The United States role in reconstructing post-World War II Europe

American History

Role of the United States in Europe After WWII

This essay attempts to present the role of the United States of America in the reconstruction of post World War II Europe. This report also attempts to provide information regarding the covert Cold War, the formation of NATO, and the ample economic trade opportunities sought by the Americans.

After the successful D-Day invasion of Normandy Beach, it did not take much longer for the allied forces to topple the rest of Hitler's army. The blitzkrieg was over and the world was ready to begin to disassociate the German people from Adolf Hitler's boisterous speeches, the holocaust, the charge on Moscow by the Panzers, and Rommil's quest for oil reserves in the deserts of Africa. Everyone wanted to believe that the German nation had simply been manipulated by a madman. But by the time Hitler fell, the damage had already been done.

In 1945, post World War II Europe was in both structural and economical shambles. The shell shocked Europeans had to contend with the fact that both urban and rural societal damage was extensive. Additional side effects of the war included escalating double digit inflation, a complete breakdown of the social order, high unemployment, starvation and poverty and to make matters worse a record cold winter on the way. European leaders at the time professed that all of these hardships were to be expected because a majority of the governmental infrastructure and agencies, schools, factories and homes were all either badly damaged or completely decimated. "In considering the requirements for the rehabilitation of Europe the physical loss of life, the visible destruction of cities, factories, mines, and railroads was correctly estimated, but it has become obvious during recent months that this visible destruction was probably less serious than the dislocation of the entire fabric of European economy." (Congressional Record, 1947)

To say the least, in 1945, post World War II Europe's was bleak at best. Europe was not alone in their economic turmoil. The world economy of 1945 and beyond was thrown completely off kilter and something had to be done immediately upon the realization of the seriousness of the situation. Europe needed a viable solution to restart the failing social and economic systems which were each on the brink of complete collapse. The United States and the Soviet Union did in fact step up to save Europe - but, each of these newly proclaimed superpower nations wanted to help Europe under their terms and in their own ways.

Through the efforts of new radical approaches such as the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine, the United States offered Europe a fiscally reshaped European economic process and social order with the stipulations that aid would be forthcoming if Europe rebuilt with a foundation of the tried and true American style of diplomacy and democracy. The Soviet Union on the other hand was recruiting Eastern European nations the promise of a better world through the Communist political structure. Each of the superpowers saw the other as the antagonist who offered nothing to the Post World War II European way of life. The United States and Europe soon saw that the motivation of the former ally from Moscow would turn out to be as big if not bigger a threat to Europe and American democracy than the Nazi regime just toppled.

Hitler and World War II

World War II was a result of a nation trying to reestablish itself as dominant player in the social order coupled with the world's dire economic dilemma we now know as the Great Depression. In 1933, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) or Nazi's, were lead by Adolf Hitler to power and position in the nation of Germany. This relationship lasted until 1945.

The German people accepted the likes of Adolf Hitler and his party with open arms because they as a nation had always been a proud people. They were thoroughly embarrassed by their loss in World War I. Those feelings of dismay were escalated because the German people had historically always ruled themselves and the Post World War I Treaty of Versailles allowed, in the German mindset, for other nations to take advantage of the German people and their assets.

Hitler and his gang were obviously brilliant in the sense that they were able to extend an offer which again allowed the German people to express their opinions and rights to stop what they felt were the injustices brought on by the Treaty of Versailles. "Then some one has said: 'Since the Revolution the people have gained Rights. The people govern!' Strange! The people have now been ruling three years and no one has in practice once asked its opinion. Treaties were signed which will hold us down for centuries: and who has signed the treaties? The people? No! Governments which one fine day presented themselves as Governments. (The Adolf Hitler Historical Archives, vol. 4/12/1922)

Reconstruction Needed

When Hitler and Nazi Germany were finished and World War II was officially ended in May of 1945, Europe lay in ruins. The continents once-fertile farms were cratered and scarred by the onslaught of aerial bombs and tank tracks. Whole cities were flattened and the scenes were probably like some modern day science fiction movie full of gutted buildings.

