Transcript Unit 10 Seminar

Grant Foster
Per. 6
AP Euro
 Unit 10 #20 2011- Analyze the ways in which Western
European nations have pursued European economic
and political integration from 1945 to the present,
referring to at least two nations.
Yalta Conference &Potsdam Conference
 The big three (Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin) met at Yalta in
southern Russia.
 A Yalta it was agreed that Germany would be divided into zones of occupation and would
pay heavy reparations to the Soviet Union.
 Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan after Germany was defeated.
 In regards to Poland and eastern Europe, the big three struggled to reach a compromise
 They agreed to allow eastern European governments were to be freely elected but proRussian.
 The Yalta compromise over eastern Europe broke down almost immediately.
 Before the Yalta Conference Bulgaria and Poland were controlled by communists.
 A the Potsdam Conference of July 1945, President Harry Truman demanded immediate
free elections throughout eastern Europe.
 Stalin Refused
 This was the much debated origins of the cold war.
Marshall Plan and NATO
 In May 1945 Truman cut off all aid to the U.S.S.R.
 Former prime minister Churchill informed America that an “iron curtain” had fallen
across the continent, dividing Germany and all of Europe into two antagonistic camps.
 The Soviet Union placed pressure on Iran, Turkey, Greece, while civil war raged in China.
 By the spring of 1947, it appeared that Stalin was determined to export communism by
subversion throughout Europe and around the World.
 The U.S. responded with the Truman Doctrine which aimed at containing communism to
areas already occupied by the red army.
 June 1947: George C. Marshall offered Europe economic aid to help rebuild it (a.k.a.) the
Marshall Plan.
 Stalin refused Marshall Plan assistance for all of Eastern Europe and established a sovietstyle, one party communist dictatorship in eastern Europe.
 The seizure of power in Czechoslovakia in Feb. 1948 and the blocking of all traffic
through the soviet zone of Germany to Berlin caused the U.S. to develop an anti- Soviet
military alliance of Western governments: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Post War economic Conditions
 Cold War divided Europe into two blocs.
 Western European Empires were crumbling in the face of nationalism in Asia and Africa.
 After WWII, economic conditions in western Europe were not good. Runaway inflation
and black markets caused severe shortages and hardships.
 Germany suffered greatly.
 The major territorial change of the war had moved the Soviet Union’s borders far to the
west.
 Poland was in turn compensated for the loss to the soviets with land taken from
Germany.
 13 million Germans were driven from their homes and forced to resettle.
 Russians seized factories, equipment, and tore up railroad tracks as reparations in their
zones.
 In 1945-1946, conditions were not much better in western zones.
 By spring 1947, Germany was on the verge of total collapse and threatening to drag down
the rest of Europe.
Christian Democrats
 In Italy Christian Democrats emerged as the leading party in the 1st post war
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elections of 1946 and won absolute majority in the parliament early 1948.
Alcide De Gasperi, leader of the Christian Democrats, was firmly committed to
political democracy, economic reconstruction, and moderate social reform.
In France, the Catholic party provided strong postwar leaders after General Charles
De Gaulle resigned after having re-established the free and democratic Fourth
Republic.
The Federal republic of Germany found new leadership among its Catholics.
In 1949 Konrad Adenauer began his long and successful democratic rule in
Germany; the Christian Democrats became West Germany’s majority party for a
generation.
During postwar years, welfare measures such as family allowances, health
insurance, and public housing were enacted throughout continental Europe.
Britain followed the same trend establishing a “welfare state”.
Social reform complemented political transformation, creating solid forms for a
great European Renaissance.
NATO and Marshall Plan
 The U.S. provided western Europe with massive economic aid
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[Marshall Plan] and ongoing military protection [NATO].
NATO featured American troops stationed permanently in
Europe and the American nuclear umbrella.
The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 further stimulated
economic activity and made Europe enter into a period of rapid
economic progress that lasted until the late 60’s.
The Marshall Plan helped Western Europe’s brilliant economic
performance get off to a fast start, and economic growth became
a basic objective of all western European governments.
Western European leaders and voters were determined to avoid a
return to the dangerous and demoralizing stagnation of the
1930’s.
Ludwig Erhard & Jean Monnet
 In postwar west Germany, Minister of Economy Ludwig Erhard bet on the
free-market economy while maintaining the extensive social welfare
network inherited from the Hitler era.
 Erhards 1st step was to reform the currency and abolish rationing and
control prices in 1948.
 In France, Jean Monnet set ambitious but flexible goals for the French
economy and used nationalized banks to funnel money into key
industries.
