Writers Media and Society in Contemporary Germany Lebendiges
Writers, Media and Society in Contemporary Germany • Lebendiges Museum online: http: //www. dhm. de/lemo/
The Restoration of West German Society • Germany at the “Zero Hour” • Allied Plans for Germany and particularly Denazification • Restoration of German State & Society
Cologne, 1945 and from the air (right)
Dresden, after the bombing 13 -15 Feb, 1945
Dresden, right the Altmarkt
Nuremberg, 1945
Frankfurt (left) and Berlin (right)
Würzburg (left) and Pfortzheim (right)
Trümmerfrauen, 1945
Handbill 1946, offering a children’s bed in exchange for potatoes
Germany 1937
Germany, 1945
• Henry J. Morgenthau, US treasury secretary, Jan 1934 - July 1945 • Morgenthau Plan: • permanent division of Germany into several pieces • end of all higher education • destruction and future prohibition of all heavy industry • official Allied policy Sept 1944 to Spring 1945 but never put into practice
Germany after the Potsdam conference, July 17 to Aug 2, 1945
Oder-Neisse-Border 1945
Poland’s old and new borders, 1945
Poland (red) 1939 and 1945
German speaking population before WWII
German speaking population after WWII
German occupation zones in 1946
The four ‘D’s • Denazification • Demilitarisation • Decartelisation (breaking up of large industrial conglomerates) • Democatisation
Denazification • Law for Liberation divides all German into 5 categories: major offenders, lesser offenders, followers (Mitläufer), nonoffenders. • ‘Der Fragebogen’
Political parties • • Social Democrats (SPD) Communist party (KPD) Centre Party (Zentrum) Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with its Bavarian sister Christian Social Union (CSU). • Liberals (FDP)
European Recovery Programme (ERP) or Marshall-Plan • Established 12. 7. 1947 • Grants and cheap loans for European countries • Purpose: warding off communism
Currency reform 1948, enabling the Wirtschaftswunder • Introduced by Ludwig Erhard, director of Wirtschaftsrat, 21. 6. 1949 • Exchange rate 10 Reichsmark = 1 Deutsche mark
The Berlin airlift (Luftbrücke), 1948 -1949 a ‘Rosinenbomber’ • Berlin Blockade, June 1945 - May 1946
Adenauer signing the Grundgesetz, 1949
CDU election poster with Konrad Adenauer (1876 -1967), chancellor 1949 -63
Ludwig Erhard (CDU), first economic minister in Adenauer’s government 1949, chancellor 1961 -1964
Theodor Heuss, 1884 -1963 first Bundespräsident, 1949 -59
- Slides: 30