Similarly, in the French Occupation Zone, key rail lines were dismantled to single track. On the night of 2829 March the RAF used incendiaries for the first time to hit factories in Lbeck, an old town with many combustible buildings, but although the British considered it a resounding success production was back to normal a week later. As soon as 1945, the Allied forces worked heavily on removing Nazi influence from Germany in a process dubbed as "denazification".[5]. [11][12], At the beginning of the occupation, the Allies dismantled the remnants of German industries. Because Mefo bills did not figure in government budgetary statements, they helped maintain the secret of rearmament and were, in Hitler's own words, merely a way of printing money. The children's section of the ICRC sent vitamins, medicine and milk products for children, and in 1944 it was awarded its second Nobel Peace Prize for its work. Much of the arable land had been ruined by opening the dikes during the Nazi invasion and many farmers refused to sell the Germans cattle, but soon there was such a meat shortage that the authorities had to confiscate bootlegged dog-meat sausages. Despite attempts to transport it away before capture, occupied nations' gold reserves were also looted, along with huge numbers of artworks, many of which have never been recovered. During World War II, Zurich industrialist and armaments exporter Emil Georg Bhrle began amassing one of the twentieth century's most important private collections of European art. Cheap restaurants in big towns served dishes comprising turnip or carrot tops made without any kind of fat, and although householders still received a fair ration of rough wine, all spirits were confiscated for industrial use. Spain supplied Britain with iron ore from the Bay of Biscay, but, as a potential foe, she was a huge threat to British interests as she could easily restrict British naval access into the Mediterranean, either by shelling the Rock of Gibraltar or by allowing the Germans to lay siege to it from the mainland. The supreme commander of Allied forces, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted to advance on a broad front to overcome the West Wall (Siegfried Line), but instead accepted British General Bernard Montgomery's Operation Market Garden, the plan to try to outflank the West Wall and drive into northern Germany to encircle the industrial Ruhr via the Netherlands. With the food supply reduced by 15% by the blockade and another 15% by poor harvests, starvation and diseases such as influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis, typhus and cholera were a threat. American companies were prevented from openly supplying arms to belligerents by the Neutrality Acts, (an amendment was made on 21 September in the form of Cash and Carry) but no restrictions applied to raw materials. By the end of June over 2,000 V1s had been launched; 40% of bomber resources were being redirected towards 'Crossbow' targets in the hope of destroying the 7080 launch sites north and east of the Seine.[78]. The conquest of Poland brought Germany half a million tons of oil per year and more zinc than it would ever need, and Luxembourg, though tiny, brought a well-organized iron and steel industry 1/7th as great as Germany's. [71] Rationing remained fierce. Most neutrals were eventually persuaded to reduce and end trade with Germany. From the start there was close co-operation between the parallel American and British agencies,[64] over economic warfare measures, intelligence gathering and the later Safehaven Program. The West's economic productivity and Soviet-U.S. tensions led to the creation of arguably the most recognizable symbol of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. This treaty was supposed to close all open questions regarding Germany and the aftermath of WWII and paved the way for German reunification. Most of the econmy in the post war years was geared towards physical rebuilding. Beginning immediately after the German surrender and continuing for the next two years, the United States pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how, as well as all patents in Germany. Late in the war a large minefield, known as the Northern Barrage, was deployed between the Faroes and the coast of Norway to further restrict German ship movements.[4]. [43] This began with a vast physical looting, in which trains were requisitioned to carry to Germany all movable property such as captured weaponry, machinery, books, scientific instruments, art objects and furniture. Even today, though Germany is extremely short of oil, she has enough for actual military operations, and her people are still reasonably well fed. Britain was able to arrange alternative supplies with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Agreement, signed on 28 August 1940. Before the war, Britain recognised Germany's special interest in the region and took a very small percentage of this market, but now, via the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation they used their financial power to compete in the Balkans, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, underselling and overbidding in markets to deprive Germany of goods, although Germany was so desperate to maintain supplies that they paid considerably over the normal market rate. In fact, Germany produced large volumes of very high quality coal in the Saar region, but much of it was now being used to produce synthetic rubber, oil and gas. At the beginning of the war, Germany possessed 60 U-boats, but was building new vessels quickly and would have over 140 by the summer of 1940. [16], While the armed forces were being built up, imports were reduced to the barest minimum required, severe price and wage controls were introduced, unions outlawed and, aware that certain commodities would be difficult to obtain once the blockade began, deals were made with Sweden, Romania, Turkey, Spain, Finland and Yugoslavia to facilitate the stockpiling of vital materials such as tungsten, oil, nickel, wool and cotton that would be needed to supply the armed forces in wartime. Numerous concessions were made to Germany before the rise of Adolf Hitler, and by 1938 only the territorial settlement articles remained. Market Garden was a disaster and did not achieve its main objective, while its few territorial gains actually stretched the supply lines even further. Fears of revenge and anxiety about an uncertain individual and collective future constituted a foundational experience for post-war Germans in the aftermath of the "Third Reich.". Austria was not included in any of these treaties. During this period, the Italian Lati