Adenauer and Post-War Germany

Adenauer and Post-War Germany

Introduction

The downfall of Germany after the Second World War is an outcome thought by many that time as deserving for a nation touted to have caused one of the most atrocious events in human history. The Nazi Party, which ran Germany under its terrible regime before and during the Second World War, has perpetrated a series of destructive actions that soon wrought havoc to the rest of the world. From the anti-Semitic platform of the Nazi Party that generated the Holocaust up to the unholy alliances with Italy, Japan and others under the Axis Powers that led to massive destruction of lives and properties in different parts of the world, Germany undoubtedly had the greatest responsibility to account for with regard to the Second World War. Therefore, the victors of the Second World War – France, the Soviet Union (USSR), United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US), partitioned Germany into four parts and sought to apply their own sets of post-war recovery agendas within each assigned German territory. The US eventually united with France and UK to form the tri-zone – later West Germany, while the USSR isolated itself to form East Germany (Fulbrook 205-235).

As the US consolidated its influence over West Germany, two crucial courses of action have emerged – the Marshall Plan and the Morgenthau Plan. Both employ highly contrasting objectives – the Marshall Plan outlined a set of goals allowing West Germany to resurrect its industrial power, while the Morgenthau Plan sought to disable any German war effort from ever emerging in the future by implementing de-industrializing measures towards reversion to an agricultural economy. Whereas both the Marshall Plan and the Morgenthau Plan sought for the complet...

... middle of paper ...

...the Nazi Party, its implementation would render other foregoing consequences of the Marshall Plan somewhat inconceivable, given the reversion to an agricultural economy would not do West Germany a favor in terms of effective economic recovery and building an improved image before the international community. Consequentially, the Morgenthau Plan would not have enabled the US to use West Germany well as its strategic partner in curtailing the USSR in Europe during the Cold War.

Works Cited

Fulbrook, Mary. A Concise History of Germany. 2nd ed. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print.

Hohn, Maria. GIs and Fräuleins: The German-American Encounter in 1950s West Germany. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Print.

Turner, Henry Ashby. Germany from Partition to Reunification. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1992. Print.