ABSTRACT
We had been helped before 1948; in the first post-war year by supplies provided by the U.S. Department of the Army and later through the so-called G.A.R.I.O.A. aid (Government and Relief in Occupied Areas). G.A.R.I.O.A. aid followed the first $195 millions, which were provided by the U.S. Army during 1945-6, and was intended to safeguard the population against famine and disease. About two-thirds of the fund served to finance the import of foodstuffs and of artificial fertilisers, seed corn and motor fuel. G.A.R.I.O.A. aid reached its height in 1947-8 and in 1948-9, with an annual expenditure of approximately $580 millions; during the total period from July, 1946, to March, 1950, approximately $1.6 milliards reached Germany from this source. This aid undoubtedly preserved Western Germany from
famine and disease, and thus fulfilled its real purpose. But it could not contribute to economic recovery because the indispensable complement in the shape of a sensible economic order and a healthy currency was lacking. G.A.R.I.O.A. aid merely supported a population prevented from working by financial and economic chaos. Aid given under the Marshall Plan, on the other hand, i.e. the so-called European Recovery Programme aid, only began in 1948, after a reliable currency and a working economic order had been introduced. As its name implies, E.R.P. aid amounted to an economic recovery programme. I t no longer confined itself to preventing famine and disease, but aimed at economic reconstruction. The aim was not to dole out food to a population held in the grip of a total inflation, but to supply capital which contributed to economic reconstruction in the form of tools, wages, machinery, etc. The structure of imports under the heading of aid accordingly changed during the life of the Marshall Plan while German reconstruction was in process; the share of raw materials grew (particularly cotton), and that of foodstuffs declined from year to year. In a country like Germany, itself a great producer of machinery, investment goods were naturally required only on a minor scale. Food-stuffs at first, and later raw materials, were the main means of production which the Marshall Plan directed into the empty stockyards of German industry, and into the empty shops serving the German population.
