The Marshall Plan and Recovery: German Coal and Steel

Authors

David Peter Jensen, Brigham Young University
Phillip Bryson, Brigham Young University
David M. Kennedy, Brigham Young University

Keywords

Marshall Plan, post-war chaos and poverty, German reconstruction, ERP

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Economics

Abstract

The European Recovery Program, commonly known as the Marshall Plan, is generally hailed as the greatest success in the history of U.S. foreign aid. From 1948 through 1951, the Marshall Plan supplied $13.3 billion dollars of aid to Western Europe. Over the duration of the Marshall Plan, the economies of Western Europe made significant recovery from post-war chaos and poverty. Most remarkable was the recovery of the West German economy. In recent decades, however, scholars have questioned the significance of the Marshall Plan to the German “Wirtschaftswunder.” Led by German scholar Werner Abelshauser, these revisionists point to other political and economic factors that influenced the German reconstruction. Intrigued by this debate over the actual success of the Marshall Plan in Germany, I undertook research to discover the role of the ERP in economic recovery in the West German coal and steel industries.

Recommended Citation

Jensen, David Peter; Bryson, Phillip; and Kennedy, David M. (2014) "The Marshall Plan and Recovery: German Coal and Steel," Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2014: Iss. 1, Article 189.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jur/vol2014/iss1/189