(Our readers take contrasting views over the German miracle)
In response to Andrew Cadman: Germany will bleed Southern Europe dry, Barry Sheridan wrote:
I lived in West Germany during the 1950s. Looking back, I can see how much of an amazing experience it proved to be for there was next to no sign of the near total devastation that existed a bare decade before. I expect it still existed in some parts of what was the Federal German Republic, but I never saw it.
This achievement revealed much about its people, for not only were they hard working and industrious, but they were also perceptive and co-operative in the way the British never can be. The legacy of that effort has delivered what is by far and away the best economy in Europe, one that continues to do well despite some pretty loopy green overtures.
Yes, as other commentators have noted here, they gained from debt relief along with not having to divert all that much money to defence despite the emergence of the Cold War and the later division of the country when the Wall went up.
Going beyond that, Germany has even become re-united, a staggeringly successfully shouldering of huge costs to do so. It is frankly a remarkable nation. The snag, as far as the rest of Europe is concerned, is that German leaders have shied away from telling their own people what the realities of leading Europe must impose. In short, it must eventually give up much of its advantage and wealth. The Eurocrats want to spend Germany’s money and they will eventually do so.
In response to the same article, Phil wrote:
Oh yes, the Germans benefited immensely from the Nazi period. Everybody uniform, working like one immense army towards a common goal of European domination…. plus ca change. I wondered what happened to all those German free-thinkers from before the war? The country is not well-known these days for its cultural impact, is it? We have to rely on Britain and America for that, what with the Anglo-Saxon nations not really buying into the idea of forcing everybody to act and think like automatons.
Of course, apart from Adenauer, the rest of the German administration was the same administration as from 1945 (given that the “Austrian guy” had executed anybody else with government experience, so the Americans had no choice but to leave them where they were – this really vexed the Baader Meinhof gang, but that’s another story for people with a real interest in post-war German history).
Talking of post-war German history, the default (largest in history) occured in 1953, just 5 years after the Berlin airlift. Far be it from me to suggest that the US write-off of German debts in 1953 and the “German economic miracle” which occured in just 12 years was anything to do with Americans having a desperate need to polish the p–p that was the remnants of the last Nazi regime and turn it into a shining example of the wonders of capitalism and democracy in stark contrast to the East German regime.
We are not allowed to say that, of course, because the narrative doesn’t permit us to be quite so blunt. Saying “it wasn’t a miracle, it was a US propaganda exercise” would fly in the face of the establishment’s propaganda exercise and that would never do.
Having your debts written off is an excellent way of giving you just the economic edge you need to start defeating economically the very nations that wiped you out during the war, killing 3 million of your young men (who, strangely, were not turning up for work during the economic miracle years but somehow this didn’t matter, the Germans progressed without them. Curious….). After all, Britain did not have its war debt written off – we had to plod on with its legacy wrapped around our necks, dragging us down.
Oh yes, it was a miracle alright. A miracle that anybody believes the nonsense narrative that historians and the MSM have been plugging for decades.
