# How did Germany become an economic powerhouse? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 18, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535 "2009-04-18T16:08:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr\_Buttons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@Mr\_Buttons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Buttons)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/1 "2009-04-18T16:08:57Z")
With all the economic news being thrown around, I keep running into the side note that Germany is the #3 economy in the world (GDP-wise), behind the US and Japan. [Wiki GDP list](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)) How’d that come to be? They were pretty much decimated after WWII, then spent 45-50 years as a divided county (East vs. West Germany). Also, you don’t normally run across “Made in Germany” goods much (at least in America). Germany has 82 million people according to Wiki, but it’s GDP is still higher than the 1.1 BILLION in China, despite China’s decade or so of double-digit GDP growth. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/2 "2009-04-18T17:08:13Z")
The simplest answer is “[The Marshall Plan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan)” which dramatically helped re-build Europe post-WWII. Germany had a deeper hole to climb out of than the rest of Europe but the Germans are nothing if not industrious. The Marshall Plan was one of the first things to help remove trade barriers in Europe providing much richer soil for countries to grow and prosper not to mention helped everyone back on their feet. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/3 "2009-04-18T17:20:10Z")
> [@Mr\_Buttons](#): > > Germany has 82 million people according to Wiki, but it’s GDP is still higher than the 1.1 BILLION in China, despite China’s decade or so of double-digit GDP growth. Germany exports more by dollar value than any other country, including the US. [Cite from CIA World Factbook](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2078rank.html) ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/4 "2009-04-18T17:32:54Z")
Despite their 60+ years of peaceable democracy, their cradle-to-grave social welfare and their 6 (8?) weeks guaranteed weekly vacation, the Germans have group, order, work, and hierarchy in their cultural DNA. They need structure and obligations the way other nations need food and folklore. Even their humaneness toward individuals is geared towards making them better members of society - more efficient, more productive, more possessed of definite worth. The individual, to German thinking, is always secondary, always an instrument of something greater. A well-adjusted German citizen understands that not only as a principle, but as a reflex - something almost pre-moral. I say _almost._ Of course, if Germany ever again becomes a daddy state instead of a nanny state, the world will be in big trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/5 "2009-04-18T17:42:27Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > Despite their 60+ years of peaceable democracy, their cradle-to-grave social welfare and their 6 (8?) weeks guaranteed weekly vacation, the Germans have group, order, work, and hierarchy in their cultural DNA. They need structure and obligations the way other nations need food and folklore. > > Even their humaneness toward individuals is geared towards making them better members of society - more efficient, more productive, more possessed of definite worth. The individual, to German thinking, is always secondary, always an instrument of something greater. A well-adjusted German citizen understands that not only as a principle, but as a reflex - something almost pre-moral. > > I say _almost._ Of course, if Germany ever again becomes a daddy state instead of a nanny state, the world will be in big trouble. Yes. That’s it. Germans are genetically programmed to make good economies. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/6 "2009-04-18T17:51:28Z")
How about psychosocially programmed? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/7 "2009-04-18T17:52:03Z")
> [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](#): > > Yes. That’s it. Germans are genetically programmed to make good economies. They are übermenschen, after all :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/8 "2009-04-18T18:09:59Z")
Keep going with this biology=destiny angle. It’ll be fun to see how you keep it afloat. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/9 "2009-04-18T18:11:55Z")
God, people, that wasn’t serious! I was criticising **Beward of Doug** ’s bizarre take on some inherited “need” for “structure and obligations.” ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/10 "2009-04-18T18:42:50Z")
Don’t worry **Speaker** , some of us got it. The Marshall Plan certainly helped, but it doesn’t explain how Germany did better than other western European nations, most of whom got more from it. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/11 "2009-04-18T18:49:43Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > Don’t worry **Speaker** , some of us got it. > > The Marshall Plan certainly helped, but it doesn’t explain how Germany did better than other western European nations, most of whom got more from it. Like Japan, much of the German industrial base was bombed into scrap, meaning everything that replaced it was built at the oldest in the late 40’s. This gave them the opportunity to replace their industrial facilities with the latest and greatest available at the time. Industries in the US were often working with equipment 30 years older than what Germany was working with in 1950, making them less efficent and less reliable than their German counterparts. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/12 "2009-04-18T18:59:08Z")
There’s a Dutch expression, don’t know how to say it in English, so I can’t Wiki it, although there must be an expression for it there, too. That is, that an existing economic structure can actually hold an economy back, because it prevents the system form starting from scratchs and make use of other, more profitable opportunities. Besides, other European countries besides [Germany](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany) do [well, too.](http://www.manufacturing.net/News-WTO-Names-World-Largest-Importers-Exporters-032309.aspx) [Holland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Netherlands), the size of Massachusetts, is in the worlds top-ten exporters of agricultural products. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-germany-become-an-economic-powerhouse/493535/13 "2009-04-18T19:07:20Z")
They also have the largest population in Europe, which, with all other things being equal, leads to a larger GDP. Ranked by GDP per capita, Germany comes in at 21st, with several other European countries above it (UK, Netherlands, the Scandanavian countires, Ireland (err…list might be slightly dated), Switzerland, Austria).