ELI5-How did Germany go from losing two world wars to being the economic powerhouse of Europe?
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A lot of people will point at the Marshall plan, but that only applies to west Germany after WWII and not East Germany and Weimar Germany after WWI.
Also it applied to much of western Europe and countries like the UK and France actually got more money out of the Marshall Plan than west Germany. Additionally while money was coming in from the Marshall Plan it was also going out of the country in the form of reparations.
So the Marshall Pan certainly played a roll but wasn’t everything.
Part of the reason of why Germany faired much better than England after the war economically, was how the money was spent and how debts were repaid.
A big reason why Weimar Germany, West Germany and East Germany all managed to rebound as they did was having an educated workforce and natural resources like coal and most importantly infrastructure like rail and canals.
In some cases factories and infrastructure having been bombed and having to rebuild, meant that they were forced to have new modern ones instead of trying to keep old ones going.
A lot of it came down to luck, geography and some social and cultural factors like views on trade jobs, university, unions and small business.
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