The European nations were literally broken. They could no longer produce or manufacture the necessary goods which prevented them from being able to finance their own recovery. The people who miraculously survived these harsh times literally had no shelter or means for supporting themselves. The world economy, having just recovered from the Great Depression and then a World War were more than simply disgruntled with the way things were. But it was not only the economic situation that needed reconstruction, the antidemocratic Communist philosophy was beginning to take root all throughout the battered European nations. The Russians were there in force helping the poor starving survivors that Communism could be the savior. The people both there in Europe and back here in the United States desperately needed answers other than what the old-line classical economists were offering.

United States Foreign Policy

As the European nations tried to come up with a map for recovery, the Communist movement was also devising a strategy. However, the Communist plan was to simply take over the world in a systematic fashion. In the United States, Communism was seen as the biggest post war threat. To combat the ever increasing communist movement, the United States felt that it needed to alter its existing foreign policies in order to stop the communist threat. In the United States, the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine were on the way to provide that help.

In the United States, the Secretary of State in 1947, George C. Marshall, gave a moving speech at Harvard University addressing the situation which was occurring in Europe. That speech eventually altered the nation's foreign policy forever. Since Ulysses S. Grant was president almost eighty years before World War II, the United States was adamant in its position as a non-imperialistic and non-expansionist state. The United States had no true colonies and therefore professed that Imperialism should be left for the British. However, the Secretary of State's speech in June of 1947 expanded the nation's view on what social and fiscal responsibilities the United States had adopted with their new found economic and military strength. The famous speech outlined a plan and a reason why America as a nation should help rebuild Post World War II Europe. That plan was later named the Marshall Plan.

President Harry S. Truman was thrilled to sign the bill which enacted the Marshall plan into law. "Surrounded by members of Congress and his cabinet, on April 3, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed the Foreign Assistance Act, the legislation establishing the Marshall Plan. His official statement said, "Few presidents have had the opportunity to sign legislation of such importance.... This measure is America's answer to the challenge facing the free world today." (Congressional Record, 1947)

Even before the Marshall Plan was conceived and enacted into law, the United States was beginning flex its economic muscle and stray from an almost isolationist foreign policy. As early as 1946 for example, when the United States offered several billion dollars in post war relief, the policy makers added the stipulation that the European nations could only receive these monetary relief funds if they united and ratified plans to best use the aid. It was unprecedented that the United States foreign policies outlined and expected Europe to work with as a single economic unit.

Also around the same time, The Truman Doctrines were beginning to shape the nation's opinion on the true foreign problem which was communism. The foreign policy adjustment precedents such as mandated relief stipulations, the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine were all desperately needed to reestablish Europe as a rebuilt system, but what occurred in addition to Europe's rebirth was that the world was truly altered forever through the United States new approach to foreign policy.

The Truman Doctrine

As early as 1945, the United States began to recognize a threat coming from Moscow. The United States felt the threat was enough to cut reconstruction funding for Russia immediately after World War II. The Truman Doctrine essentially declared that communism and any other philosophies posed by the Soviet Union were serious threats to not only Europe but the United States and eventually the entire world. The Truman Doctrine stated that communism could no longer go unchecked. The United States took on a responsibility of helping the world either obtain or maintain democratic freedoms.

The true effect of the Truman Doctrine back in the United States, however, was one that systematically altered the American way of life in an almost subliminal way. American's either took it upon them selves or they may have even have read it somewhere that they were no longer trust anyone because, one never knows for sure, a person over there could be a 'Red.' Fear infiltrated our society as the Federal government waged an all out war on Communism. Those fears started to again influence the nation's approach to foreign policy. All of a sudden, the Truman Doctrine indirectly made the Soviet Union the ultimate American enemy.

Thus, by 1947, the idea to contain communism was converted into a national philosophy that originated through the idea supported in the notions of the Truman Doctrine. Both the Soviet Union and the United States felt they had to protect themselves as the paranoia intensified and an all out clandestine war was brewing. In Europe the clandestine war between the philosophies of democracy and communism led to the eventual division between the Eastern European Communist Bloc States and the Western European democratic nations that would eventually become the NATO nations. The division was made into a physical divide when the Russians and East Germans began to isolate the city of Berlin through a fence that eventually became the foundation of the Berlin Wall. This division and the opposition of the two philosophies came full circle and the Cold War was on.

