ABSTRACT
West Germany, as it was created at the end of the Second World War, was completely democratic, and has internalized the prevalent western democratic norms. While capitalist liberal democracy proved its resilience, the two competing ideologies, fascism in its various manifestations and communism, collapsed. Germany witnessed the famous economic miracle, which had begun already in 1947 with the reform of the mark; and Japan similarly went through an amazing recovery, with American help, several years after her defeat. The Federal Republic was a social system which functioned extremely well, but the Germans never equated it with a realization of their emotional or national identity. When the Germans bought the Soviet rights in East Germany for several tens of millions of dollars, it was a striking demonstration of the supremacy of economic power over military power; and we have not seen it all yet.
