Germany experienced a lot of economic changes after Germany was split into East Germany and West Germany. Initially, West Germany was established as a federal republic but was established as it’s own independent nation in 1955. Many events happened in West Germany from the 1950s to the 1980s before Germany became one nation again. There were events such as “oils price shocks, generous social programs, rising deficits and loss of control.” East Germany’s economy was strong due to the Soviet Union’s reliance on Eastern Germany’s production of machine tools, chemicals and electronics. It became appealing to reunite with West Germany when the value of East Germany’s currency became “worthless” outside of it’s country because Eastern Germany was relying on the Soviet Union’s demand (Marketline).
The two countries reunified in 1990 and the reunification caused a decrease in Germany’s economic strength. This was due largely to Eastern Germany’s reliance on the Soviet Union for economic strength and stability. This remained true from 1991 to 1999 and is reflected in Germany’s average economic growth of 1.8%. Their growth started to increase in 2000 to 3.3%. This was due to the “rise in merchandise exports and foreign direct investment” (Marketline).
A strong year in 2000 was followed by an average of .6% growth rate from 2001-2005. Germany was affected by the world’s economic status, which caused a drop in German exports. Since exports are one of the largest contributors to Germany’s GDP, it caused the their economy to slow. In addition to the world’s economic status, they were also affected by the “appreciating euro and sagging domestic investment” (Marketline).
In 2006 and 2007 the growth rate recovered to 3.9% and 3.4% but then dr...
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... Trading Economics: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/germany/inflation-cpi
•The Economists : print edition. (2014, April 12). Charlemenge: The laws of euro-nomics. Retrieved from The Economists: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21600723-german-legalism-hampering-rational-crisis-management-laws-euro-nomics?zid=295&ah=0bca374e65f2354d553956ea65f756e0
•The Heritage Foundation. (2014). 2014 Index of Economic Freedom. Retrieved from The Heritage Foundation: http://www.heritage.org/index/country/germany
•The Irish Times. (2014, April 30). German unemployment falls twice as much as forecast. Retrieved from The Irish Times: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/german-unemployment-falls-twice-as-much-as-forecast-1.1778622
•World Trade Organization. (2014, March). Germany. Retrieved from http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?Language=E&Country=DE
In World War II the Allied Forces had a "Europe First" campaign of invading the Atlantic countries before the Pacific. This is because Germany served as a bigger threat than Japan to the Allied Powers. In the United States, Franklin Delanor Roosevelt was the President. He kept America neutral at first, but later entered in after Pearl Harbor. George Patton was a popular U.S. Army leader who started tank warfare in America. Bernard Montgomery commanded the 8th Army which had victories in Europe including D-Day. At the near end of the war Omar Bradley toured through Germany notifying the rest of the world what had gone on there with all of the death camps during the Holocaust, which was where the murder of over 6 millioin Jewish people took place.
Richard Bessel’s article stresses the political structure of Weimar Germany as the cause of its failure. Its structure was flawed in numerous ways, all of which contributed to its inevitable failure. First of all, the problems within Germany due to the First World War were massive. This caused economic, political and social problems which first had to be dealt with by the new Weimar government. The loss of the war had left Germany with huge reparations to pay, and massive destruction to repair. In order to gain the capital needed to finance efforts to rebuild, and repay the Allies, the economy had to be brought back to its prewar levels. This was not an easy task.
Leick, Romain, Matthias Schreiber and Hans-Ulrich Stoldt. "Out of the Ashes: A New Look at Germany's Postwar Reconstruction.". 2010. 20 March 2014.
Tom Newton Dunn, ‘Go to the war on the Eurom Law’ The Sun, 7 February 2011accessed 29 March 2011 http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3395471/David-Cameron-urged-to-go-to-war-over-Euro-law.html
The United States economy had become so co-dependent with other countries’ economies because there was so much overseas investment. It started overseas. The Germans had a period of speculation and were trying to reduce the changes of inflation. They were raising interest rates to make their currency more valuable...
