What was the most impressive period of economic growth In Germany

Question 1

Bismarcks Germany

Answer 1

Facts- success

• new industries such as advanced machine tool, chemicals and electricity were main features of the new industrial revolution
• electrical output increased every year from 1890-1913 by 13%
• workers in the construction industry increased by 1 million and germanys industrial growth outstripped other nations like France
• value of German exports increased £365million between 1872-1914, and produced 20% more electricity than Britain, France and italy combined

Facts-limitations

• Their exports never reached the level of GB and USA
• short term depression between 1873-1890 limited the impressive nature of their growth
• biggest limitation to growth was the fact that the German railway network grew 6x between 1845-1870- “stood on the shoulders of giants” so it was comparatively easier for Bismarck to make such improvements and was therefore less impressive

Question 2

Weimar Germany

Answer 2

Facts- successes
-they were faced with 140,000 million marks of war debt because of the war bonds that had been sold to finance the war, as they refused to raise taxes
-they were to pay DM2million a year from 1921 as well as losing important regions of the Saarland
-despite these major setbacks, their industrial production reached pre war levels and GNP grew significantly between 1925-29, and so within 10 years the government had dealt with both hyperinflation and the costs of the legacy of the war, increased the extent of impressiveness.
-streissman and schacht responsible for the new currency which helped stabilise economic problems.
may be fair to say that weimar germany faced the relatively most problems and yet they overcame virtually all of them within 10 years before the crash hit

Facts-problems
-They had help from America which significantly reduced their reparations ie the Dawes plan in reduced reparations from DM232Bn to DM132bn

Question 3

Nazi Germany

Answer 3

Facts-successes

• biggest success was their ability to effectively end the mass unemployment that came with the wall street crash
• 40% of Germanys workforce was unemployed due to the depression, reaching 64% in shipbuilding
• whereas by 1935 the Nazis had achieved 35,000 out of 25million males unemployed, and claimed to have ended unemployment by 1938
• by 1931 RM1bn had been withdrawn from germany and 3 major banks had collapsed and yet throughout the 1930s the RAD had helped revitalise industry and investment through providing jobs in expanding infrastructure, especially the Auto-Bahn

Facts- limitations
-44% of government investment was spent on rearmament and heavy industry was focused on. This limits their impressive nature in the long term because it could be argued that heavy industry was only successful because of the war (as the commercial sector was non existence) and although they had achieved great growth after the depression, it wouldnt have been sustainable after the war

Question 4

West Germany

Answer 4

Facts- successes ECONOMIC MIRACLE

• they had to deal with the transition from heavy industry to service led economics because of the Nazi regime and therefore it seems more impressive because whilst they had US money, it was largely down to them to utilise it in a way which made the economy sustainable
• Under Erhard, GNP trebled throughout the 1950s, as there was a shift towards electronics, advanced machinery and cars (Siemens, BMW etc)
• by 1958 Germany had near full employment and 3.6million refugees from east Germany helped by doing the shit jobs
• FRG GDP grew 12% in 5 years and by 1963 Germany was the strongest economic power in Europe and the 3rd biggest in the world

Facts- limitations

• the economic miracle was massively helped by $99milllion from America, which allowed them such a massive advantage to develop their industry after the war
• its even argued by some historians that the 1950s economic miracle was not so much of an economic miracle but the re-establishing of their economy following the damages of the war

Question 5

Judgement-

Answer 5

• Weimar was the most impressive period of economic growth for Germany because it had to deal with both the effects of the war (reparations etc) as well as hyperinflation, and yet within 10 years they had overcome these two great barriers and were enjoying the golden years of the 1920s before the crash hit
• whilst the way the nazis dealt with the crash was impressive and quite clearly done on their own, their growth was too heavily based on the war efforts and heavy industry, and without this its possible that they wouldn’t have been able to reach such high levels of employment, seeing as sectors like agriculture and commercial largely disappeared in the nazi regime
• west germany had a massive boost from America and Bismarcks success was only made possible by the great infrastructural developments in the previous 40 Years, limiting the extent of their impressive nature.