Marshall Plan

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Map of Cold-War era Europe and the Near East showing countries that received Marshall
Plan aid. The red columns show the relative amount of total aid per nation.

The Marshall Plan (from its enactment, officially the European Recovery Program
[ERP]) was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding the allied countries of
Europe and repelling communism after World War II. The initiative was named for
United States Secretary of State George Marshall and was largely the creation of State
Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan.

The reconstruction plan was developed at a meeting of the participating European states
on July 12 1947. The Marshall Plan offered the same aid to the Soviet Union and its
allies, if they would make political reforms and accept certain outside controls. The plan
was in operation for four years beginning in July 1947. During that period some $13
billion of economic and technical assistance was given to help the recovery of the
European countries that had joined in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development.[1]

By the time the plan had come to completion, the economy of every participant state,
with the exception of Germany, had grown well past pre-war levels. Over the next two
decades, many regions of Western Europe would enjoy unprecedented growth and
prosperity. The Marshall Plan has also long been seen as one of the first elements of
European integration, as it erased tariff trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate
the economy on a continental level. An intended consequence was the systematic
adoption of American managerial techniques.
In recent years historians have questioned both the underlying motivation and the overall
effectiveness of the Marshall Plan. Some historians contend that the benefits of the
Marshall Plan actually resulted from new laissez-faire policies that allowed markets to
stabilize through economic growth. It is now acknowledged that the United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, which helped millions of refugees from 1944 to
1947, also laid the foundation for European postwar recovery.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Before the Marshall Plan

• 2 Early ideas
• 3 The speech
• 4 Rejection by the Soviets
• 5 Negotiations
• 6 Implementation
• 7 Expenditures
• 8 Effects
• 9 Repayment
• 10 Areas without the Marshall Plan
• 11 Criticism
• 12 See also
• 13 References
• 14 Further reading
• 15 Notes

• 16 External links

[edit] Before the Marshall Plan

After six years of war, much of Europe was devastated with millions killed and injured.
Fighting had occurred throughout much of the continent, encompassing an area far larger
than that in the First World War. Sustained aerial bombardment meant that most major
cities had been badly damaged, with industrial production especially hard-hit. Many of
the continent's greatest cities, including Warsaw and Berlin, lay in ruins. Others, such as
London and Rotterdam, had been severely damaged. The region's economic structure was
ruined, and millions had been made homeless. Although the Dutch famine of 1944 had
abated with an influx of aid, the general devastation of agriculture had led to conditions
of starvation in several parts of the continent, which was to be exacerbated by the
particularly harsh winter of 1946-1947 in northwestern Europe. Especially damaged was
transportation infrastructure, as railways, bridges, and roads had all been heavily targeted
by air strikes, while much merchant shipping had been sunk. Although most small towns
and villages in Western Europe had not suffered as much damage, the destruction of
transportation left them economically isolated. None of these problems could be easily
remedied, as most nations engaged in the war had exhausted their treasuries in its
execution.

After the First World War the European economy had also been greatly damaged, and a
deep recession lasting well into the 1920s had led to instability and a general global
downturn. The United States, despite a resurgence of isolationism, had attempted to
promote European growth, mainly through partnerships with the major American banks.
When Germany was unable to pay its reparations, the Americans also intervened by
extending a large loan to Germany, a debt the Americans were left with when war was
declared in 1941.

In Washington there was a consensus that the events after the First World War should not
be repeated. The State Department under Harry S. Truman was dedicated to pursuing an
activist foreign policy, but the Congress was somewhat less interested. Originally, it was
hoped that little would need to be done to rebuild Europe and that the United Kingdom
and France, with the help of their colonies, would quickly rebuild their economies. By
1947 there was still little progress, however. A series of cold winters aggravated an
already poor situation. The European economies did not seem to be growing as high
unemployment and food shortages led to strikes and unrest in several nations. In 1947 the
European economies were still well below their pre-war levels and were showing few
signs of growth. Agricultural production was 83% of 1938 levels, industrial production
was 88%, and exports only 59%.[2]

The shortage of food was one of the most acute problems. Before the war, Western
Europe had depended on the large food surpluses of Eastern Europe, but these routes
were largely cut off by the Iron Curtain. The situation was especially bad in Germany
where in 1946–47 the average kilocalorie intake per day was only 1,800, an amount
insufficient for long-term health.[3] William Clayton reported to Washington that "millions
of people are slowly starving."[4] As important for the overall economy was the shortage
of coal, aggravated by the cold winter of 1946-47. In Germany, homes went unheated and
hundreds froze to death. In the United Kingdom, the situation was not as severe, but
domestic demand meant that industrial production came to a halt. The humanitarian
desire to end these problems was one motivation for the plan.

