World War II and its aftermath brought devastating material losses
to millions of West Germans. Military action destroyed homes,
businesses, and personal possessions; East European governments
expelled 15 million ethnic Germans from their ancestral homes; and
currency reform virtually wiped out many Germans' hard-earned
savings. These "war damaged" individuals, well over one-third of
the West German population, vehemently demanded compensation at the
expense of those who had not suffered losses, to be financed
through capital levies on surviving private property.
Michael Hughes offers the first comprehensive study of West
Germany's efforts to redistribute the costs of war and defeat among
its citizenry. The debate over a
Lastenausgleich (a
balancing out of burdens) generated thousands of documents in which
West Germans articulated deeply held beliefs about social justice,
economic rationality, and political legitimacy. Hughes uses these
sources to trace important changes in German society since 1918,
illuminating the process by which West Germans, who had rejected
liberal democracy in favor of Nazi dictatorship in the 1930s, came
to accept the social-market economy and parliamentary democracy of
the 1950s.