ABSTRACT
It has recently become popular to look back nostalgically at the “golden decades” following the Second World War in Europe. The enthusiasm at the war s end was followed by an unprecedented economic boom and demographic rejuvenation. It is easy to forget that Europe was cut in two, that it was undergoing a painful reconstruction, and that daily life (food, housing, and jobs) was still for the most part inadequate. Until 1950, supplying the basic needs of the population was one of the chief preoccupations of European governments and that often still meant rationing. The housing crisis marred the landscape everywhere in Europe. It was not at all unusual to see shantytowns “blooming” on the outskirts of the largest cities or hastily constructed settlements set up to shelter the local population. The passage from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy took a number of years. One positive effect was that the industrialization and reconstruction of Europe generated a wealth of new jobs. From 1948, unemployment plummeted and jobs were more numerous and more diversified than in the past. Britain enjoyed full employment, while between 1947 and 1956 France, on average, had only 100,000 unemployed. In West Germany, the total number of unemployed was higher (500,000 in the mid-1950s), but the country absorbed nearly four million refugees from the East.
