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Problems Caused by WW2 - Coggle Diagram
Problems Caused by WW2
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Refugees
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Whilst they did displace some West German workers, their presence benefitted the economy.
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A ‘full family’
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Heineman (1999): "The 'reconstruction of the family' [was] one of West Germany's great social projects."
As historians such as Heineman have noted, this led to tensions between the CDU’s vision of a ‘full family’ and the reality of ‘women standing alone’.
Heineman (1999): "The West German polity defined the housewife as normative and the woman standing alone as problematic."
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Atoning for the Nazis
Moeller (2001): "Almost all citizens of the Federal Republic vehemently rejected the notion of responsibility, briefly advanced by the American and British forces of occupation, according to which all Germans shared a "collective guilt" for the crimes of National Socialism"
Moeller (2001): "In September 1951, Adenauer sketched a way for West Germans to admit that crimes had taken place without pointing fingers at any specific criminals".
Social Instability
The semblance of social stability in the FRG was fragile. Social tensions were forming between generations, as the younger generation became influenced by Western cultural ideas.
Influence of the West
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Radical new cultural ideas were being formed in the United States and Britain. Particularly through music.
Addressing the past
As the younger generation came of age, they began to question the narrative of German victimhood in WW2.
This led to a renewed focus on war criminals, such as an organiser of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann (put on trial in 1961 and executed in 1962).
The ‘apolitical’
In the aftermath of WW2, there was no formal political opposition.
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In the 1960s, rock and punk music became a subversive ‘counter-culture’.
In the 1960s, opposition to the state came from student movements and left-wing parties.
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Youth
The younger generation, who came of age in the 1960s, began to challenge existing ideas in West Germany.