West Germany's Economic Miracle (Essay Sample)

WEST GERMANY'S ECONOMIC MIRACLE
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West Germany's Economic Miracle
In its history, Germany has undergone evolutionary and revolutionary changes, the most significant of which is its partitioning amongst the Eastern and Western nations of Europe after WW II. According to Schissler, Germany has become the reference point from which the strengths of capitalism and the weaknesses of communism can get gauged. That is so because the West Germany that was under the NATO experienced drastic economic recovery and progress as compared to East Germany that was under the Warsaw Pact and, contrarily, experienced regress. West Germany's predicaments after WW II plunged it into desperation as it relied on aid and financial support from other nations. How the pauper nation overturned its financial and economic strain to become one of Europe's most productive nations by the 80s is what has been termed as its ‘economic miracle'. West Germany achieved economic stability through a reconstruction process that was supported by its trading policies, an influx of refugees, and new economic and political strategies.[. Schissler, Hanna. The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949-1968. (Princeton. Princeton Univ. Press, 2011). 48.]
Spicka explained that West Germany, suffering from the aftermath of the WW II, lay in ruins with a significantly dropped population and a weakened currency. This challange prompted the introduction of the Marshall Plan that was supported by the US and the Western European nations and was targeted at revitalizing West Germany and other nations in similar situations. However, West Germany's actions as it sought to reignite its financial independence played the most significant roles in transforming the nation. In the first instance, the nation introduced the Erhard Economic Plan through which it changed its already weakened currency (the Reichsmark) for a stronger one (the Deutsche) and dropped all its price and wage controls. The Erhard Reform so created a free market that evolved into an arena for developing a new generation of intellectuals and leaders.[. Spicka, Mark E. Selling the Economic Miracle: Economic Reconstruction and Politics in West Germany, 1949-1957. New York, NY. Berghahn Books, 2012). 96.] [. Nicholls, Anthony J. Freedom with Responsibility: The Social Market Economy in Germany, 1918-1963. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2014). 52.]
As West Germany's Economy sprung to life, there developed the necessity for labor that would support its industrial production and infrastructural development. Coincidentally, the social, political, and economic situations in East Germany that was under the Soviet Union degenerated. This aspect prompted an influx of refugees from the nation to West Germany. There were also the refugees from other nations that had been allied to Germany in the World War II, especially Hungary and Austria. The refugee populations contributed to the economic miracle by creating a cheap labor force that placed the nation on the trajectory of satisfactorily meeting its trade demands with other nations.[. Joesten, Joachim. The Bonn "economic Miracle": A Survey and Analysis of Western Germany's Prodigious Recovery Since the Currency Reform. (New York City, 2011). 31.]
West Germany also established a Trade Advisory Council in the Ministry of Economics through which it sought to idealize trading relations with other nations and to create an ‘export mystique.' Dornbusch opined that the measure was aimed at creating a deliberate national under consumption in a precept that would increase the nation's competitiveness in the global trading arena. As a result, the nation became the World's largest exporter by 1988, a factor that catapulted its economic strengths.[. Dornbusch, Rüdiger. Postwar Economic Reconstruction and Lessons for the East Today. (Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press, 2013). 83.] [. Schissler, Hann