The Marshall Plan

Although the Secretary of State's speech was highly regarded, the Marshall plan did not instantly receive the blessings of the nation's leaders or the average citizens. Unlike today's one world global alignment philosophy, the United States in the late 1940's Post World War II Europe initially as someone else's problem, not ours. Opponents of the Marshall plan concluded that the overall cost of such a massive recovery initiative would completely wipe out the United State's domestic economy or possibly even pull the nation into the same economic woes being felt in Europe. The idea that the Marshall plan was also proposing to offer financial aid to the Soviet Union and the new Eastern Block nation's was a poor selling point for the newly Truman Doctrine-ized United States.

Eventually the plan was approved by Congress and signed by Harry S. Truman into law because the effects of the Post World War II economy were beginning to show them self in economic trade conditions. The supporters of the Marshall Plan had always felt that delaying financial support to Europe would only escalate the communist expansion and hurt the United States more economically. Ironically when the Truman Doctrine proved to be accurate by the media's coverage of a Soviet-backed coup in Czechoslovakia and the many other expansionist related stories, the nation and law makers saw it fit to concur with the Marshall Plan supporters and the Plan became law in April of 1948.

Allies and NATO

The Post World War II observations by the allied nations regarding the Soviet Union's then supposed intentions to spread the communist philosophy on a global scale worried the allied nations including the United States enough to warrant new binding negotiations and alliances. In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was drafted and then formalized to discourage potential attacks by the Soviet Union on the non-Communist nations of Western Europe. The communist threat from the Soviet Union eventually led to the Cold War with the United States. The reasoning behind NATO was to establish a deterrent for Communist aggression and also to help maintain the peace amongst the former enemies of Western Europe. Countries like Italy and Germany had made many enemies throughout the war and memories were short. The concept of NATO was that each member nation was bound to treat an attack on any other member of NATO as an assault on itself. Of course, both economically and militarily, the United States was the most powerful member due to its vast financial resources and its nuclear weapons.

Not to be out done, the later in the 1950's, the Soviet Union amassed its own allies from the Communist nations of Eastern Europe to form their own military alliance called the Warsaw Pact with the sole mission of opposing the NATO nations.

The NATO nations seem to have successfully gambled that the Soviet Union would not attack Western Europe because of the perceived threat that any advancement would trigger a counter strike from the United States. NATO's deterrence policy survived all the way thorough the Cold War but there was a number of occasions where full nuclear strikes were barely averted.

Democracy

The winning of the Cold War and the status as the lone superpower gives the United States an opportunity to spread democracy to the rest of the world. By far, the United States has demonstrated the most successful application of the democratic system of government in the history of mankind. Prior to the United States' example of the democracy process, democracy was not considered a good solution for governing large populations.

Throughout history there are examples of inherent defects in the democratic process that have been manipulated by individuals trying to control a nation or group. Consider the fact that the tyrant Adolf Hitler himself needed to manipulate the democratic process in Germany in the 1930's. Hitler understood that he needed true acceptance by the German people so they had to vote him into office. There is only a slight difference between Hitler's fascist dictatorship and the successful example of the United States democratic process. As the first president, George Washington decided to end his reign by stepping down from the office of President when his term was complete. Washington could have just as easily decided to announce himself as the new dictator or king of our then struggling nation. Had that been the case, like the idea of 1940 Germany, the democratic process could have failed miserably.

The Ancient Greeks formed democracies because they expected active citizens in the political decision making objectives of the people. After the Greeks, class systems discriminated because there was little social or political equality for the poor. That class system is what eventually fueled the fire for the creation of communism. But in the United State's, a true definition of democracy can be read in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.

In the United States, democracy is a form of institutionalized freedom which entails a constitutional government, human rights, and equality through the legal system. In a true democracy, the system is supported by a combination of government that has many and varied institutions, political parties, organizations, and associations. In other words, a democracy should demonstrate diversity, even pluralism. In the United States version of democracy, the democratic society is completely independent of the government for its existence, legitimacy, and authority.

Economical system of a democratic government (Capitalism)

The United States had a real advantage over the cash strapped Soviet Union when it came to rebuilding the Post World War II European nations. Economics was the key. The cash and resource rich United States took advantage of the economic strength and the Soviet Unions economic weaknesses. Money could be said to be the true indicator of the success of any nation.

