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Writers, Media and Society in Contemporary Germany. Lebendiges Museum online: http://www.dhm.de/lemo/. The Restoration of West German Society. Germany at the “Zero Hour” Allied Plans for Germany and particularly Denazification Restoration of German State & Society.
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Writers, Media and Society in Contemporary Germany • Lebendiges Museum online: http://www.dhm.de/lemo/
The Restoration of West German Society • Germany at the “Zero Hour” • Allied Plans for Germany and particularly Denazification • Restoration of German State & Society
Handbill 1946, offering a children’s bed in exchange for potatoes
Henry J.Morgenthau, US treasury secretary, Jan 1934 - July 1945 • Morgenthau Plan: • permanent division of Germany into several pieces • end of all higher education • destruction and future prohibition of all heavy industry • official Allied policy Sept 1944 to Spring 1945 but never put into practice
Germany after the Potsdam conference, July 17 to Aug 2, 1945
The four ‘D’s • Denazification • Demilitarisation • Decartelisation (breaking up of large industrial conglomerates) • Democatisation
Denazification • Law for Liberation divides all German into 5 categories: major offenders, offenders, lesser offenders, followers (Mitläufer), non-offenders. • ‘Der Fragebogen’
Political parties • Social Democrats (SPD) • Communist party (KPD) • Centre Party (Zentrum) • Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with its Bavarian sister Christian SocialUnion (CSU). • Liberals (FDP)
European Recovery Programme (ERP) or Marshall-Plan • Established 12.7.1947 • Grants and cheap loans for European countries • Purpose: warding off communism
Currency reform 1948,enabling the Wirtschaftswunder • Introduced by Ludwig Erhard, director of Wirtschaftsrat, 21.6.1949 • Exchange rate 10 Reichsmark = 1 Deutsche mark
The Berlin airlift (Luftbrücke), 1948-1949a ‘Rosinenbomber’ • Berlin Blockade, June 1945 - May 1946
CDU election poster with Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967), chancellor 1949-63
Ludwig Erhard (CDU), first economic minister in Adenauer’s government 1949, chancellor 1961-1964