The only major power whose infrastructure had not been significantly harmed was the
United States. It had entered the war later than most European countries, and had only
suffered limited damage to its own territory. American gold reserves were still intact as
was its massive agricultural and manufacturing base, the country enjoying a robust
economy. The war years had seen the fastest period of economic growth in the nation's
history, as American factories supported both its own war effort and that of its allies.
After the war, these plants quickly retooled to produce consumer goods, and the scarcity
of the war years was replaced by a boom in consumer spending. The long term health of
the economy was dependent on trade, however, as continued prosperity would require
markets to export these goods. Marshall Plan aid would largely be used by the Europeans
to buy manufactured goods and raw materials from the United States.
Another strong motivating factor for the United States, and an important difference from
the post World War I era, was the beginning of the Cold War. Some in the American
government had grown deeply suspicious of Soviet actions. George Kennan, one of the
leaders in developing the plan, was already predicting a bipolar division of the world. To
him the Marshall Plan was the centerpiece of the new doctrine of containment.[5] It should
be noted that when the Marshall Plan was initiated, the wartime alliances were still
somewhat intact and the Cold War had not yet truly begun, and for most of those who
developed the Marshall Plan, fear of the Soviet Union was not the overriding concern it
would be in later years.

Still, the power and popularity of indigenous communist parties in several Western
European states worried the United States. In both France and Italy, the poverty of the
postwar era had provided fuel for their communist parties, which had also played central
roles in the resistance movements of the war. These parties had seen significant electoral
success in the postwar elections, with the Communists becoming the largest single party
in France. Though today most historians feel the threat of France and Italy falling to the
communists was remote,[6] it was regarded as a very real possibility by American policy
makers at the time. The American government of Harry Truman began to believe this
possibility in 1946, notably with Churchill's Iron Curtain speech, given in Truman's
presence. In their minds, The United States needed to adopt a definite position on the
world scene or fear losing credibility. The emerging doctrine of containment argued that
the United States needed to substantially aid non-communist countries to stop the spread
of Soviet influence. There was also some hope that the Eastern European nations would
join the plan, and thus be pulled out of the emerging Soviet bloc.

In view of increased concerns by General Lucius D. Clay and the Joint Chief of Staff
over growing communist influence in Germany, as well as of the failure of the rest of the
European economy to recover without the German industrial base on which it previously
had been dependent, in the summer of 1947 Secretary of State General George Marshall,
citing "national security grounds" was finally able to convince President Harry S. Truman
to rescind the punitive U.S. occupation directive JCS 1067, and replace it with JCS
1779.[7] In July 1947 JCS 1067, which had directed the U.S. forces of occupation in
Germany to "…take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany",
was thus replaced by JCS 1779 which instead stressed that "An orderly, prosperous
Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany.”[8] JCS
1067 had then been in effect for over two years.

Even before the Marshall Plan, the United States was spending a great deal to help
Europe recover. An estimated $9 billion was spent during the period from 1945 to 1947.
Much of this aid was indirect, coming in the form of continued lend-lease agreements,
and through the many efforts of American troops to restore infrastructure and help
refugees. A number of bilateral aid agreements had been signed, perhaps the most
important of which was the Truman Doctrine's pledge to provide military assistance to
Greece and Turkey. The infant United Nations also launched a series of humanitarian and
relief efforts almost wholly funded by the United States. These efforts had important
effects, but they lacked any central organization and planning, and failed to meet many of
Europe's more fundamental needs.[9]

Already in 1943, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration

(UNRRA) was founded to provide relief to areas liberated from Axis powers after World
War II. UNRRA provided billions of dollars of rehabilitation aid, and helped about 8
million refugees. It ceased operations in the DP camps of Europe in 1947, in anticipation
of the American-directed Marshall Plan. Many of its functions were transferred to several
UN agencies, including the International Refugee Organization.

[edit] Early ideas

Long before Marshall's speech a number of figures had raised the notion of a
reconstruction plan for Europe. U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes presented an
early version of the plan during a speech, "Restatement of Policy on Germany" held at the
Stuttgart Opera House on September 6, 1946. In a series of reports called The President's
Economic Mission to Germany and Austria, commissioned by Harry S. Truman, former
President Herbert Hoover presented a very critical view of the result of current
occupation policies in Germany. In the reports Hoover provided proposals for a
fundamental change of occupation policy. In addition, General Lucius D. Clay asked
industrialist Lewis H. Brown to inspect postwar Germany and draft "A Report on
Germany" in 1947, containing basic facts relating to the problems in Germany with
recommendations for reconstruction. Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson had made a
major speech on the issue, which had mostly been ignored, and Vice President Alben W.
Barkley had also raised the idea.

The main alternative to large quantities of American aid was to take it from Germany. In
1944 this notion became known as the Morgenthau plan, named after U.S. Treasury
Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. It advocated extracting massive war reparations from
Germany to help rebuild those countries it had attacked, and also to prevent Germany
from ever being rebuilt. Closely related was the Monnet plan of French bureaucrat Jean
Monnet that proposed giving France control over the German coal areas of the Ruhr and
Saar and using these resources to bring France to 150% of pre-war industrial production.
In 1946 the occupying powers agreed to put strict limits on how quickly Germany could
reindustrialize. Limits were placed on how much coal and steel could be produced. The
first German industrial plan, also known as the "level of industry agreement", was signed
in early 1946 and stated that German heavy industry was to be reduced to 50% of its
1938 levels by the destruction of 1,500 listed manufacturing plants[10] The problems
inherent in this plan became apparent by the end of 1946, and the agreement was revised
several times, the last time in 1949. Dismantling of factories continued however into
1950. Germany had long been the industrial giant of Europe, and its poverty held back
the general European recovery. The continued scarcity in Germany also led to
considerable expenses for the occupying powers, which were obligated to try to make up
the most important shortfalls. These factors, combined with widespread public
condemnation of the plans after their leaking to the press, led to the de facto rejection of
the Monnet and Morgenthau plans. Some of their ideas, however, did partly live on in
Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067, a plan which was effectively the basis for US
Occupation policy until July 1947. The mineral-rich industrial centers Saar and Silesia
were removed from Germany, a number of civilian industries were destroyed in order to
limit production, and the Ruhr Area was in danger of being removed as late as 1947. By
April of 1947, however, Truman, Marshall and Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson
were convinced of the need for substantial quantities of aid from the United States.

