Post-war Germany

In Les Reid’s letter of 16 February he refers to the Marshall Plan as a foundation for Germany’s post-war success. That is not in dispute.

In 1945 Germany ended up as a country in ruins, including the total devastation of its industry and over five million soldiers killed. Many more were injured or imprisoned by the Allies and not released until years later. The Marshall Plan was designed to bring West Germany back and keep it in the Western block. Germany was simply not able to pay any reparations.

He then went on to claim that the way EU is organised has benefitted Germany, including the creation of the Euro. As I understand it, Germany was “forced” into the Euro by the French in return for that country approving the reunification of East and West Germany.

At that time the currencies were based on a parity that reflected the performance of the individual countries. Germany was not given any advantage as such at that point. The inability of particularly the Latin Countries to improve on productivity and refrain from awarding themselves larger pay and pensions-based unrestricted borrowing gradually gave Germany an unhealthy advantage which survives today. Not sure how you can blame Germany for that. Greece in particular should never have joined the Euro.

Furthermore, he asserts again that “The EU opendoors immigration policy has also benefitted Germany. The mass migrations the policy has unleashed across Europe have hit other countries hard, particularly the UK. Migrants are avoiding Germany”.

Well, it was Germany’s Angela Merkel who opened up the doors in 2016. They ended up with over a million in that year alone.

Apart from that, a visit to Wikileaks provides some net immigration figures since 1945. A total of 9,812,000 came to Germany versus 7,012,000 coming to UK. So it is probably about the same on a percentage basis between the two countries.

Because of the Second World War casualties, particularly of males, Germany has had to import workers to keep their industries producing. Many came originally from Turkey. Immigration has nothing to do with Germany’s higher gross domestic product per capita.

JOHN PETER Monks Road, Airdrie