Tamás Vonyó. The Economic Consequences of the War: West Germany’s Growth Miracle after 1945.

Tamás Vonyó has written an important book on the Wirtschaftswunder, as West Germany’s economic growth miracle in the third quarter of the twentieth century is known. In The Economic Consequences of the War: West Germany’s Growth Miracle after 1945, Vonyó offers a new interpretation of the postwar growth process, which he substantiates with a panoply of national and regional economic statistics. That West German growth in this period is colloquially known as an economic miracle is indicative of the early literature. As portrayed there, the German economy lay in ruins as a result of the sheer physical destruction wreaked by the war. The country’s political establishment and institutions had been destroyed or discredited by the Nazi regime. Germany was occupied, divided, and home to millions of displaced persons. The fact that the economy could revive in short order and grow robustly for a quarter of a century, despite all...