The idea of a reconstruction plan was also an outgrowth of the ideological shift that had
occurred in the United States in the Great Depression. The economic calamity of the
1930s had convinced many that the unfettered free market could not guarantee economic
well-being. Many who had worked on designing the New Deal programs to revive the
American economy now sought to apply these lessons to Europe. At the same time the
Great Depression had shown the dangers of tariffs and protectionism, creating a strong
belief in the need for free trade and European economic integration.[11]

[edit] The speech

U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall

The earlier public discussions of the need for reconstruction had largely been ignored, as
it was not clear that it was establishing official administration policy. It was decided that
all doubt must be removed by a major address by Secretary of State George Marshall.
Marshall gave the address to the graduating class of Harvard University on June 5, 1947.
Standing on the steps of Memorial Church in Harvard Yard, he outlined the U.S.
government's preparedness to contribute to European recovery. The speech, written by
Charles Bohlen, contained virtually no details and no numbers. The most important
element of the speech was the call for the Europeans to meet and create their own plan
for rebuilding Europe, and that the United States would then fund this plan. The
administration felt that the plan would likely be unpopular among many Americans, and
the speech was mainly directed at a European audience. In an attempt to keep the speech
out of American papers journalists were not contacted, and on the same day Truman
called a press conference to take away headlines. By contrast Acheson was dispatched to
contact the European media, especially the British media, and the speech was read in its
entirety on the BBC.[12]

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Marshall Plan Speech

[edit] Rejection by the Soviets

British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin heard Marshall's radio broadcast speech and
immediately contacted French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault to begin preparing a
European response to the offer. The two agreed that it would be necessary to invite the
Soviets as the other major allied power. Marshall's speech had explicitly included an
invitation to the Soviets, feeling that excluding them would have been too clear a sign of
distrust. State Department officials, however, knew that Stalin would almost certainly not
participate, and that any plan that did send large amounts of aid to the Soviets was
unlikely to be approved by Congress.

Stalin was at first cautiously interested in the plan. He felt that the Soviet Union stood in
a good position after the war and would be able to dictate the terms of the aid. He thus
dispatched foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov to Paris to meet with Bevin and
Bidault.[13] The British and French leadership shared the American lack of genuine
interest in Soviet participation, and they presented Molotov with conditions that the
Soviets could never accept. The most important condition was that every country to join
the plan would need to have its economic situation independently assessed, scrutiny the
Soviets could not agree to. Bevin and Bidault also insisted that any aid be accompanied
by the creation of a unified European economy, something incompatible with the strict
Soviet command economy. Molotov left Paris, rejecting the plan.

On July 12, a larger meeting was convened in Paris. Every country of Europe was
invited, with the exceptions of Spain (which had stayed out of World War II but had
sympathized with the Axis powers) and the small states of Andorra, San Marino,
Monaco, and Liechtenstein. The Soviet Union was invited with the understanding that it
would refuse. The states of the future Eastern Bloc were also approached, and
Czechoslovakia and Poland agreed to attend. In one of the clearest signs of Soviet control
over the region, the Czechoslovak foreign minister, Jan Masaryk, was summoned to
Moscow and berated by Stalin for thinking of joining the Marshall Plan. Stalin saw the
Plan as a significant threat to Soviet control of Eastern Europe and believed that
economic integration with the West would allow these countries to escape Soviet
guidance. The Americans shared this view and hoped that economic aid could counter the
growing Soviet influence. They were not too surprised, therefore, when the
Czechoslovakian and Polish delegations were prevented from attending the Paris
meeting. The other Eastern European states immediately rejected the offer. Finland also
declined in order to avoid antagonizing the Soviets. The Soviet Union's "alternative" to
the Marshall plan, which was purported to involve Soviet subsidies and trade with eastern
Europe, became known as the Molotov Plan, and later, the COMECON.