 France combined flexible planning and a “mixed” state and private
economy to achieve the most rapid economic development in its history.
Common Market
 Western European nations abandoned protectionism and
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gradually created a large unified market known as the “Common
Market”.
The close cooperation among European states required by the
Americans for the Marshall Plan aid led to the creation of
Organization of European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) and
the Council of Europe in 1948.
Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman called for a special
international organization to control and integrate all European
and coal production in 1950.
Economic goal: to have a single coal market without national
tariffs.
Political goal: to bind the six member nations so closely together
economically that war among them would be unthinkable.
Continued….
 In 1957, the six nations of the coal and steel community signed the
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treaty of Rome which created the common market.
The goals of the common market was a gradual reduction of all tariffs
among the six in order to create a single market almost as large as the
U.S. and the free movement of capital and labor and common
economic policies and institutions.
The development of the Common Market encouraged hopes of rapid
progress toward political as well as economic union.
This was frustrated by the resurgence of traditional nationalism is the
60’s.
France took the lead at the time.
De Gaulle withdrew all French military forces from the NATO,
developed Frances own nuclear weapons , and vetoed the scheduled
advent of majority rule within the Common Market.
Throughout the 60’s the Common market thrived economically but
remained a union of sovereign states.
Decolonization
 Beginning in 1957, Britain's Colonies achieved
independence and entered a very loose association with
Britain as members of the British Commonwealth of
Nations.
 In 1958, De Gaulle offered the leaders of French black
Africa the choice of a total break with France or immediate
independence within a kind of French commonwealth.
 All but one of the new states chose association with France.
 As a result, western European countries actually managed
to increase their economic and cultural ties with their
former African colonies in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Willy Brandt
 West German chancellor Willy Brandt (1913-1992) took the
lead when in December 1970 he flew to Poland for the
signing of a historic treaty of reconciliation.
 Brandt’s gesture at the Warsaw Ghetto memorial and the
treaty with Poland were part of his policy of reconciliation
with eastern Europe.
 Winning the chancellorship in 1969, Brandt negotiated
treaties with the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia
that formally accepted existing state boundaries in return
for a mutual renunciation of force or the threat of force.
 Brant’s government also broke decisively with the past and
entered into direct relations with East Germany.
Détente & Atlantic alliance
 The policy of détente reached its high point when all European nations (except
isolationist Albania) , the U.S., and Canada signed the final Act of the Helsinki
Conference of 1975.
 All participating nations agreed that Europe’s existing political frontiers could
not be changed by force and all accepted numerous provisions guaranteeing
the human rights and political freedoms of their citizens.
 The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 encouraged the U.S. to use the
Atlantic alliance and military might to thwart communists expansion.
 President Jimmy Carter in 1976 tried to lead the Atlantic alliance beyond
verbal condemnation and urged economic sanctions against the Soviets.
 The alliance showed the same lack of concentrated action when the solidarity
movement rose to Poland.
 After pro- American Helmut Kohl came to power with the Christian democrats
in 1982, West Germany and the U.S. once again effectively coordinated military
an d political policy toward the Soviet Bloc.
OPEC
 By 1971 the Arab-led Organization of Petroleum exporting
Countries had watched the price of crude oil decline
consistently compared with the rising price of
manufactured goods and had decided to reverse the trend.
 By the 1960’s unemployment rose; productivity and living
standards declined.
 When the fundamentalist Islamic revolution struck Iran
and oil production collapsed in their country, the price of
crude oil doubled in 1979.
 In 1985 the unemployment rate in western Europe rose to
its highest level since the Great Depression.
Thatcher and Mitterrand
 Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government in
Britain encouraged low- and moderate-income renters
in a state-owned housing projects to buy their
apartments at rock-bottom prices.
 Francois Mitterrand of France led his socialist party on
a lurch to the left, launching a vast program of
nationalization and public investment designed to
spend France out of economic stagnation.
 By 1983 it failed.
German Unification
 The sudden death of communism in East Germany in 1989
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reopened the “German question”.
East German reform communists argued for a third way, which
would go beyond the failed Stalinism they had experienced and
the ruthless capitalism they saw in the West.
These efforts failed, and within a few months East Germany was
absorbed into an enlarged West Germany.
In November of 1989, West German chancellor Helmut Kohl
presented a ten-point plan for a step-by-step unification in
cooperation with both East Germany and the international
community.
In the summer of 1990, the crucial international aspect of
German unification was successfully resolved.