ABSTRACT
The aid the Kreditanstalt fÜr Wiederaufbau (KfW) provided in support of West Germany's export industries was a small-scale version of the bank's other major tasks and its development. It runs parallel to the various stages of West German recovery from the painful beginnings under full Allied control to the complete economic self-determination and the Kreditanstalt's participation in international development aid projects in the late 1950s. The actual German-Yugoslav treaty was signed out of Cold War considerations in 1950, its roots lay further back. The Federal Republic received its first international recognition when it gained full membership in the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation on 31 October 1949, an event with wide-ranging consequences. American political principle did not allow for the German economy to benefit from its traditional export markets in East and South-east Europe. The most striking similarity between KfW export loans to Yugoslavia and India is the fact that in both cases the Americans had asked for German support.
