The Marshall Plan was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred $13.3 billion in economic recovery programs to Western European economies after the end of World War II. Replacing an earlier proposal for a Morgenthau Plan, it operated for four years beginning on April 3, 1948, though in 1951, the Marshall Plan was largely replaced by the Mutual Security Act. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-torn regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, improve European prosperity and prevent the spread of communism. The Marshall Plan proposed the reduction of interstate barriers and the economic integration of the European Continent while also encouraging an increase in productivity as well as the adoption of modern business procedures.
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was an international relief agency, largely dominated by the United States but representing 44 nations. Founded in November 1943, it was dissolved in September 1948. it became part of the United Nations in 1945. Its purpose was to "plan, co-ordinate, administer or arrange for the administration of measures for the relief of victims of war in any area under the control of any of the United Nations through the provision of food, fuel, clothing, shelter and other basic necessities, medical and other essential services". Its staff of civil servants included 12,000 people, with headquarters in New York. Funding came from many nations, and totalled $3.7 billion, of which the United States contributed $2.7 billion; Britain, $625 million; and Canada, $139 million.
Japan was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II from the surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, at the war's end until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect on April 28, 1952. The occupation, led by the American military with support from the British Commonwealth and under the supervision of the Far Eastern Commission, involved a total of nearly one million Allied soldiers. The occupation was overseen by the US General Douglas MacArthur, who was appointed Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers by the US President Harry S. Truman; MacArthur was succeeded as supreme commander by General Matthew Ridgway in 1951. Unlike in the occupations of Germany and Austria, the Soviet Union had little to no influence in Japan, declining to participate because it did not want to place Soviet troops under MacArthur's direct command.
The history of Germany from 1945 to 1990 comprises the period following World War II. The period began with the Berlin Declaration, marking the abolition of the German Reich and Allied-occupied period in Germany on 5 June 1945, and ended with the German reunification on 3 October 1990.
The Morgenthau Plan was a proposal to weaken Germany following World War II by eliminating its arms industry and removing or destroying other key industries basic to military strength. This included the removal or destruction of all industrial plants and equipment in the Ruhr. It was first proposed by United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. in a 1944 memorandum entitled Suggested Post-Surrender Program for Germany.
The Council of Relief Agencies Licensed to Operate in Germany (CRALOG) was a nongovernmental organization created in 1946 by the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service and included 11 major relief agencies such as the International Red Cross.
Nazism and the acts of Nazi Germany affected many countries, communities, and people before, during and after World War II. Nazi Germany's attempt to exterminate several groups viewed as subhuman by Nazi ideology was eventually stopped by the combined efforts of the wartime Allies headed by the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States.
The Wirtschaftswunder, also known as the Miracle on the Rhine, was the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II. The expression referring to this phenomenon was first used by The Times in 1950.
The Saar Protectorate, officially Saarland, was a French protectorate and a disputed territory separated from Germany. On joining the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957, it became the smallest "federal state", the Saarland, not counting the "city states" of Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen. It is named after the Saar River.
West German rearmament began in the decades after World War II. Fears of another rise of German militarism caused the new military to operate within an alliance framework, under NATO command. The events led to the establishment of the Bundeswehr, the West German military, in 1955. The name Bundeswehr was a compromise choice suggested by former general Hasso von Manteuffel to distinguish the new forces from the Wehrmacht term for the combined German forces of Nazi Germany.
The reconstruction of Germany was a long process of rebuilding Germany after the destruction endured during World War II. Germany suffered heavy losses during the war, both in lives and industrial power. Approximately 6.9 to 7.5 million Germans died, representing roughly 8.5 percent of the German population and a fraction of total World War II casualties estimated at 70 to 85 million people. The country's cities were severely damaged from heavy bombing in the closing chapters of the war and agricultural production was only 35 percent of what it was before the war.
The aftermath of World War II saw the rise of two superpowers, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US). The aftermath of World War II was also defined by the rising threat of nuclear warfare, the creation and implementation of the United Nations as an intergovernmental organization, and the decolonization of Asia, Oceania, South America and Africa by European and East Asian powers, most notably by the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.
The industrial plans for Germany were designs the Allies of World War II considered imposing on Germany in the Aftermath of World War II to reduce and manage Germany's industrial capacity.
The Far Eastern Commission (FEC) was an Allied commission which supervised the occupation of Japan following its defeat in World War II. It succeeded the Far Eastern Advisory Commission (FEAC).
Austria was occupied by the Allies and declared independent from Nazi Germany on 27 April 1945, as a result of the Vienna offensive. The occupation ended when the Austrian State Treaty came into force on 27 July 1955.
American food policy in occupied Germany refers to the food supply policies enacted by the U.S., and to some extent its Allies, in the western occupation zones of Germany in the first two years of the ten-year postwar occupation of Western Germany following World War II.
Germany is Our Problem is a book written in 1945 by Henry Morgenthau Jr., U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the book he describes and promotes a plan for the occupation of Germany after World War II.
The Commission for Polish Relief (CPR), also known unofficially as Comporel or the Hoover Commission, was initiated in late 1939 by former US President Herbert Hoover, following the German and Soviet occupation of Poland. The Commission provided relief to Nazi occupied territories of Poland until December 1941.
The main issues of the United States foreign policy during the 1945–1953 presidency of Harry S. Truman include:
The Cold War from 1947 to 1948 is the period within the Cold War from the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to the incapacitation of the Allied Control Council in 1948. The Cold War emerged in Europe a few years after the successful US–USSR–UK coalition won World War II in Europe, and extended to 1989–1991. It took place worldwide, but it had a partially different timing outside Europe. Some conflicts between the West and the USSR appeared earlier. In 1945–1946 the US and UK strongly protested Soviet political takeover efforts in Eastern Europe and Iran, while the hunt for Soviet spies made the tensions more visible. However, historians emphasize the decisive break between the US–UK and the USSR came in 1947–1948 over such issues as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and the breakdown of cooperation in governing occupied Germany by the Allied Control Council. In 1947, Bernard Baruch, the multimillionaire financier and adviser to presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Harry S. Truman, coined the term "Cold War" to describe the increasingly chilly relations between three World War II Allies: the United States and British Empire together with the Soviet Union.