[edit] Negotiations
Turning the plan into reality required negotiations both among the participating nations,
and also to get the plan through the United States Congress. Thus sixteen nations met in
Paris to determine what form the American aid would take, and how it would be divided.
The negotiations were long and complex, with each nation having its own interests.
France's major concern was that Germany not be rebuilt to its previous threatening
power. The Benelux countries, despite also suffering under the Nazis, had long been
closely linked to the German economy and felt their prosperity depended on its revival.
The Scandinavian nations, especially Sweden, insisted that their long-standing trading
relationships with the Eastern Bloc nations not be disrupted and that their neutrality not
be infringed. Britain insisted on special status, concerned that if it were treated equally
with the devastated continental powers it would receive virtually no aid. The Americans
were pushing the importance of free trade and European unity to form a bulwark against
communism. The Truman administration, represented by William Clayton, promised the
Europeans that they would be free to structure the plan themselves, but the administration
also reminded the Europeans that for the plan to be implemented, it would have to pass
Congress. The majority of Congress was committed to free trade and European
integration, and also were hesitant to spend too much of the money on Germany.[14]

Agreement was eventually reached and the Europeans sent a reconstruction plan to
Washington. In this document the Europeans asked for $22 billion in aid. Truman cut this
to $17 billion in the bill he put to Congress. The plan met sharp opposition in Congress,
mostly from the portion of the Republican Party that advocated a more isolationist policy
and was weary of massive government spending. This group's most prominent
representative was Robert A. Taft. The plan also had opponents on the left, with Henry A.
Wallace a strong opponent. Wallace saw the plan as a subsidy for American exporters and
sure to polarize the world between East and West.[15] This opposition was greatly reduced
by the shock of the overthrow of the democratic government of Czechoslovakia in
February 1948. Soon after a bill granting an initial $5 billion passed Congress with strong
bipartisan support. The Congress would eventually donate $12.4 billion in aid over the
four years of the plan.[16]

Truman signed the Marshall Plan into law on April 3, 1948, establishing the Economic
Cooperation Administration (ECA) to administer the program. ECA was headed by
economic cooperation administrator Paul G. Hoffman. In the same year, the participating
countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Great Britain, Greece,
Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland,
Turkey, and the United States) signed an accord establishing a master coordinating
agency, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (later called the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD), which was headed
by Frenchman Robert Marjolin.
[edit] Implementation
The first substantial aid went to Greece and Turkey in January 1947, which were seen as
being on the front lines of the battle against communist expansion and were already being
aided under the Truman Doctrine. Initially the UK had supported the anti-communist
factions in those countries, but due to its dire economic condition it requested the U.S. to
continue its efforts. The ECA formally began operation in July 1948.

First page of the Marshall Plan

The official mission statement of ECA was to give a boost to the Europe economy: to
promote European production, to bolster European currency, and to facilitate
international trade, especially with the United States, whose economic interest required
Europe to become wealthy enough to import U.S. goods. Another unofficial goal of ECA
(and of the Marshall Plan) was the containment of growing Soviet influence in Europe,
evident especially in the growing strength of communist parties in Czechoslovakia,
France, and Italy.

The Marshall Plan money was transferred to the governments of the European nations.
The funds were jointly administered by the local governments and the ECA. Each
European capital had an ECA envoy, generally a prominent American businessman, who
would advise on the process. The cooperative allocation of funds was encouraged, and
panels of government, business, and labor leaders were convened to examine the
economy and see where aid was needed.
The Marshall Plan aid was mostly used for the purchase of goods from the United States.
The European nations had all but exhausted their foreign exchange reserves during the
war, and the Marshall Plan aid represented almost their sole means of importing goods
from abroad. At the start of the plan these imports were mainly much-needed staples such
as food and fuel, but later the purchases turned towards reconstruction needs as was
originally intended. In the latter years, under pressure from the United States Congress
and with the outbreak of the Korean War, an increasing amount of the aid was spent on
rebuilding the militaries of Western Europe. Of the some $13 billion allotted by mid-
1951, $3.4 billion had been spent on imports of raw materials and semi-manufactured
products; $3.2 billion on food, feed, and fertilizer; $1.9 billion on machines, vehicles, and
equipment; and $1.6 billion on fuel.[17]

Also established were counterpart funds, which used Marshall Plan aid to establish funds
in the local currency. According to ECA rules 60% of these funds had to be invested in
industry. This was prominent in Germany, where these government-administered funds
played a crucial role loaning money to private enterprises which would spend the money
rebuilding. These funds played a central role in the reindustrialization of Germany. In
1949 – 50, for instance, 40% of the investment in the German coal industry was by these
funds.[18] The companies were obligated to repay the loans to the government, and the
money would then be lent out to another group of businesses. This process has continued
to this day in the guise of the state owned KfW bank. The Special Fund, then supervised
by the Federal Economics Ministry, was worth over DM 10 billion in 1971. In 1997 it
was worth DM 23 billion. Through the revolving loan system, the Fund had by the end of
1995 made low-interest loans to German citizens amounting to around DM 140 billion.
The other 40% of the counterpart funds were used to pay down the debt, stabilize the
currency, or invest in non-industrial projects. France made the most extensive use of
counterpart funds, using them to reduce the budget deficit. In France, and most other
countries, the counterpart fund money was absorbed into general government revenues,
and not recycled as in Germany.

A far less expensive, but also quite effective, ECA initiative was the Technical Assistance
Program. This program funded groups of European engineers and industrialists to visit
the United States and tour mines, factories, and smelters so that they could then copy the
American advances at home. At the same time several hundred American technical
advisors were sent to Europe.