Even though Berlin lay deep within the Soviet sector, the Allies thought it would be the best to divide this capital. Therefore Berlin was also divided into four parts. Since the Soviet Union was in control of the eastern half of Germany, they made East Berlin the capital of East Germany. The other three counties were each in control of a small part of what was to be West Germany. The Allies decided that they would come together to form one country out of their three divided parts. Those three divided parts formed West Germany. After all the land was divided the Soviet Union controlled East Germany. Just like the Soviet Union, the economy in East Germany was struggling to get back on its feet after the war. While West Berlin became a lively urban area like many American cities, East Berlin became what many thought of as a ‘Mini-Moscow’. In East Germany there was literary almost nothing. The shelves in the stores were practically bare, and what was there was not in very good quality.
The German Reunification failed in its attempt to bring the two Germanys together after being separated for nearly 45 years. The myriad of negative ramifications brought about by the Reunification only strengthened the divide between the East and West Germans. The devaluation of the East German mark and depopulation of East German cities, along with unemployment and poor living conditions, instigated discontent among the East Germans. West Germany’s “taking over” of East Germany in the act of Reunification induced a lopsided economy with its Eastern half still trying to catch up to its Western half, establishing the myth of German Reunification.
Wars are good business. They create an immediate demand for a wide variety of materials needed by the government in order to fight the war. They create work opportunities for people that might not ordinarily be considered part of the normal work force. And, while not necessarily good for the soldiers engaged in the fighting, wars are always good for the businesses that provide the materials used in a war. The Second World War was very good for business.
...After we consider all these points mentioned we begin to see how everything worked and connected to form one huge disaster for Germany. We start to see how all these things played a part, the reparations led to unemployment that led to no money that led to overprinting of money. How the huge consequence of the reparations led to the unsuccessful paying of it leading to the French invasion of the Ruhr which led to strikes and therefore no products to trade with. How the unstable Weimar government led to extremist parties that damaged the economy further and brought inflation to its highest. The effects were probably the worst, the starvation coupled with the disease epidemic that killed people off and the worthless tonnes of paper notes roaming around the nation. It all in all was a very bad time in Germany one that they always found it hard to recover from.
The defeat of Germany in World War Two was due to many factors. All of these factors were influenced by the leadership and judgment of Adolf Hitler. Factors such as the stand fast policy, Hitler’s unnecessary and risky decision making in military situations, for example when attacking the USSR, and the declaration of war on the US. Plus other factors, like Hitler’s alliance with Italy, despite its obvious weaknesses, and the pursuit of the final solution, can all be attributed to the poor leadership and judgement of the Fuhrer, which would eventually lead to the downfall of the Third Reich.
Severe economic problems arose in Germany essentially due to the punitive provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. “The German government began to print money to pay its bills.” (McKay, 872). In order to make up for the massive debt and reparations connected to the Treaty of Versailles, the government started to print loads of money. The influx of money across Germany due to newly printed bills caused prices to rise. Money became rather worthless with an abundance of it, which hurt many people’s incomes. Hyperinflation soon occurred, which put the economy in a weak position and further contributed to the downfall of the Weimar Republic.
In 1947, the Western portion of Germany instituted a government under the watchful eyes of the Western Allies. The Soviet sector followed suit in 1949. During this period, the elaborate governance structure of greater Berlin broke under the strain of Cold War tensions. What emerged was West Berlin, which took up ties with West Germany, known as the Federal Republic of Germany. East Berlin, which comprised the ruins of the old and historic center of Berlin and outlying districts to the East, became the capital of the German Democratic Republic. After World War II, the Americans pumped capital into West Germany through the Marshall Plan, which resulted in one of the world's strongest economies, enormous prosperity and a stable democracy. Germany has been divided ever since and though at every opportunity, lip service was paid by all western nations to its eventual reunification, no one took the matter seriously.
...tical and economic woes attributed to reunification, Germany would be able to fortify its status as a reunified nation in the years to come.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. Kitchen, Martin. A History of Modern Germany: 1800-2000. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. Sprout, Otto.
Despite the favourable outlook of Germans regarding reunification, its initial stages were unsuccessful in establishing a foundation which Germany could answer the people’s dreams of peace, prosperity and unity. The collapse of communism in Europe signified a change in people’s ways of thinking due to the fact East Germans had experienced suppression for forty years. Subsequent to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the March 1990 free elections, a positive outlook for the future and belief in freedom began to proliferate amongst East Germans. German Chancellor Kohl took an optimistic outlook for the future, and believed German free enterprise would create ‘economic miracles’ . This new method of thinking was growing within the East of Berlin before the problems of reunification that soon grew within society.