ABSTRACT
Nazi Germany’s principal ally during the Second World War was Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italy. There had been much destruction, particularly of housing, as the Allied armies pushed up the Italian peninsula after their landings in the south, but the country’s industrial north-east region, where the Germans surrendered without severe fighting taking place, would allow Italian industry to recover quickly. Agriculture too could be brought back to normal within one or, at most, two seasons. The immediate dislocation caused by the war was, nevertheless, enormous. Even though most Italian cities, unlike Germany’s, had not been turned into rubble heaps, the standard of living of most Italians had dropped to subsistence level and below. Communications and infrastructure had to be rebuilt. Relief from abroad was essential if the poorest Italian families were not to starve, and it came principally from the US. In 1945 Italy was producing less than half of what had been its gross national product in 1938, yet three years after the end of the war the Italian economy had already caught up with pre-war levels.
