The Myth That the Marshall Plan Rebuilt Germany’s Economy After WWIIThe Marshall Plan didn’t rebuild Germany after World War II. Sound money did.by Christian Monson March 19, 2022 In 1939, Germany had a GDP of nearly $400 billion, having surpassed the USSR to make it the second most powerful economy in the world, behind the US. In 1946, following years of war, Germany’s GDP had dropped to just $160 billion, lower than the UK and France. Food production had been reduced by 50 percent, housing stock by 20 percent, and industrial output by 33 percent.
Yet by 1955, German GDP was back near $400 billion, once again overcoming that of the UK. Industrial output had quadrupled by 1958 with a steady rate of growth of about 8 percent each year throughout the 50s.
This “economic miracle” is commonly referred to as die Wirtschaftswunder. But how did Germany go from rubble to riches in just a decade while neutral countries like Spain merely treaded economic water? If you ask your average American history student, they will say the Marshall Plan, of course!
The Marshall Plan as PropagandaUnfortunately, the ubiquity of the myth that the Marshall Plan rebuilt Germany is proof that state-controlled education favors propaganda over economic literacy. Despite the fact that most modern historians don’t give the Marshall Plan much credit at all for rebuilding Germany and attribute to it less than 5 percent of Germany’s national income during its implementation, standard history textbooks still place it at the forefront of the discussion about post-war reconstruction.
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https://noqreport.com/2022/03/19/the-myth-that-the-marshall-plan-rebuilt-germanys-economy-after-wwii/
