After the War
Conference on GermanyFrom July 7 till August 2, 1945 the last of the allied war conferences took place in Cecilienhof castle in Potsdam. It decided on the future of Germany: the northern part of East Prussia with Königsberg got under Soviet administration; large areas in the east under Polish administration. The remaining German territory as divided in four - an American, a British, Soviet and a French -zones of occupation whose commanders in chief formed the "Allied Control Council".
Many cities had been destroyed by bombs, and many villages lay in ashes. People had very little to eat. many homes were badly damaged, there was no running water and no electricity. The streets and ways were destroyed, the post and telecommunication system almost paralyzed. The hospitals were overcrowded.
In a booklet in German Heinz Klein from the village of Heisterbacherrott remembers those years. In simple words and with a lot of compassion he writes about families torn apart, of grief and need, and of helpfulness to share the few houses and shelters with the needy and refugees. There is shared joy when a family member comes home, and sympathy for the forced labor workers who could finally travel home. There is at first the Allies' hatred and rejection against all Germans, and then free school meals. He reports about the great need and the hunger in the years after the war. Potatoes, a little bit of fruit and coffee beans were wonderful. Also coal to heat in the bitterly cold winter was a fortune, and people would wait for a freight train to stop in order to take a bit of coal.
Josef Cardinal Frings, warmly remembered Archbishop of Cologne in those days, had said in his New Year's Eve sermon 1946 that, in times so hard, it was no sin: "We live in times where the single individual is allowed to take what is necessary to preserve his live and health when he cannot receive it by hard work or bidding".
The Seven Mountains were part of the British zone of occupation. In 1947, the federal states of Northrhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and the city state of Hamburg were created.
The Soviet sphere of influence became larger and larger, not only in the later "Soviet Bloc", but also in Greece and in Turkey. Both countries asked the USA for assistance. Also countries in Western Europe were in great need, and the Communist propaganda made use of that. In this situation, US President Truman announced a policy of the "containment".
On initiative of the American Minister of Foreign Affairs George C. Marshal began, in 1947, the "European Recovery Program" or simply "Marshal Plan" to "combat hunger, poverty, despair and chaos": large quantities of food, raw material, machines and also money were given to the European states in need, so that the economy could recover. In turn, 18 free countries grouped together in the "Organization for European Economic Corporation", and from this 1960 the "Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development" (OECD) emerged. The Marshall Plan helped a great deal to get Western Germany back on her feet. Armament and war had led to a collapse of German economy, and the value of the Reichsmark had fallen into a bottomless abyss. The "valid currency" were American cigarettes. Upon the Allies' orders, many factories, not only in the armaments industry, the machines were dismantled and brought abroad. Other factories could not be rebuilt again. The German economy broke down, and eventually there was not sufficient income to pay for imported groceries.
Finally the Americans suggested tounite the zones of occupation economically, aiming at a federal state. At the beginning of the year, Americans and Britain united their zones of occupation into to the Bizone; with the annexation of the French zone in 1948 the Trizone emerged. In those days, the Rhinelanders sang a carnival song that went "We are the inhabitants of Trizonesia".
"An Iron Curtain has swept across the continent" Winston ChurchillAt the same time, the failure of the Allied Control Council became apparent, the differences between the Western powers USA, England and France on one side and the Soviet Union on the other were to great. The zones occupied by the British, the French and the USA should become democracies; the Soviet occupation zone should become a communistic country. When the Western powers began negotiations over a uniting their zones of occupation, the Soviet Union left the Allied Control Council in March 1948. De facto, Germany now was a divided country.
Shortly after, the Soviet Union blockaded all roads, railways and water ways on which goods came into Berlin. But British and American airplanes flew food and coal into the three west sectors. Thanks to the "raisin bombers" and their own great discipline, the people of Berlin got through the winter 1948/49 despite many deprivations, and the blockade was lifted at the beginning of May 1949. But the separation and the "cold war" were there. On October 7, 1949, the constitution of the German Democratic Republic came in force.
The chairman of the economic administration in the Bizone was Ludwig Erhard, under him the currency reform was accomplished. It was a condition for recovering the economy, and the later "Wirtschaftswunder", the economic miracle of the 50s.
The following pictures are from the German Wikipedia. Die folgenden Bilder stammen aus der freien Enzyklopädie Wikipedia und stehen unter der Creative Commons Lizenz 3.0. Sie wurden im Rahmen einer Kooperation zwischen dem Bundesarchiv und Wikimedia Deutschland aus dem Bundesarchiv für Wikimedia Commons zur Verfügung gestellt:
Währungsreform, Juni 1948, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-M0425-333 / Donath, Herbert / CC-BY-SA;
Wähhrungsreform, Urheber Herbert Donath, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-M0425-325 / CC-BY-SA;
Kohlenklau 1946, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R70463 / CC-BY-SA;
Potsdamer Konferenz, Gruppenbid, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R86965 / CC-BY-SA;
Potsdamer Konferenz, Konferenztisch, Bild 183-R67561 / CC-BY-SA;
Essen, Währungsreform, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-2005-1017-513 / CC-BY-SA;
Ludwig Erhard mit seinem Buch, Urheberin Doris Adrian, Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F004204-0003 / Adrian, Doris / CC-BY-SA;
Die nachfolgend aufgeführten Fotos stammen aus der freien Enzyklopädie Wikipedia und stehen unter der GNU-Lizenz für freie Dokumentation:
Josef Kardinal Frings Urheber;
Deutschland Besatzungszonen 1945 Urheber
Pictures from Wikipedia's public domain section are mentioned under References.