Reconstructing Germany and Japan after WWII

[chemenger]

On my way to work yesterday morning, scanning the local radio stations, I happened to catch about 5 minutes of our local Rush Limpballs clone (Pittsburgh's own Jim Quinn). He was discussing the cons of giving the UN control over the task of rebuilding Iraq. He did make a statement in his rant that, not being a history pundit, I can't dismiss easily. Maybe one of you can.

He said that after WWII ended the USA, acting unilaterally, was able to rebuild Japan in about 5 years while efforts to rebuild Germany took at least 30 to 40 years because those efforts were hampered by the involvement of our allies (Russia, France, Great Britian). Apparently, he was using this as an arguement for the USA keeping control over rebuilding Iraq.

Are there any flaws in his arguement? Why didn't China and or Russia get involved in rebuilding Japan?

[rogerashton]

1. Question is, what does he mean when he says that

it took 40 years in Germany. Reconstruction of West Germany was complete on about the same time-frame as Japan. Ditto Austria, which was an integral part of the Third Reich. Perhaps he means that the reconstruction of Germany was not complete until re-unification; of course, East Germany was occupied by our wartime ally, but postwar enemy, the Soviet Union, who preferred that Germany not be reconstructed at all, since they felt threatened by Germany -- a country that had destroyed a generation of Soviet young men. But that's comparing apples to orange crates.

As for the Soviet Union in Japan, I don't believe there is a peace treaty between Japan and Russia even now, due to a dispute over some northern Islands. The Soviet Union occupied them following WWII and Russia still does.

[soupkitchen]

2. He's comparing apples to oranges

The USA rebuilt West Germany. West Germany was functioning as an independent state probably quicker than Japan. To claim that we failed to rebuild Germany because the Russians (who were not are allies during the rebuilding process) controlled East Germany is just stupid.

[ma4t]

3. basic facts are generally correct, conclusions may not be

The radio guy had the basic facts correct regarding how post-war Japan and Germany were administered.

Germany was divided into four zones, with France, the UK the US and the USSR each charged with the administration of their respective zone. The USSR quickly "when its own way" in terms of cooperation with the other allied powers in running post-war Germany. Their actions ranged from lack of cooperation to open challenges such as the Berlin blockade in 1948 to the building of the Berlin Wall and the sealing of the East/West border.

The UK, US and France more or less operated as a combined entity which led to a commission which oversaw the rebuilding of Germany and the reconstruction of a working government for West Germany. The joint 3-power commission exercised a large measure of control over the West German economy, eventually contrary to the wishes of the elected West German government. In fact the West Government timed the unilateral discarding of many of the 3-power imposed economic regulations for a long weekend with the explicit plan that the bureaucrats wouldn't be able to act before the holiday was over and by then the population would have adjusted. This actually led to an improvement in the West German economy since they moved away from a planned and towards a market-oriented ecomomy.

The story in Japan was much different. There the US pretty much ran things and MacAuthur was, in effect, the regent of Japan. If he thought something should happen, it did. One example - when elections were first held for the reconstituted Diet MacAuthur decreed that women would be given the vote for the first time and would also be eligible for office. When officials complained to him after a known "lady of negotiable virtue" had been elected to the Diet MacAuthur's only comment was, "She must have a very loyal clientele."

In fact Japan was "back on its feet" sooner than Germany (even discounting East Germany). How much of this is due to the different treatments is uncertain. The USSR was not able to obstruct progress in Japan as it did in Europe. (For that matter, neither were the French.) The large infusion of US military bases pumped a large amount of money into Japan and this was certainly a factor as well. Lastly, cultural differences would probably account for some difference in outcomes.

[Throckmorton]

6. The Korean War helped too.

The massive influx of US dollars that the war brought to Japan was also key.

[Art_from_Ark]

9. I believe that not being divided into "sectors" helped Japan

as did the Korean War. Perhaps the fact that China turned Communist in 1949 also had a lot to do with making sure Japan got a quick start to a healthy, capitalist economy.

[pansypoo53219]

4. that totally simplifies a very complicated

time. On the fall of Berlin, the cusp of the cold war began. That allie thing devolved soon after when Russia took the east side of germany. And even with the Marshall plan, americans were all ready to begin the boom years, and forget the battlefields of europe.

[Zolok]

5. We had the connivance of the "average" citizen

in both countries which basically decided the reconstruction process in our favor.
We don't have that in Iraq...big diff IMHO.

[JHB]

7. And at home...

...we also had a very progressive tax system, so that we couls afford to do what we did overseas and fund the GI Bill, while still increasing the buying power of rank-and-file workers.