Airline, flying between South America and Europe was also used to smuggle[31] small articles such as diamonds and platinum, in some cases, concealed within the airframe, until the practice was ended by the Brazilian and US governments and the airline's assets in Brazil confiscated after the British intelligence services in the Americas engineered a breakdown in relations between the airline and the Brazilian government. [2] Britain dominated the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and, due to its control of the Suez Canal with France, access into and out of the Indian Ocean for the allied ships, while their enemies were forced to go around Africa. Additionally, the German political structure, which in the past decade had increasingly become a centralized dictatorship under Adolf Hitler, had entirely collapsed. Potatoes were fried using Greek olive oil and shipped back to Germany, and the tomato crop was hurried to scurvy-ridden German troops in Africa. On 7 December 1942, Combined Operations launched one of the most famous raids of the war; Operation Frankton, better known as the 'Cockleshell Heroes' mission, in an attempt to sink the ships by sending a 12-man team of Royal Marine Commandos to paddle up the Gironde in canoes to place delayed action bombs on their exposed hulls. Poland, the country most harshly treated, had suffered the confiscation of all state properties, all central stocks of textiles, food and livestock. But following subsequent discussions with Reichsbank Vice President Emil Puhl, the Swiss later reneged on this agreement, and through the remainder of 1945 showed an unwillingness to embrace the Allied proposals to turn German assets in Switzerland towards the benefit of ravaged Europe and stateless victims of the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes. By 1917 this had almost swung the war the way of the Central Powers. [23][40] Przemysaw Sobolewski, head of the Bureau of Research of the Sejm, said that the political decision of 1953 was made by the Polish Council of Ministers, even though under the Constitution of the Polish People's Republic, which came into force in 1952, it was the Polish Council of State, which had the sole authority to undertake such a decision. Lesley has taught American and World History at the university level for the past seven years. [1][pageneeded], The blockade had four distinct phases:[1][failed verification], At the beginning of the First World War in 1914, the United Kingdom used its powerful navy and its geographical location to dictate the movement of the world's commercial shipping. Life was particularly harsh in Poland. There were 16m French Americans alone, and by early March at least 15 different organizations collectively known as the Coordinating Council for French Relief were distributing aid in France through The American Friends Service Committee, while the Quaker Committee also distributed around $50,000 worth of food, clothing and medical supplies a month throughout France. in April 1940 the war was costing the UK5m per day out of total government expenditure of 6.5 7m per day. On 24 August, at the height of the battle, bombers sent to attack Fighter Command installations and oil refineries on the outskirts of London killed civilians in houses in central London through a navigational error, although many believed the bombing was deliberate. The signatories agreed to postpone additional German debts until a final peace treaty with Germany would be made. On 20 August Benito Mussolini announced a blockade of all British ports in the Mediterranean, and over the next few months the region would experience a sharp increase in fighting. Argentina had 84% of the world supply of flaxseed, nearly all of which was exported, along with much of its wheat (23% of world supply), its corn (71%) and beef (50%)[citation needed]. Other means of minesweeping were also developed, whereby the mines were exploded by patrolling ships and aircraft fitted with a special fuse provocation apparatus. The German synthetic-oil programme was so successful and advanced that during the world fuel crisis of the 1970s, caused by conflict and uncertainty in the Middle East, large American industrial concerns such as Dow Chemical, Union Carbide and Diamond Shamrock began to reconsider the Nazi-era technology to see if it might provide a partial solution to their problems. 366; 370ff. A massive cotton operation was begun in Turkestan, new wheat growing regions in the centre, east and north, coal mines were opened and expanded in Siberia, rich mineral deposits tapped from the Urals, across Asiatic Russia, and immense new oil wells and refineries were developed in the Caucasus and Volga valley. The French claimed that of 30 U-boats sent out in Germany's first major offensive against Allied shipping, a third had been destroyed, and Churchill declared that Britain had seized 150,000 more tons of contraband than was lost by torpedoing. Spanish suppliers of oranges and mandarins also refused to ship deliveries until they were paid. At the Potsdam Conference, the leaders of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Unionthe "Big Three" powers who had defeated Nazi Germanymet in the city of Potsdam . The country subsequently began a slow but continuous improvement of its standard of living, with the export of local products, a reduction in unemployment, increased food production, and a reduced black market. The MEW became concerned at the "steady trickle" of Japanese blockade runners reaching Europe, which one estimate put at 15 ships by the end of 1942,[41] and on the anniversary of the German and Italian declarations of war on the US, General Tojo expressed his pleasure that Japan was able to contribute the resources captured in the South Pacific to the Axis cause. #11. In the Netherlands, they also acquired a large, high tech tin smelter in Arnhem, though the British, foreseeing the seizure, restricted the supply of raw tin leading up to the invasion, so the amount gained was only around a sixth of a year's supply (2,500 tons) for Germany. [58] Nearly all of Bolivia's copper, lead, tin and silver was exported to Europe, while Uruguay and southern Brazil supplied wool and canned and frozen beef. Decrees were proclaimed to force farmers to sell their animals and existing food stores, and while in the beginning a percentage of each year's crop was negotiated as part of the armistice terms, later the seizures became much more random and all-encompassing. Arrangements for boarding and examining ships were made in the port "Boarding Room", and eventually a team of 2 officers and 6 men set out in a fishing drifter or motor launch to the ship.