I can't find the reference right but I remember reading average adult calorie intake to drop to ~1200 kcals in 1947/1948 in "embracing defeat" by John Dower. That period has a huge influence on Japan to this day, including architecture of Tokyo through black market.
Both Japan and Germany had strong military govt culture, and became reliably democratic at the end of the allies occupation.
Thus, Ramen
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A1%E3...
West Germany's economic boom was in part due to the German government expecting to have to pay the loans back in full and thus setting up a public fund that provided credit to businesses and the rebuilding effort rather than paying them out as direct subisidies to industry. When the loans were eventually forgiven this created a massive windfall. The successor program to the Marshall Plan was explicitly tied to "defeating communism" and focused on military development, which resulted in West Germany rearming despite earlier decisions that the country should be demilitarized. This change of plan was extremely controversial within West Germany and debates around the military involvement of Germany continues to this day.
In East Germany on the other hand, the rebuilding effort happened despite the Soviet Union not with the help of it. Reparations continued even after a lot of the industry had been dismantled and shipped to Eastern Europe while the isolation from Western Europe provided limited opportunities for export and the scarcity of resources meant a lot of early industry was built to provide for the population rather than trade.
Given the conditions, East Germany performed remarkably well, although of course it had a despotic government that would literally shoot its own citizens rather than allow them to leave for greener pastures. The US was also extremely hands-off on West German politics after the immediate occupation era. Presumably a major factor was that the US didn't have as much skin in the game as its European allies whereas e.g. France literally had been occupied by Germans during the war, resulting in much stronger resentment.
It's also worth noting that one of the plans for post-war Germany by the Western allies was full deindustrialization to a greater extent than what the Soviet Union ended up implementing with the explicit goal of turning Germany into an agrarian state incapable of forming a military for the forseeable future. This became less interesting as the divisions between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies became clearer but it wasn't entirely unlikely.
‘The Marshall Plan made it possible for West Germany to return quickly to its traditional pattern of industrial production with a strong export sector. Without the plan, agriculture would have played a larger role in the recovery period, which itself would have been longer. With respect to Austria, Günter Bischof has noted that "the Austrian economy, injected with an overabundance of European Recovery Program funds, produced "miracle" growth figures that matched and at times surpassed the German ones."’
Aid to Japan was similarly crucial and amounted to billions of dollars. These payments were separate from the Marshall Plan, which focused on Europe. Pre-war Japan was not a free market economy and subsequently underwent massive reform.
Honestly, I get that it’s cool to bash on the US (I am not American) but give credit where it’s due. US-led post-war reconstruction was of enormous and lasting significance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan
Germany was also flattened far more.
A better explanation for the "German Miracle" was they turned to free markets.
As for Japan, the US occupation was advised by leftist professors, who deemed that big business was bad and small business was good. Japan remained prostrate under that policy. When it was changed to allow big business to operate again, Japan became a huge economic success story.
West Germany formally has a "social market economy" and while there have been pushes towards a "free market" economy those were largely the result of reforms from the 1980s onwards. I don't think "free markets" is a good explanation when looking at Germany vs Britain or France in the 1950s to 1970s.
> I don't think "free markets" is a good explanation when looking at Germany vs Britain or France in the 1950s to 1970s.
It's the only explanation that fits when compared with the other economies at the time.
What are your sources on this? The US occupation was led by Douglas MacArthur, who was about as far from a "leftist professor" as possible.
> When it was changed to allow big business to operate again, Japan became a huge economic success story.
I'm no expert, but the more common narrative is the Korean war was a stimulant for the Japanese economy.
My father, who was part of the military occupation force in Japan. He also was a professional historian and economist. The economy remained flat until big business was allowed to resume operation.
> I'm no expert, but the more common narrative is the Korean war was a stimulant for the Japanese economy.
People can't stand the idea that the free market works. :-/
https://www.cfr.org/japan-constitution/japans-postwar-consti...
Not arguing against you but the logic needs to be filled out some.
For purposes of rebuilding, civilian deaths (from all causes, including Germany's national suicide cult insanity shit) are at least as damaging. Similar for all the millions who lived, but were badly damaged themselves - mentally and/or physically.
Yes, and those are the younger, fit men. The people who work in industry.
Turns out humans can do a lot if they work together- ofcourse it usually takes a near apocalyptic event. And it never lasts.
A bigger difference between the two Germanies is that East German industry was mostly stripped for parts as part of reparations to the Soviet Union which continued for a long time whereas West Germany received active funding as part of the Marshall Plan. West Germany also had access to a lucrative market for exports whereas East Germany had to focus on reparations first, self-sustainability second and trade at a distant third with very bad returns.