Not quite the situation we have today, is it?

[LoneStarLiberal]

8. This is a Popular Republican Talking Point Right Now

As in most Republican rhetoric, this ignores the substantive differences by painting a big, happy, glossy picture using selective history.

It is true that the reconstruction of Japan was smoother than the reconstruction of Germany. It is true that the reconstruction of Germany involved more allied partners than the reconstruction of Japan.

But those two points of history are where the glossy Republican rhetoric ends its factual tour.

Germany was not reconstructed under U.N. auspices. Neither was Japan, although the United Nations was officially founded on October 24, 1945.

Japan's reconstruction has several very important historical corollaries that Republicans conveniently forget to mention: Near total cultural homogeneity, ease of acceptance of cultural hierarchy, and a VERY LARGE contingent of American armed forces for the initial occupation to establish a secure environment. By contrast, Iraq is very culturally heterogeneous, these same different cultural groups do not accept hierarchy very well, and we do not have enough troops on the ground to effectively establish a secure environment.

If anyone wants to use this lame arguement then at the very least they should staunchly advocate sending tens of thousands of more soldiers to Iraq.

But what do I know? I'm just one of those uppity liberal intellectuals.

[BonjourUSA]

10. We're going forget that the USA exist...

That will be better for our nerves.

The Marshall plan allowed the considerable rise of the USA after the war. Because the loans has been granted with the counterpart of the purchase of all the equipments and the provisionings. The USA did not appreciate the creation of the economic Europe in 1954. From a US point of view, it was certainly "to hamper the rebuilt".

[BigMcLargehuge]

11. China and Russia rebuilding Japan?

I think it may have had something to do with deep seated animosity on the parts of both countries with regard to Japan's campaigns in the first Sino-Japanese war, the Russo-Japanese war that followed, and the second Sino-Japanese war that ended with the end of WW2.

The Imperial Japanese Army killed 25 million Chinese between 1931 and 1945. That's million, with an M. Plus the Chinese government was in chaos during and following the Sino-Japanese war. With the Nationalists and Maoists actively shooting at one another, and the belief that elements of the Nationalists government worked with the Japanese Imperialists in Manchukko also soured any chance that China would offer finds/manpower to rebuild. Add to that the fact that China was almost all a near medieval society outside the major cities meant that their economy did not have the active capital to invest in anything but internal rebuilding.

As for Russia, you may not remember that 11 million Russians died expelling the German invasion. Their westernmost population centers, Stalingrad, St. Petersburg, Moscow, were in ruins, and their peasant economy could not modernize fast enough. Also, Stalin was actively starving out the Ukranians with his collectivization scheme. Russia had a strong military but it had massive infrastructure problems.

The US could offer help in the form of the Marshal Plan precicely because the second World War didn't take place on US soil. We had no cities to rebuild. We had no masses of civilian injured to care for. We had no infrastructure to rebuild.

The second world war made the US an economic superpower as well as a military superpower. That's why WE could offer help to Germany and Japan and Russia/China could/would not.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. I know little about Japan's rebuilding, but...

West Germany's was done largely by itself, with assistance from us. This is far from the case in Iraq, where we are deliberately freezing Iraqi industry out of the rebuilding.

West Germany was also a highly developed industrial economy prior to the war, unlike Iraq, and needed some initial capital to get on with its rebuilding, then took care of itself very well. By the 60's, there were few signs that a war had taken place.

East Germany was another matter entirely, and was completely independant of West Germany, but not of Moscow, so lumping the two together to make a point is ridiculous.

That giving France and Britain zones of occupation hindered the rebuilding is equally ridiculous. In the early 50's France originally proposed what eventually became NATO (although DeGaulle had second thoughts later on) and the European Iron and Steel Community, which was the foundation of the European Union. West Germany had been a member of NATO since 1955, and hardly an occupied country.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. I was in Germany 22 years after the end of World War II

It was quite "rebuilt," thank you, and looked as if it had been "rebuilt" for a long time. The standard of living was very high, and if someone had told me that I had to live in Germany, I would not have considered it a hardship.

Japan was not "fully rebuilt" after five years. I wasn't there in 1950, of course, but I've seen movies made in the early 1950s, and there was still a fair amount of rubble lying around. Japan's economy didn't really take off until the late 1950s, and it didn't even begin to turn into an international economic powerhouse until after the 1964 Olympics, which the Japanese saw as a means of showing off their progress. But at that time, they were still actually pretty far behind the West: travel guides told you not to drink the water.

In other words, that talk show host, like most right wing talk show hosts, is simply (in the immortal words of Bill Maher) "making shit up."