Transcript Europe at war`s end - Memorial University

Postwar Europe
Europe at war’s end
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvax5VUvjWQ
The Department of Political Science
Presents
Figuring out what's broke: Assessing the
effects of ownership on political news
content
Dr. Kelly Blidook
Department of Political Science
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Friday March 13, 2009
SN2033
2:30pm
Reminders:

Net assignment #2 due, Monday, March 16th at
5:00 p.m.

Book or film reviews due in class on Thursday,
March 19th
• Be sure to consult the hints and suggestions & the
directions on format and style in the topic sheet
A paradox and a puzzle
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Europe experiences destruction on a
scale far greater than World War I
60 million dead
Large numbers uprooted or displaced
Huge swaths of the continent
ravaged
• Cities bombed & destroyed
• Land ruined
• Manufacturing and agricultural capacity
curtailed…
Nevertheless:
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Europe manages to emerge from WWII
into
• a half century of relative peace and
• in some places (the west), unprecedented
affluence

A continent which had been the epicentre
of two world wars ends up
• Politically more unified
• With large areas in which war is unthinkable
• A large number of countries, now EU memberstates
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How and why was this possible?
Possible explanations:
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Planning for postwar period
• Construction of new international
institutions

New elán
• Spirit of cooperation among resistance
fighters
• Determination not to go back to dirty
’30s
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US involvement
Cold War & the way in which it
defined & limited choices and options
However,
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Not all wartime plans are implemented or
turn out as intended
• Treatment of Germany very different than
originally intended in Morganthau Plan or JCS
1047
• UN does not operate as intended
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New elán & spirit of cooperation often
dissipate – both domestically & in
international politics
Outbreak of Cold War frames different
choices & opportunities for visionaries and
pragmatics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvax5VUvjWQ
These make a difference
Planning the peace
Summit negotiations on war aims, postwar
disposition of territory
 Casablanca 1943 (Roosevelt + Churchill)
• Agreement on unconditional surrender

Teheran 1943
• Initial agreement on eastern Europe
• Plans for occupation of Germany

Yalta 1945
• Plans for United Nations
• Further agreement on territory
• Concessions to Russia to secure entry into war against
Japan
Planning the postwar economic
order
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Bretton Woods conference –1943
• Plans for monetary stability
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Fixed system of exchange rates
World Bank and International Monetary Fund to
stabilize
Agreements on trade (GATT)
Domestic side
• UK – plans for welfare state (Beveridge
Report)
• Discussions in resistance movements, among
governments in exile
Dealing with Germany
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Division into
occupation zones, but
no intent to partition
French & Soviet
demands for
reparations
Intent to de-nazify
Immediate problem:
food & shelter for
• local population
• people displaced by
boundary shifts &
‘ethnic cleansing’ in
Eastern Europe
Allied powers:
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Wartime agreements place Germany
under joint administration
But, allies increasingly divided:
• Americans, British, French v. Soviets
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End up providing aid rather than
extracting reparations
Unable to carry out de-Nazification as
thoroughly as planned
• Nuremberg Trials net some leaders, but not
many who were complicit
• Officials needed to run the country
• Forced to work through existing bureaucracy
West Germany
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British, American & French zones merged
Provinces re-established, with new
boundaries
Parties whose leaders free (or freer) of
Nazi connections licensed:
• Social Democrats (SPD)
• Christian Democrats (CDU) – built on the base
of the Catholic Party (Zentrum)
• Free Democrats (FDP)
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Invited to draw up a new constitution
End up dominating politics in Federal
Republic of Germany (FRG) through the
1980s
Soviet Zone
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Tri-zonal administration in West
triggers:
• Berlin Blockage, Berlin airlift
• formation of separate communist state,
German Democratic Republic (GDR)
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But, free movement via Berlin until
construction of Berlin Wall in 1961
Socialists, Communists unified in
Socialist Unity Party (SED)
Central and Eastern Europe:
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Territories occupied by Red Army
Socialist & Communist Parties encouraged to join
in popular front governments –
• Communists in key ministries, e.g.
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Interior – controlling the police
Agriculture – controlling land distribution
Unification of Socialists & Communists
encouraged -- e.g. Poland, E. Germany..
Opponents marginalized or arrested
Sometimes elections rigged…
Communist gov’ts entrenched by 1948
Soviet-style party-state systems established
Western Europe
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Where possible, previous systems reestablished, governments in exile return
politics resumes, albeit with different
coalitions in office
• e.g. Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway…
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In France & Italy, new constitutions are
drafted
• In both instances, previous regimes discredited
and toppled
France
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3rd Republic terminated with invasion,
occupation, establishment of the Vichy
Republic in south
Liberation in summer 1944
• Collaborators punished
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Constitutional debate among
• Resistance forces, especially
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Communists (27%)
Socialists (~25%)
MRP (Christian Democrats, also 25%)
• General De Gaulle – leader of the Free French
Army & head of provisional government
The debate:
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De Gaulle favours a presidential republic:
• in his view, the French people need a president who can
be above politics & formulate what the people want
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Parties favour a return to a parliamentary or
assembly-dominated regime
Parties win, at least temporarily:
• 4th Republic established, with some attempt to provide
stronger cabinets
• De Gaulle resigns & retires from politics
• Consensus which made a tripartite coalition possible
breaks down:
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Communists expelled from government in 1947
Socialists split with MRP over state support for Catholic
schools (early 1950s)
Italy
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Mussolini toppled in 1943
Germany occupies
Liberation in slow degrees, 1943-1945
At war’s end, a new configuration of
political forces:
• RK Church casts its lot with democracy
• Allows the formation of a Christian Democratic
Party
• Initially, tripartite coalition of Communists,
Socialists, and Christian Democrats
1948 Constitution

Series of compromises
• position of the Church recognized,
• along with positive goals – full employment –
of Socialists and Communists
• Explicitly anti-Fascist
• Yet bureaucracy & judiciary were not purged

With outbreak of the Cold War
• Communists and Socialists leave coalition
• Italy governed by a series of Christian
Democratic-led multiparty coalitions, average
duration of one year
• Communists excluded at national level until
1990s
Netherlands:
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As elsewhere, war experience facilitates
communication among rivals groups &
determination to bring about change
• Break down divisions among Catholics,
Calvinists, Socialists -- - historically separate
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Once war over, old divisions re-emerge
Greater willingness to cooperate:
• Catholics & Socialists join in postwar
reconstruction & building a welfare state
Bottom line:
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In Western Europe, basis laid for reestablishment of liberal democracy
In Central & Eastern Europe, imposition of
Communist party-state systems,
Division of Europe (Churchill’s iron curtain)
facilitates reconstruction, institutionbuilding & politics of affluence which would
ensue
But economic reconstruction as important
as political reconstruction or restoration