German War Economy

After the war, Germany’s economy took a plunge from debt imposed on them by the Treaty of Versailles. Desperate to get the country’s economy up again, the government produced a surplus of money which only lead to hyperinflation. Money became of lesser value than before the war, and eventually even bread cost a fortune to buy. Adolf Hitler soon came into the picture, vowing to relieve Germans of their economic struggles by proposing to raise prices of produce for local farmers to give them more money for necessities, also making up for losses incurred during the Great Depression. He also promoted the ideas of forming jobs to build public buildings, restore the profits of small business, and remove communism threats. Due to the Germans being in extreme financial stress, Hitler rapidly gained support. In Document 4, Heinrich Hauser stated that “unskilled young people, for the most part, who had been unable to find a place for themselves in any city or town in Germany, and who

However this does not necessarily mean that defeat was an inevitable outcome. Hitler’s predictions of the German economic standing globally before the war would likely have given him a false illusion of Germans economic might. The statistics gathered caused him not to assess the USA or Russia as the potential superpowers or industrial giants they were to become, and rightly so. In 1936 America’s army was 110,000 men strong, its military spending was 1% of its annual budget and it had no independent air force and an unarmed navy The prediction was made that either country would not be able to mobilise an effective industry compared to Germany’s inside a four year time limit So is it reasonable to say that even economically Germany was facing a potential victory even though so many say this war was won by economics and economics alone? Not only did Germany have an impressive production capability already but it was sitting very close to potentially enormous deposits of resources, most notably the oil in The caucuses south of Rostov and Stalingrad. In 1941 German production of crude oil was 33.4 million tons compared to Russia’s 110 million tons. Now at this stage in the war the USA was still not involved so German commitments even though on two fronts were only faced with a large pressure from Russia on the Eastern front. Certainly if Germany had taken the caucuses and their invaluable oil Russia would have been crippled

There are many different factors attributed to Germany’s early success during the Second World War. While some factors were more significant to the German’s success, there is no debating that all of them contributed to the German’s attacking and conquering of Europe. It took quite a while for the Germans to begin to have trouble winning battles. The early success of Germany from 1939 to 1941 was due to Western Europe being afraid to have another World War, America’s lack of initial intervention, the Blitzkrieg, and Adolf Hitler’s intelligent militaristic strategy.

During World War II, Germany’s military was superior to anyone else in the world, with far more advanced technology, tactics, and weaponry. They had a fearless leader who would stop at nothing to make his country great again. Their closest rival, the Soviet Union, was almost out of the picture with a death toll of over 26 million. On top of that, Germany had nothing to lose, and would not conceivably stop. So how then, with all odds against them, did the Allies win the war? A combination of factors affected Germany’s downfall, such as lack of morale, unwieldy weapons, and failure to work with its so-called allies.

After World War II Germany was left devastated and in ruins. There had been massive destruction of the country’s infrastructure (Bessel 2011), it lacked political structure and economic activity had plummeted. There was a scarcity of food, fuel and housing and Germany was in no condition to clothe or feed its population (O’Dochartaigh 2003).

It can be argued that the Schlieffen Plan was openly rigid and brittle which meant that the Germans had no choice

World War Two impacted many countries, such as Germany, Japan, England France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. World War Two was a very serious war, and it did not only affect the Jews, it affected many people. World War Two was caused by many events, but the main ones are economic, political, and social events.

After German’s failed attempt to take France under the Schleiffen Plan in 1914, the war entered into a stalemate between German and French/British forces.1 To break the stalemate Germany attempted to force France into battles that they were required to defend at all cost and in turn exhausting France’s precious resources of men and supplies.2 One such example is the siege of Verdun and the end result for Germany was not the collapse and fall of France as they expected, so the stalemate continued along with the very effective British naval blockade.3 The longer than expected war and the naval blockade left Germany’s interior in shambles. In 1916 Germany suffered from inflation on goods and starvation of its civilian populace, which lead to riots

France specifically, “which had borne much of the burden” of WWI, experienced devastating consequences especially economically. The war resulted in the coal mines, which the “French economy depended for its power” being flooded (Macmillan 28) . Furthermore, their factories were “razed or carted away into Germany” and “Six thousand square miles of France” that produced crops, steel, and iron were ruined (Macmillan 28). Though France was not affected as severely in WWII, they still had lost influential power and suffered economically. As for Germany, since it was deemed responsible for WWI, was forced to pay reparations. Not only did Germany have to pay economically, but also had to downgrade its army to “100,000 men”, and was forced to cut down its navy and terminate its air force (Duiker 80). Germany, though it agreed to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, became resentful and that resent would eventually lead to WWII. After WWII, Germany once again was left ruined, with the Nazi Regime being defeated and parts of the country being a wasteland. However, not all of the effects of the war were negative. One of the main positive effects of both wars included the expansion of roles for women. Due to war, “the number of women employed in Britain who held new jobs or replaced men rose by 1,345,000” (Duiker

On August 14, 1914, the German Reichstag commenced to make known that the German civilians should unite and defend their own country. They announced a “civil peace” which meant that all previous conflicts or issues would be set aside for the duration of war. They also began the mobilization for World War I. When the emperor first declared the policy in 1914, the people were joyful and in awe. By 1915 and 1916, the people’s views shifted from being optimistic to opposing war because war caused them to overwork and was the source for the food shortages; the government lost many of their supporters as a result. To end, in 1918, civilians from both sides who was either opposing war or supporting it affected the German population because of their different opinions which led to the defeat of Germany in World War I.

The worst thing that happened to Germany economically was it lost all its colonies and 70,000 km of territory. Germany was broke, and still had to pay

A different area of failure in terms of economics was the ‘Guns versus Butter’ in 1936. The Nazis wanted to concentrate on rearmament but arms industries needed to import materials such as copper, aluminium, rubber and petrol. On top of all this, Germany

The perspective the West German government and society took when evaluating how to deal with the atrocities of World War II was one of understanding and acceptance. The West German people believed that learning from past mistakes and blunders of German government prevails over negligence and silence to the actions that took place. However, there was a major obstacle in the way of maintaining the peoples ability to start anew and accept the past. This obstacle was the ten thousand prisoners of war which still remained in Soviet custody, of which about half the population of Germany had some kind of connection with. The German people finally had a “approachable, human man” (Moeller, 93) in Adenauer which they could trust to conquer this hurdle and return the missing volk.

“Taxation did not cover the daily expenses of fighting – or at least not to any significant degree. At best (in the United States and Britain), taxation paid for less than a quarter of the war’s ongoing costs; at worst (in France, Austria-Hungary, and Russia) for none of them.” “In both nations [Britain and France] borrowing was the largest source of government revenue, as it was in Germany and indeed in all of the belligerents.” The direct consequence provoked government reliance on debt financing.

Europe experienced a slow growth pattern due to WW II and as such the per capita of Europe was reduced during the period of 1913-1929 (Broadberry & Harrison, 2005). The World War included high military spending since the countries required a stronger army force to fight the war and this led to the government allocating most of the spending in military and paying no attention to other economic sectors of the economy. Wars can also the Gross National Product (GNP) and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since most countries depend on imports and exports to sustain their economies; this trade was disrupted by World War II. According to Broadberry and Harrison (2005), the World War did not take into consideration the economic effects associated with the war since the Germans assumed the war would not last that long. The war went on for a long time and this led to serious economic changes. The war led to the collapse of empires and giving rise to new nations. Other countries were negatively affected by the war while in some countries the war led to economic