schools or auhtorities or russian overlords would ever say that out loud.
While the Marshall gave the West at least a good kick, the east was bled out. The British and France also removed stuff for reparations but the Marshall plan and the Wirtschaftswunder soon replaced those with new, better ones. So the UK for example ended up with some old german industry and Germany with NEW one.
When the cold war kicked in , with East Germany right in the geographical "socialism" shop Window, It was allowed to get going at least abit. But by then said socialism had already kicked in and made real progress famously impossible.
And no, there was not, is not and very likely will never be "communism" anywhere in the world (in a larger scale). It's silly to cal the USSR or GDR that, it is downright brainkillingly idiotic to do it with todays China.
On a much lighter note: Funny that Wernher von Braun became (the highly successful) Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center.
FFS can we stop comparing monies used in the past *when they cost what they actually cost to what it may of cost today.* It is never gonna happen now so the comparison is bloody pointless.
It’s so sad that Germany didn’t take this route in the 1930s instead of attacking everyone.
I would like to see a video on the F15 program, last year they revealed a new version of this plane.
The strike eagle version holds the only air to air kill with a (2000lb) bomb.
12 minutes and almost 700 views. Says a lot about the content of this channel and simons hosting
That's a slow day for Simon, I've seen videos where thousands watched in 2-3 minutes.
I think we now devalue and ignore the concrete quality of what people did with what they had at the time in favour of abstract qualities like economic theory. Both are important, but I've payed attention to the former because of an opinion based upon observation my step-father said when he was in both Germany and Japan almost immediately after the war: he was surprised and impressed by the “old women who were picking up bricks, chipping the concrete off them, and placing them in a pile for reuse” in situations like you see at 13:30. Unfortunately, it's against the current _gleichschaltung_ to say that maybe, just maybe, not all cultures are equal, and that some are more productive or better than others.
I love your videos Simon.
Is there a video on operation paperclip itself? If not I think it could make a great video
German produces the Best cars ..the best enginering ….Period
Do one about Trinidad and Tobago
They're the best.
"German science is the greatest in the world" - Rudol von Stroheim
Simon, of all people I would expect you to know that neither sheeps nor Euros should ever be said.
Thank you for not using The Hobbit as a movie example.
A now deceased friend who had several friends in Germany told me at the time of reunification that the former East Germans initially had a hard time getting most of the West Germans out of the Communist mindset and lack of initiative towards working. He told me one German friend said to him “sooner or later… zey vill vork”… implying they will shape up or else…
It wasn't the workers' fault - they were just as well educated as those in the West. It was the state-planned economy that was unproductive. An economy cannot function if there is no healthy competition between manufacturing companies. In principle, East Germany has eaten itself.
I like that he keeps saying German and not Nazi
Yes because it didn't apply to nazis
Do you have an operation paperclip video yet?
Thanks for a very informative video. 😃👌👌👏👏👏
Real Talk
Great video!
Truly amazing recovery, Unbelievable!
Maybe your script writers should look outside of US sources if they think the US had to persuade anyone to not follow a US inspired idea. Look into the re-setup of VW for example, nothing to do with US influence.
When the rest of the allies were pouring $trillions into defence for the cold war, West Germany was free to invest in itself.
Good point!
Not really, defense spending in West Germany during the cold war was not low, only after 1990 it dropped significantly.
Sunak and J.K.Hunt need to watch this video and learn, a lesson from History you cannot Tax your why out of a crisis!
You need to do a video on Konrad adinhower