[edit] Expenditures
The Marshall Plan aid was divided among the participant states on a roughly per capita
basis. A larger amount was given to the major industrial powers, as the prevailing opinion
was that their resuscitation was essential for general European revival. Somewhat more
aid per capita was also directed towards the Allied nations, with less for those that had
been part of the Axis or remained neutral. The table below shows Marshall Plan aid by
country and year (in millions of dollars) from The Marshall Plan Fifty Years Later. There
is no clear consensus on exact amounts, as different scholars differ on exactly what
elements of American aid during this period was part of the Marshall Plan.
 1948/49 1949/50 1950/51 Cumulative
Country ($ millions) ($ millions) ($ millions) ($ millions)

Austria 232 166 70 488

Belgium and Luxembourg 195 222 360 777

Denmark 103 87 195 385

France 1,085 691 520 2,296

Germany[19] 510 438 500 1,448

Greece 175 156 45 366

Iceland 6 22 15 43

Ireland 88 45 — 133

Italy and Trieste 594 405 205 1,204

Netherlands 471 302 355 1,128

Norway 82 90 200 372

Portugal — — 70 70

Sweden 39 48 260 347

Switzerland — — 250 250

Turkey 28 59 50 137
 United Kingdom 1,316 921 1,060 3,297

[edit] Effects

One of a number of posters created to promote the Marshall Plan in Europe. The blue flag
with the white fleur-de-lys is a version of the Trieste flag.

The Marshall Plan ended in 1951, as originally scheduled. Any effort to extend it was
halted by the growing cost of the Korean War and rearmament. U.S. Republicans hostile
to the plan had also gained seats in the 1950 Congressional elections, and conservative
opposition to the plan was revived. Thus the plan ended in 1951, though various other
forms of American aid to Europe continued afterwards.

The years 1948 to 1952 saw the fastest period of growth in European history. Industrial
production increased by 35%. Agricultural production substantially surpassed pre-war
levels.[20] The poverty and starvation of the immediate postwar years disappeared, and
Western Europe embarked upon an unprecedented two decades of growth that saw
standards of living increase dramatically. There is some debate among historians over
how much this should be credited to the Marshall Plan. Most reject the idea that it alone
miraculously revived Europe, as evidence shows that a general recovery was already
underway. Most believe that the Marshall Plan sped this recovery, but did not initiate it.
The political effects of the Marshall Plan may have been just as important as the
economic ones. Marshall Plan aid allowed the nations of Western Europe to relax
austerity measures and rationing, reducing discontent and bringing political stability. The
communist influence on Western Europe was greatly reduced, and throughout the region
communist parties faded in popularity in the years after the Marshall Plan. The trade
relations fostered by the Marshall Plan helped forge the North Atlantic alliance that
would persist throughout the Cold War. At the same time the nonparticipation of the
states of Eastern Europe was one of the first clear signs that the continent was now
divided.

The Marshall Plan also played an important role in European integration. Both the
Americans and many of the European leaders felt that European integration was
necessary to secure the peace and prosperity of Europe, and thus used Marshall Plan
guidelines to foster integration. In some ways this effort failed, as the OEEC never grew
to be more than an agent of economic cooperation. Rather it was the separate European
Coal and Steel Community, which notably excluded Britain, that would eventually grow
into the European Union. However, the OEEC served as both a testing and training
ground for the structures and bureaucrats that would later be used by the European
Economic Community. The Marshall Plan, linked into the Bretton Woods system, also
mandated free trade throughout the region.

While some modern historians today feel some of the praise for the Marshall Plan is
exaggerated, it is still viewed favorably and many thus feel that a similar project would
help other areas of the world. After the fall of communism several proposed a "Marshall
Plan for Eastern Europe" that would help revive that region. Others have proposed a
Marshall Plan for Africa to help that continent, and U.S. vice president Al Gore
suggested a Global Marshall Plan.[21]

The Marshall "Help" Plan almost ended in 1950 for the Netherlands, when the United
States of America announced the "decisive battle against communism" in Korea and
asked the Dutch government to send troops and when the Dutch government refused, the
United States of America threatened to recall the Marshall help.

Effects in Germany The West German economic recovery was partly due to the
economic aid provided by the Marshall Plan, but mainly it was due to the currency
reform of 1948 which replaced the Reichsmark with the Deutsche Mark as legal tender,
halting rampant inflation. This act to strengthen the German economy had been explicitly
forbidden during the two years that the occupation directive JCS 1067 was in effect. The
Allied dismantling of the West German coal and steel industry finally ended in 1950.

Contrary to popular belief, the Marshall Plan, which was extended to also include the
newly formed West Germany in 1949, was not the main force behind the German
recovery.[22][23] Had that been the case, other countries such as Great Britain and France
(which both received more economic assistance than Germany) should have experienced
the same phenomenon. In fact, the amount of monetary aid received by Germany through
the Marshal plan was by far overshadowed by the amount the Germans meanwhile had to
pay as reparations and by the charges the Allies made on the Germans for the cost of
occupation ($2.4 billion per year).

