FRG notes en anglais

• Denazification – 5 million people who are in the Nazi Party + others have joined Nazi unions/or are associated with Nazism in some way

• Need a trial (Nuremburg) – only people who have done the worst
• Can’t try everyone because society needs to run + lack of will to do it
• No government for it
• People who are Nazis do have expertise/ people are professionals -> so they’re missing professionals
• Don’t want people to turn to communism/Stalin

• Germany = area of propaganda

• Allies need it to prosper – so when Stalin’s GDR turns out bad, capitalism looks better than communism

• Families of people who die after Holocaust – Israel created + request reparations
• Germany = bombed entirely

• Need to rebuild

• Economy = bad

• Nazi accumulated a lot of debt
• Germany writes off its own debts over 400 billion dollars
• German economy shrank to 30% over the war
• Inflation – people aren’t using money anymore
• BUT they have very modern industry – 50% of fixed assets in Germany in 1946 were less than 10 years old

• No food/starvation

 Creation of the FRG

• 4 million Germans dead
• 10 million expelled as refugees from areas of Est Europe it had controlled
• No functioning institutions/economy
• Fear of starvation/outbreak of disease among germans, many who were living in cellars or the open – with their homes having been destroyed
• 7 million adult men missing/prisoners of war – if captured by the Russians, they would die or not reappear for ten years

Allied Plans

• Did not have a coherent long-term strategy for Germany
• Initially focused on demilitarisation and de-Nazification
• Allied zones merged + Berlin crisis’s

Division + Occupation of post-war Germany

• Yalta conference
• Potsdam – deindustrialisation + democratisation added
• Each country would take reparations from their own zones
• USA + Britain would give the USSR 10% of industrial machinery + another 15% in return for food + raw materials

Long term Division

• No clear plan to divide it permanently
• Assumed that Germany would eventually be reunited
• Allies saw it as a capitalist democracy – Stalin emphasised communism
• Priorities were to de-nazify Germany + make it function enough to ward off a humanitarian crisis

Western Zones increased co-operation

• Rebuilding + reparations was destroying the German economy in the late 40s
• West Germany was dependent on food from the east – when these stopped, many Germans existed on fewer than 1000 calories per day
• USA + Britain realised that a poverty-stricken Germany was good for no one
• For recovery they tried to co-operate
• 1946 = Bizonia
• 1949 = Trizonia
• Unification made a political union more likely
• Created two Germanies

Tensions in the Allied Control Council

• Co-operation between Russians and the Western powers was breaking down in the ACC – e.g US zone refused reparations to USSR in 1946 – USSR refused to give food
• Treaty of Brussels = Western European union
• 1948 – Russian representative walked out of the ACC over plans to introduce the Deutschmark in three western zones – said the council had no future
• USA announced military would remain in Germany

Marshall Plan + Berlin Blockade

• Deutschmark = success – led to immediate economic recovery for the west with the help of Marshall aid
• Soviets introduced Ostmark
• Airlift – 4641 tonnes of supplies a day
• 1949 = 8000 tonnes a day e.g. coal

Political Parties in the Western Zones

• CDU/CSU – Christian democratic Union/Christian social union – led by Adenauer, embraced former members of the ZP, nationalists + democrats who veered right but also had a genuine feel for social welfare
• SPD – led by Schumacher, survived from Weimar, maintained socialist agenda, mixed with elements of nationalism
• Free democratic Party – FDP
• Other small parties also appeared
• Partoes wanted to avoid the divisions of the 1920s that had partly contributed to Hitler coming to power in Jan 1933
• Formation of Basic Law – gave the FRG a new democratic constitution – was to lead to self-governance

CDU – Christian Democratic Union

• Adenauer’s party
• Dominate FRG period
• Take up people from the old ZP + DNVP (nationalist ish party/right wing)
• Genuine focus on social welfare – they have to have this focus, because of Germany’s awful societal situation

SPD – social democratic party

• Left leaning party
• Massive programme of social welfare
• Want the state to own key areas of industry – e.g. heavy industry, railways etc.
• Democratic party – dead against communism
• Socialist view on society

FRG elections

• 5% threshold for a party to be in the thingy (bundenstag)
• B-S had 299 seats from proportional representation + 299 seats from first past the post
• First past the Post – 299 constituencies
• First past the post prevents paralysis – creates a clear majority
• Decreases no of parties in a coaltion
• Increases efficiency with which they can pass laws

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