Annexation

Territorial changes after the war were vast, in particular with regard to Germany’s borders. Although against international law, the annexations of huge swaths of German territories by its eastern neighbors (Poland, Czechia, Russia, Lithuania), accompanied by large-scale ethnic cleansing, are shrugged off by the international community as “just punishment” for the Germans.

In Europe's Name: Germany and the Divided Continent, by Timothy Garton Ash. New York: Random House, 1993. 680 pages. $27.50. ISBN 0394-55711-5. "Ende gut, alles gut" ("All's well that end's well"). What more can one say of the tortuous decades that led to German unification. A lot, of course, and …

Marshall Plan Benefits for West Germany Within the framework of the so-called Marshall Plan, a credit(!) of approximately 1.4 billion US Dollars (6.4 billion DM) was given to West Germany for the years 1949 to 1952. Under the terms of the London Debt Agreement of February 1953, this credit(!) was …

After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation, by Giles MacDonogh. Basic Books, New York, 2007. 618pp., illustrated, with notes, bibliography, indexed. A recent work with some refreshing angles on the post-WW2 occupation of defeated Germany is always welcome, minimally at least as a small antidote to the …