Even so, in Germany the myth of the Marshall Plan is still alive. According to Marshall
Plan 1947-1997 A German View by Susan Stern, many Germans still believe that
Germany was the exclusive beneficiary of the plan, that it consisted of a free gift of vast
sums of money, and that it was solely responsible for the German economic recovery in
the 1950s.[24]

[edit] Repayment
The Organization for European Economic Cooperation had taken the leading role in
allocating funds, and the ECA arranged for the transfer of the goods. The American
supplier was paid in dollars, which were credited against the appropriate European
Recovery Program funds. The European recipient, however, was not given the goods as a
gift, but had to pay for them (though not necessarily at once, on credit etc.) in local
currency, which was then deposited by the government in a counterpart fund. This
money, in turn, could be used by the ERP countries for further investment projects.

Most of the participating ERP governments were aware from the beginning that they
would never have to return the counterpart fund money to the U.S.; it was eventually
absorbed into their national budgets and "disappeared." Originally the total American aid
to Germany (in contrast to grants given to other countries in Europe) had to be repaid.
But under the London debts agreement of 1953, the repayable amount was reduced to
about $1 billion. Aid granted after 1 July 1951 amounted to around $270 million, of
which Germany had to repay $16.9 million to the Washington Export-Import Bank. In
reality, Germany did not know until 1953 exactly how much money it would have to pay
back to the U.S., and insisted that money was given out only in the form of interest-
bearing loans — a revolving system ensuring the funds would grow rather than shrink. A
lending bank was charged with overseeing the program. European Recovery Program
loans were mostly used to support small- and medium-sized businesses. Germany paid
the U.S. back in installments (the last check was handed over in June 1971). However,
the money was not paid from the ERP fund, but from the central government budget.

[edit] Areas without the Marshall Plan

Large parts of the world devastated by the Second World War did not benefit from the
Marshall Plan. The only major Western European nation excluded was Francisco Franco's
Spain. After the war, it pursued a policy of self-sufficiency, currency controls, and quotas,
with little success. With the escalation of the Cold War, the United States reconsidered its
position, and in 1951 embraced Spain as an ally, encouraged by Franco's aggressive anti-
communist policies. Over the next decade, a considerable amount of American aid would
go to Spain, but less than its neighbors had received under the Marshall Plan.[25]
While the western portion of the Soviet Union had been as badly affected as any part of
the world by the war, the eastern portion of the country was largely untouched and had
seen a rapid industrialization during the war. The Soviets also imposed large reparations
payments on the Axis allies that were in its sphere of influence. Finland, Hungary,
Romania, and especially East Germany were forced to pay vast sums and ship large
amounts of supplies to the USSR. These reparation payments meant that the Soviet Union
received almost as much as any of the countries receiving Marshall Plan aid.

Eastern Europe saw no Marshall Plan money, as their communist governments refused
aid, and moreover received little help from the Soviets. The Soviets did establish
COMECON as a rebuttal to the Marshall Plan, but it was far less generous, with many
economists arguing it was mostly a one way transfer of resources - from Soviet satellites
to the Soviet Union. Economic recovery in the east was much slower than in the west,
and some feel the economies never fully recovered in the communist period, resulting in
the formation of the shortage economies and a gap in wealth between East and West. The
police states that emerged in much of Eastern Europe could enforce rationing and
austerity measures that would have been impossible in the west, allowing some resources
to be moved towards reconstruction. One Eastern European state, Yugoslavia, did receive
some aid from the United States during this period, but this is generally not considered
Marshall Plan aid.

Japan too, had been badly damaged by the war. However, the American people and
Congress were far less sympathetic towards the Japanese than they were to the
Europeans. Japan was also not considered to have as great a strategic or economic
importance to the United States. Thus no grand reconstruction plan was ever created, and
the Japanese economic recovery before 1950 was slow. However, in 1950 the Korean
War broke out and Japan became the main staging ground for the United Nations war
effort, and a crucial supplier of material. One well known example is that of the Toyota
company. In June 1950, the company produced 300 trucks, and was on the verge of going
out of business. The first months of the war saw the military order over 5,000 vehicles,
and the company was revived.[26] During the four years of the Korean War, the Japanese
economy saw a substantially larger infusion of cash than had any of the Marshall Plan
nations.

Canada, like the United States, was little damaged by the war and in 1945 was one of the
world's largest economies. However, the Canadian economy had long been more
dependent than the American one on trade with Europe, and after the war there were
signs that the Canadian economy was struggling. In April 1948, the U.S. Congress passed
the provision in the plan that allowed the aid to be used in purchasing goods from
Canada. The new provision ensured the health of that nation's economy as Canada made
over a billion dollars in the first two years of operation.[27] This contrasted heavily with
the treatment Argentina, another major economy dependent on its agricultural exports
with Europe, received from the ECA, as the country was deliberately excluded from
participation in the Plan due to political differences between the U.S. and then-president
Perón. This would damage the Argentine agricultural sector and help to precipitate an
economic crisis in the country.[28]
Hong Kong, despite being seriously damaged by Japanese action and occupation in
World War II, received no aid from other countries. Hong Kong initiated a series of
reforms which called for deregulation, business tax cuts and a laissez-faire attitude
towards business. After the China civil war (1945-1949), many upper-class people
relocated to Hong Kong, bringing to this tiny island a large amount of capital. Hong
Kong also became the only channel of trading between mainland China and the West
after 1949. As a result, Hong Kong developed into one of the most successful economic
zones in the world.

