That was 1947. 1 year before the currency reform. less than a decade ago. The German economy presented a picture of total chaos. The currency was unstable. the cities more or less in ruins. 500 million cubic yards of rubble had to be removed. railroad and motor traffic had shrunk to fractions of their former volume. the German merchant marine no longer existed. and every day thousands of refugees poured into Western Germany from preHitler German territories in the eastin the end they totaled 10.9 million. These people crowded into an area embracing only 52 percent of the former territory of the ReIch. Dismantling of the industrial plants for reparations reduced the already wretched productive capacity of the country still further.
Keywords matched
refugees