War and Defeat

• Total war declared 1943 meaning all expenditure and production was for the war effort
• War economy 


  German military expenditure more than doubled

  food rationing introduced

  armaments production remained low

  war declared in 1939 and key projects were not going to be ready until 1942

  lack of central control
• Speer minister of armaments 1942


  ensured mass production

  used women and prisoners for labor

  ended conscription of skilled workers

  eliminated production of thing not important to war
• 1944 3 fold increase in war materials compared with 1942
• within first 6 months tanks rose by 25% and ammunition rose by 97%
• air raid allied bombing on Germany started in 1940
• 600,000 civilians were killed during air raids
• Allied bombing was indiscriminate and they used relentless carpet bombing, UK at night and the US during the day
• over half of the bombs fell in residential areas so did not have a massive impact on industry, the bombing decreased moral and reduced the German support for the war
• around 5 million Germans were evacuated and this contributed to the worsening of moral
• War production was a crucial area in which the effects of depressed morale manifested through absenteeism, lower productivity, and sabotage.
• Nuremburg laws 1933-39


  segregated Jews

  banned inter-racial marriage

  removed German citizenship from Jews

  Jew excluded from mainstream education
• White rose - opposition 


  printed leaflets to encourage people to not support the war

  they were arrested and executed
• Bonhoeffer was a priest that was involved in a plot to assassinate hitler in 1942, this was unsuccessful and he was hung
• Hitler assassination plot 


  july bomb plot failed and Hitler used it as an opportunity to arrest 7000 people
• lack of successful opposition

  sever repression preventing a strong united opposition movement

  the Gestapo were heavily restrictive and everywhere

  small acts of defiance did not mount to any effective opposition
• Kreisau circle formed in 1942 - members of the army who wanted to end the war and form a government that the west would approve of. They lacked popular support
• rationing 


  introduced August 1939

  due to rearmament and Autarky consumer goods were low in supply and expensive

  food shortages due to lack of imports from the US
• social consequences of the war

  millions of refugees

  12 million Germans fled from the east

  20% of housing had been destroyed

  many men had been killed
• economic consequences of the war

  lack of fuel and transport

  infrastructure had broken down

  wartime black market emerged

  state was in debt
• political consequences of the war

  Hitlers suicide led to the formation of a new government

  this was dissolved when Germany signed unconditional surrender 8th May 1945
• Post war Germany 


  occupying troops had to take care of the area they had liberated

  temporary agreements were made to ensue law and order were divided between allied powers in the west and USSR
• Potsdam 1945


  Germany would be divided into 4 zones

  separate political control between zones but joint economic union

  all of german military forces disbanded

  soviets allowed to take whatever they wanted from soviet zone and 10% from western zones
• Yalta 1945


  all countries freed from Nazi occupation would be allowed free elections to choose their own government

  Germany would be divided into 4 zones
• 1947 Truman Doctrine


  sending money and equipment to any country facing the threat of communism
• 1948 Marshal Plan


  US economic assistance to restore Europe
• Currency reform 1948


  Allied powers introduced military mark 1945 which became devalued after soviets printed too much

  introduction of Deutsch mark in 1948 excluding east Germany
• Berlin Blockade 


  Soviets blocked all transport links by road, rail and waterway with the aim of weakening Berlin

  Stalin wanted Germany weak and nonthreatening buffer zone between USSR and the west
• Berlin Airlift 148-1949


  West continued to supply Berlin with food

  279,000 flights were carried out until Stalin gave in and lifted the blockade
• cominform 1947


  aimed to tighten soviet control in Eastern Europe

  spread communist ideals
• comecon 1949


  financial aid to eastern bloc to keep them on the soviet side
• Bizonia formed 1947 created through the unification of the American and British zones followed later the same year by the French forming Trizonia
• division of germany caused by:

  political differences - communism vs capitalism

  economic reasons - disagreements over reparations and currency reform

  Berlin blockade - physical division