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Germany was united on 3rd October 1990. This came after 45 years of division that had begun with the partition of Germany into four occupation zones following its defeat in 1945 by the Four Powers - the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. Once a powerful nation, Germany lay vanquished at the end of World War II. The war's human cost had been staggering. Millions of German's had died or suffered terribly during the conflict, both in combat and on the home front. Intensive Allied bombing raids, invasions and subsequent social upheavals had forced millions of Germans from their homes. Not since the ravages of the Thirty Years' War had the Germans experienced such misery. Beyond the physical destruction, Germans had been confronted with the moral devastation of defeat.
Germans refer to the immediate aftermath of the war as Stunde Null (zero hour), the point in time when Germany ceased to exist as a state and the rebuilding of the country would begin. At first, Germany was administered by the Four Powers, each with it's own occupied zone. In time Germans themselves began to play a role in the governing of these zones. Political parties were formed, and, within months of the war's end the first elections were held. Although most people were concerned with mere physical survival, much was accomplished in rebuilding cities, fashioning a new economy and integrating the millions of refugees from the eastern areas of Germany that had been lost after the war.
Overshadowing these events within Germany, however, was the gradual emergence of the Cold war during the second half of the 1940s. By the decade's end, the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union had faced off in an increasingly ideological confrontation. The Iron Curtain between them cut Germany in two. Although the Allies' original plans envisioned that Germany would remain a single state, Western and European concepts of political, social and economic organisation led the three Western zones to join together, becoming separate from the Soviet zone and ultimately leading to the formation in 1949 of the two German states. The three Western occupied zones became the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG or West Germany) and the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany).
Germany also faced many problems a little closer to home however. The main and most obvious problem was the shortage of houses. This was most apparent in the larger cities, where almost half of the buildings had been reduced to ash and rubble. The situation was worsened by various other factors. The occupying forces claimed most of the still-standing buildings for their own troops (which of course were the best maintained). Refugees now crowded in as the borders of the French, American and British occupied zones were closed. Here the refugees were housed in large 'transit camps'. The residents in the countryside had to give up spare rooms for refugees, sometimes the situation got so bad, that only under the protection of machine guns could the refugees move in. Also sports halls, factories and even previously forced-labour camps were used to house people. In certain areas the influx of refugees was so bad, that 60% more people lived there at the end of 1946 than at the beginning of the war. Here refugees were housed in air-raid shelters, barns, stables and even holes.
The clearing of the streets of devastation caused by the bombing lasted literally months. Foreign observers were reminded of a landscape of moon-like craters. Immediately after the war, the women, as there was no-one else, were set to work, trimming old mortar from the bricks with hammers, die Trummerfrauen, or rubble-women. Debris was piled up into mountains, covered, and planted with trees. Now the cities had done two important things: they had survived and rebuilt.
Another problem that the population of Germany was faced with was a shortage of food. During the war food was purchased with ration cards or books, but by 1945 the situation had become much worse. In the first few months after the end of the war, there was nothing but shortages - lacking labour, shortages of steel, wire for fencing, building materials, etc. Over-aged machinery saw to it that the situation was made a lot worse. German was not able to support it's population; 70% of the children were undernourished, and Germany was reliant on the Allies for food deliveries.
The economy in Germany immediately after the war was in ruins. To finance the war Hitler had just let money be continuously printed regardless. So at this time there was far too much money in circulation, worthless money. As there was more money than goods, prices increased, meaning inflation. The State bank could not control the inflation rate, sometimes of 100%, leading to a thriving black market. The only solution was a currency reform, rendering all currency in circulation invalid and introducing the Deutsche Mark.
Everything taken into consideration, the German population and government had overcome many problems left by Hitler and his war to get the country back on track.
Using various keywords related to the Germany after World War II, I came across a number of related issues. A major problem was that the search engine was not precise enough and it was the case of going into the various sites and investigating the content, time consuming and tedious. Many of the search engines were helpful in finding numerous related sites but summaries were usually of the first sentence that gave little indication of the relevance of the site. Therefore, it became a case of trial and error with the sites. With more practise, I believe I could have used the search engines more effectively and therefore have a report richer in relevant sites that would allow for a more critical perspective.
Overall, whether due to my topic being a little specialised or myself not using the search engines efficiently enough, I did not find a great deal of useful information on the Internet. Therefore I had to rely quite heavily on my own general knowledge, and details picked up from my language course. The use of personal recommendations within my own group workspace was very poor but yet I feel this was because it was not assessed within the practical classes. If students had been asked to search the Internet for various sites related to the topic in question, then the effectiveness of the worktime would have been greater. As a result, I relied heavily upon search engines and somewhat dependent on the course resource page - yet this was also problematic as some links were not available or the addresses of the links had changed and so the search engines were what I used the most.
The criteria I shall be using to evaluate the resourses are those which are found on the Internet Detective website www.sosig.ac.uk/desire/internet-detective.html from practical 8 of the course.
The three main websites which I used were:
1. The Post-war Years http://www.umass.edu/neh/gruppe1/postwaryears.html
2. The Cold War http://www.ccma.ca/isnet/hts/academic/hncoa/coldwar/
3. Post-War East Germany http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/EGermPW.html
The Post-war Years
The Post-war Years was a very useful site with a few informative pictures depicting important issues. This is just a page within the University of Massachusetts, so all of the content can be virtually guaranteed to be honest and valid. On the homepage of the website there are plenty of suggested contacts and comments links. I found no dead links within the website, and there was no missing information. Navigation through the site was pretty simple as well. There is a search and directories link, and from the particular page I used there was a 'home' facility. Images supporting navigation would have been useful however. The website seems all up-to-date, however there were no 'last updated' dates. Jumping from page to page within the site was not a slow process at all.
The Cold War
This webpage was slightly less professional than the last, indeed the author has signed the website 'terry', and was only last updated in 1997. No links to details about the author, contacts or help. Navigation through the site was a simple affair, with separate links to all of the slides. The navigation buttons on each slide page could have been made a little more clear as to what they did. The information seems to be all up-to-date.
Post-war East Germany
This web page is from the Sam Houston State University, and so all of the information should be correct. There were no dead links within the site and no missing data. Browsing through the site is pretty simple, with links to the major sections. But 'back', 'home', etc links would have been useful. On the homepage there are plenty of links for help in using the site, and there is also a link to the maintainer. The site is updated every day, so all the information should still be correct and up-to-date.
http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/cs/Courses/undergrad/subsid/
Word count: 1520 words
Adam Storr - 2000
