Why I'm an Optimist
Few Americans remember the "Big Depression" of 1929. It was challenging but working together we recovered quite well. Recall my father losing his good job, car and home. Best job for awhile was Dad getting a dollar a day and gallon of milk working 10- to 12-hour shifts on a ranch.
Our depression WAS NOTHING compared with what I saw after World War II in Europe. Have taken a small section from Chapter 3 of the book I'm writing, to show how humans can raise themselves out of horrific situations:
- Chapter 3 - What's going on Here? -
On May 7, 1945, a week after Adolf Hitler killed himself, the once mighty Wehrmacht surrendered "unconditionally." Surviving German citizens named May 8 "Stunde Null" (hour zero) when for most, their 12-year nightmare under the Nazis ended; but trouble didn't end there. The living reached out for anything to maintain life. Through the first two postwar years, with brutally severe winters, finding food and shelter was a day-to-day struggle for survival.
- German War Casualties -
Germany went into the Nazi wars in 1939 with a population above 69 and a half million. Roughly 10 and a half percent of those people became war fatalities. (Not counting the "death camps.") The most German deaths, near 5,000,000 were soldiers, chiefly in the 20- to 40-year age bracket, highest number in their 30s. This left millions of young widows and potential spinsters in 1945. Hundreds of thousands of survivors, mostly males, were handicapped from injuries. Thousands of German soldiers were held as slave labor in Russia for years. Adding to this unbalanced social structure were mostly males, 120,000 plus, arrested by the Allies as criminals or threats to the peace. General Eisenhower had expressed concern over possible Nazi guerilla activity. A few of the high ranking Nazis were tried for war crimes at Nurnberg with most found guilty and imprisoned or hanged. (Seventeen years after the war, Reuter News Agency reported there were still 1,280,000 German soldiers unaccounted for.)
Numbers of surviving German babies during the war were never accurately tabulated, because of massive chaos. Tens of thousands of very young and newborn died from malnutrition, exposure and lack of medical care in 1945-1947.
Uncountable orphans from pre-school age to late teens roamed the ruins, surviving by their wits, luck, courage, and helping each other. Theft of anything stealable was the major source of all they had. Some were handicapped. The few scattered orphanages were understaffed and overwhelmed.
Besides "displaced" Germans, several million additional DPs from neighboring countries, uprooted by war or forced out by Allied "territory shuffling," wandered bewildered across the European landscape. At first it was not unusual to find 10,000 roaming homeless jammed in the Frankfurt railway stations (bahnhoff) night after night. These people were gradually placed in DP Camps, found a home, or migrated "elsewhere?"
Economy — The manufacturing and agricultural systems were shambles. Production plants, housing, commercial structures and transportation systems had been decimated. Larger cities were "50 percent to 80 percent destroyed." "Percent" was "too dangerous for human use." A few cities such as the once beautiful Dresden and Kassel were called near 100 percent.
Living space was packed, with half a dozen families in single family apartments or houses. Many ignored "damage" assessments by living in unstable structures.
A minority had some money but little to purchase. Stores contained meagher merchandise.
After war's end in spite of Allies setting up a currency system, American cigarettes illegally became "The Base Currency," and American G.I.s owned the "black market mint."
- How Many American Troops -
On May 8, 1945 there were over three million U.S. military troops in the continent of Europe. Sixty-one Divisions, with their support units accounted for over two million Americans inside Germany. Sending home the battle veterans and liberated prisoners of war began on a point system. This massive extraction of U.S. troops had to be carried out while feeding, housing, and processing hundreds of thousands of German prisoners of war, and trying to help the citizens and DPs … a logistics nightmare. (End-Chapter 3)
SUMMARY — In 1979, one generation after the ruins I knew, Iris and I visited Frankfurt where the first view put me in time shock. It had become a shining beautiful city. The rebuilding of Germany still seems unbelievable to me. It happened because human beings can recover from anything. They can create miracles through faith, sacrifice and hard work.
Our country will survive the current tough times. We have generously helped the Germans, the French, the English and dozens of other nations through much worse. We will do nothing less for ourselves.
G. George Ostrom is a Kalispell resident and a national-award winning Hungry Horse News columnist.