REBUILDING GERMANY

The Marshall Plan facilitated the rise of the West German economy from the ashes of conflict while enhancing US prestige in the early years of the Cold War

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Germany's post-war revival was indeed a miracle, but also the product of investment, rebuilding, muscle and brawn, and the eventual realisation that its economy, as well as those of other nations, simply had to be revived after the cataclysm of the Second World War.

When the war came to an end in May 1945, German cities lay in ruin and urban populations had been dispersed.

Some estimates indicate that since 1939 the industrial capacity of the now-shattered country had been reduced by a least one-third. Allied bombs had laid waste to infrastructure, housing and manufacturing facilities, and even agriculture felt the sting of defeat. It fell to the victorious Allies to determine the fate of millions of Germans - civilians and demobilising military personnel alike.

Allied leaders had contemplated the post-war situation in Germany well before the end of hostilities and come to the conclusion that the nation that had plunged humanity into world war twice in a half-century should never be capable of doing so again. US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr advocated a blueprint that would achieve that end, and it bore his name.