It is most likely that there may not even have been a World War II or an Adolf Hitler problem if the economic issues suffered from the world's Great Depression and the post World War I fiscal atrocities had not demoralized the German people. Many of the speeches that brought Hitler to power focused on the immense economic misfortunes of Germany. A political nation or a governmental system that is poor is usually considered a bad political system.

The United States in the Post World War II era all the way through to today have a strong democratic power because base because the nation consistently yields capitalistic success and therefore continues to achieve great wealth. Unlike Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler understood the reasons that the United States democratic capitalistic system thrives as the Soviet communist state run economy failed. No matter what economic system is instituted by a leader or people, be it democratic, Fascist or communist, the true success of a government lies in the ability to provide economic success.

Financial assistance

Economic success allowed the United States to provide the financial assistance so desperately needed in Europe after the war. To make sure the rest of the world understood the economic power of the United States, the Congress created clauses that required all goods and resources shipped under the Marshall Plan to be clearly identified so as to make no mistake about who was really the one supplying the assistance. Some of the original Marshall Plan labels for goods read, "For European Recovery -- Supplied by the United States of America" or "Strength for the Free World -- From the United States of America." The latter propaganda seemed to have taken into account that the free world was against communism at all times.

The financial assistance initiatives created by the Marshall Plan were well managed and run by the best financial minds of the time and by individuals with vast amounts of business and financial experience. Congress and President Truman wisely thought to fill the positions with top financial executives like George C. Marshall, Paul G. Hoffman, and Averell Harriman, president of the Studebaker automobile corporation.

Post World War II European Economy and Trade

As the Marshall Plan became more a reality, communist opposition grew especially when the leaders of the Marshall Plan suggested the creation of united western European markets-based which were based on the elimination of customs barriers and tariffs for the west but not the eastern blocks states. Although these original plans did not go through, the leadership of the Marshall Plan eventually helped create and promote European economic integration which can be considered the foundation of today's single European Union economy and current monetary system. But like any capitalistic venture, the Americans were criticized for trying to subjugate the disorganized European nations and shattered economy for only American financial interests.

Not surprisingly, the idea that the United States was only thinking of itself may not have been that far off of the truth. The Americans feared that the Post World War II financial problems in Europe would eventually jump back across the Atlantic and hit home. The unemployment numbers of the 1930s were to real a memory for the American people so increasing the United States prosperity level was in fact a major objective of the Truman administration and a stated goal of the Marshall Plan.

The American prosperity clause in the Marshall Plan, although it took some advantage of the European nations, gained wide support in the United States by the business community, bankers, workers, and farmers. At the core of the Marshall Plan was the American economy because the Marshall plan represented jobs in America. The food and manufactured goods produced in America and sold to Europe and the rest of the world helped the American economy flourish while the Post World War II Europe sat stagnant. The Plan benefited the American economy to a point of prosperity.

Large profits were generated because the goods needed to be shipped from the United States across the Atlantic on American merchant vessels. Those profits from the cyclical trade were pumped into Europe's recovery and eventually the economic recovery was realized. By the 1950's, the United States had literally provided over $13 billion in economic aid to Europe. A plan to reintegrate West Germany back into the European community also helped reinstate economic independence by the European nations as their economies once again were self sufficient. The Marshall Plan was both generous and idealistic.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this essay attempted to present the role of the United States of America in the reconstruction of post World War II Europe and provide additional information regarding the Cold War, the formation of NATO, and the ample economic trade opportunities sought by the Americans to help Europe. Once Germany was disarmed, the post World War II Europe was in complete shambles. The European nations faced enormous economic challenges for the reconstruction of their immediate world. They were forced to contend with double digit inflation, social disorder, unemployment, starvation and poverty. Economic solutions were not obvious and therefore two political philosophies battled over the future of Europe and the world. The United States and the Soviet Union stepped up but had contradictory solutions for Europe's problem. Through the efforts of approaches like the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine, the United States eventually provided Europe with a responsible fiscal economy and desperately needed social order. During the economic struggles, the United States and Europe soon understood that Communist threat was as big a threat to Europe and American democracy as was the Nazi regime just removed from power.