[edit] Criticism
The early students of the Marshall Plan saw it as an unmitigated success of American
generosity. Criticism of the Marshall Plan, however, became prominent among historians
of the revisionist school, such as Walter LaFeber, during the 1960s and 1970s. They
argued that the plan was American economic imperialism, and that it was an attempt to
gain control over Western Europe just as the Soviets controlled Eastern Europe. Far from
generosity, critics argued, the plan was the result of the United States' geopolitical goals.

Other historians emphasize the benefits of the plan to U.S. industry. One result of the
destruction in Europe as a result of two world wars was that U.S. farming and industry
had world superiority. American private enterprise thus could only gain financially from
opening new markets and free trade policies. Yet while European reconstruction required
products from the U.S., the Europeans in the immediate aftermath of the Second World
War did not have the dollars to buy these supplies. That was, it is argued, the basic
economic problem; essentially European capitalism suffered from a dollar shortage. The
U.S. had large balance of trade surpluses, and U.S. reserves were large and increasing.
The credit facilities of the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development could not cope with Western Europe's large trade deficits, and the IMF was
only supposed to grant loans for current-account deficits, not for capital finance and
reconstruction purposes. The U.S., therefore, began to create dollar credits in Europe, by
various routes of which the Marshall Plan was one.

In the 1980s, a new school developed with some historians arguing that the Marshall Plan
might not have played as decisive a role in Europe's recovery as was previously believed.
The first person to make this argument was the economic historian Alan S. Milward and
the analysis was developed by the German historian Gerd Hardach in Der Marshall Plan
(1994). Such critics have pointed out that economic growth in many European countries
revived before the large-scale arrival of U.S. aid, and was fastest among some of the
lesser recipients. While aid from the Marshall Plan eased immediate difficulties and
contributed to the recovery of some key sectors, growth from the postwar nadir was
largely an independent process. (European socialists argue that a similar amount of
reconstruction money could have been obtained by nationalizing the holdings of wealthy
Europeans who deposited their money in U.S. banks during World War II.)

Tyler Cowen, economist, has stated that nations receiving the most aid from the Marshall
Plan (Britain, Sweden, Greece) saw the least returns and grew the least between 1947 and
1955. Those nations who received little (Germany, Austria, and Italy) grew the most. It
should be pointed out the latter countries were also the most devastated, and thus had the
most potential for recovery.

In 1942 Committee for Economic Development was elevated into a think tank for the
economic counterpart to the Council on Foreign Relations. The founders were heads of
the steel, automotive, and electric industries in America who had benefitted from New
Deal corporate subsidies and special wartime production subsidies. They owed their
profit margins to government subsidies provided by the New Deal and wartime
production subsidies. Faced with peace, they feared being forced to compete in a free-
market basis.

Corporate economic interests, then, overlapped with President Truman's political interests
(those often criticized leanings towards a "big-government"), and an alliance between
business and government was born.

"Marshall Plan" has become a metaphor for any very large scale government program is
designed to solve a specific social problem. It is usually used by liberals calling for
federal spending to correct a failure of the private sector. [29]

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Marshall Plan

• Alliance for Progress failed Central and South American Marshall Plan.
• GARIOA (Government and Relief in Occupied Areas) The precursor of the
Marshall plan aid.
• Morgenthau plan Post-surrender plan for Germany
• The industrial plans for Germany

[edit] References
• Arkes, Hadley. Bureaucracy, the Marshall Plan, and the National Interest.
Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1972.
• Agnew, John and J. Nicholas Entrikin, eds. The Marshall Plan Today: Model and
Metaphor. Routledge. (2004) online version
• John Bledsoe Bonds; Bipartisan Strategy: Selling the Marshall Plan Praeger,
2002 online version
 • Bothwell, Robert. The Big Chill: Canada and the Cold War. Canadian Institute for
International Affairs/Institut Canadien des Affaires Internationales Contemporary
Affairs Series, No. 1. Toronto: Irwin Publishing Ltd., 1998.
• Crafts, Nicholas, and Gianni Toniolo, eds. Economic Growth in Europe Since
1945. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Djelic, Marie-Laure A.; Exporting the American Model: The Post-War
Transformation of European Business.Oxford University Press, 1998 online
version
• Chiarella Esposito; America's Feeble Weapon: Funding the Marshall Plan in
France and Italy, 1948-1950, Greenwood Press, 1994 online version
• Fossedal, Gregory A. Our Finest Hour: Will Clayton, the Marshall Plan, and the
Triumph of Democracy. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1993.
• Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Grogin, Robert C. Natural Enemies: The United States and the Soviet Union in
the Cold War, 1917-1991. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001.
• Hogan, Michael J. The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction
of Western Europe, 1947-1952. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
• Matthias Kipping and Ove Bjarnar; The Americanisation of European Business:
The Marshall Plan and the Transfer of Us Management Models Routledge, 1998
online version
• Mee, Charles L. The Marshall Plan: The Launching of the Pax Americana. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
• Milward, Alan S. The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945-51. London:
Methuen, 1984.
• Schain, Martin, ed. The Marshall Plan: Fifty Years After. New York: Palgrave,
2001.
• Stueck, William Whitney, ed. The Korean War in World History. Lexington, Ky.:
University Press of Kentucky, 2004.
• Rhiannon Vickers; Manipulating Hegemony: State Power, Labour and the
Marshall Plan in Britain Palgrave Publishers, 2000 online edition
• Wallich, Henry Christopher. Mainsprings of the German Revival. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1955.
• Wasser, Solidelle F. and Michael L. Dolfman; "BLS and the Marshall Plan: The
Forgotten Story: The Statistical Technical Assistance of BLS Increased Productive
Efficiency and Labor Productivity in Western European Industry after World War
II; Technological Literature Surveys and Plan-Organized Plant Visits
Supplemented Instruction in Statistical Measurement," Monthly Labor Review,
Vol. 128, 2005
• Wend, Henry Burke; Recovery and Restoration: U.S. Foreign Policy and the
Politics of Reconstruction of West Germany's Shipbuilding Industry, 1945-1955.
Praeger, 2001 online version

[edit] Further reading

 • John Gimbel "The origins of the Marshal plan" Stanford University Press, 1976.
(reviewed here)

[edit] Notes
1. ^ The $13 billion compares to the U.S. annual GDP of $258 billion in 1948.
2. ^ Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan, pg. 30.
3. ^ Alan S. Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe.
4. ^ Gregory A. Fossedal, Our Finest Hour.
5. ^ John Lewis Gaddis, [We Now Know(?)], pg. 37
6. ^ Gaddis, We Now Know.
7. ^ The Road Ahead: Lessons in Nation Building from Japan, Germany, and Afghanistan
for Postwar Iraq, by Ray Salvatore Jennings May 2003, Peaceworks No. 49, United
States Institute of Peace pg. 14-15
8. ^ Pas de Pagaille! Time Magazine, Jul. 28, 1947.
9. ^ Tony Judt, in The Marshall Plan: Fifty Years After, edited by Martin Schain, pg. 4.
10. ^ Henry C. Wallich, Mainsprings of the German Revival (1955), pg. 348.
11. ^ See Hogan's The Marshall Plan, which is a detailed argument for how the Marshall
Plan was an outgrowth of the New Deal.
12. ^ Charles L. Mee, The Marshall Plan, pg. 99.
13. ^ Gaddis, pg. 41.
14. ^ Michelle Cini, "From the Marshall Plan to the EEC," in The Marshall Plan: Fifty Years
After, edited by Martin Schain, pg. 24.
15. ^ Hogan, pg. 93.
16. ^ Robert C. Grogin, Natural Enemies, pg. 118.
17. ^ Hogan, pg. 415.
18. ^ Nicholas Crafts and Gianni Toniolo, eds., Economic Growth in Europe Since 1945, pg.
464.
19. ^ Only refers to the Anglo-American and French occupation zones, which later became
the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. The plan itself technically included all of
Germany, but it was not implemented in the Soviet zone of control.
20. ^ Grogin, pg. 118.
21. ^ Marshall Plan style proposals for other parts of the world have been a perrenial idea.
For instance, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have referred to their African aid goals as "a
Marshall Plan."[1]. After the end of the Cold War many felt Eastern Europe needed a
rebuilding plan e.g. see [2].
22. ^ German Economic "Miracle" by David R. Henderson
23. ^ "Marshall Plan 1947-1997 A German View" by Susan Stern
24. ^ "Marshall Plan 1947-1997 A German View" by Susan Stern
25. ^ Crafts and Toniolo, eds., Economic Growth in Europe Since 1945, pg. 363.
26. ^ William Whitney Stueck, Korean War in World History, pg. 146.
27. ^ Robert Bothwell, The Big Chill: Canada and the Cold War, pg. 58.
28. ^ Harold F. Peterson, Argentina and the United States II. (1914-1960), pg. 215.
29. ^ John Agnew and J. Nicholas Entrikin, eds. The Marshall Plan Today: Model and
Metaphor. Routledge. (2004)
[edit] External links
• The German Marshall Fund of the United States
• Economist Tyler Cowen questions the conventional wisdom surrounding the Plan
• Truman Presidential Library online collection of original Marshal Plan documents
from the year 1946 onwards
• The Marshal Plan documents collection at MCE
• Marshall Plan from the National Archives
• Excerpts from book by Allen W. Dulles
• United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes famous Stuttgart speech,
September 6, 1946 The speech marked the turning point away from the
Morgenthau Plan philosophy of economic dismantlement of Germany and
towards a policy of economic reconstruction.
• Marshall Plan Commemorative Section: Lessons of the Plan: Looking Forward to
the Next Century
• U.S. Economic Policy Towards defeated countries April, 1946.
• "Pas de Pagaille!", Time magazine July 28, 1947
• "The Marshall Plan as Tragedy," comment on Michael Cox and Caroline
Kennedy-Pipe, "The Tragedy of American Diplomacy? Rethinking the Marshall
Plan," both published in the Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 7, no. 1 (Winter
2005) (text of comment on pdf) (text of original article on pdf)
• Luis García Berlanga's critique of the Marshall Plan in a classic Spanish film:
Welcome Mr. Marshall!
• Marshall Plan Still Working, 60 Years Later Cincinnati Enquirer December 10,
2006

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan"

Categories: Economic history | Aftermath of World War II | World War II politics | 1948
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