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E-book The German Chambers of Commerce and Industry : Self-governance, Service, the General Representation of Interests and the Dual System of Professional Education

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Penilaian

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But what many people are no longer aware of today is that predicting this devel-opment 70 years ago would have been a risky bet. To understand this better, let ustake a moment to look back at the country’s situation in 1949. After 12 years(1933–1945) of the totalitarian, criminal and aggressive Nazi dictatorship, Germanywas literally in ruins at the end of the Second World War. Not only had 80% ofGerman cities been destroyed including most of the transportation infrastructureand some industrial sites. Moreover, also the social and cultural life had beendevastated, which was probably even more disastrous. The country had waged anaggressive war against most of its European neighbours. It had deprived them oftheir sovereignty, occupied and maltreated them, bringing a tremendous amount ofdeath and destruction also to thousands of innocent civilians. Enormous war crimeswere committed especially in Poland and Russia, where millions of captured. soldiers and civilians were killed. Most seriously, however, was the systematic andcontinuous factory-style killing of more than 6 million Jewish people (and otherminorities like Sinti and Roma) in the gas-chambers of annihilation camps likeAuschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, etc. People of all ages from the old to thebaby were killed systematically and without mercy: The so-called‘Holocaust’represents one of the most infamous and unbelievable crimes against humanity inhistory. It was committed by the German people and in the name of Germany; itwill be forever connected to the history of the country.As a consequence of these most infamous and disastrous misdeeds, the countryof the perpetrators remained an outcast on the European continent for years.Moreover, aggression and brutality had also turned against German people them-selves: Over 8 million citizens had lost their lives as soldiers—but also as civilians,when British and American bombers turned German cities into a blazing sea offlames. Subsequently, when the Eastern parts of the country were incorporated intothe Polish territory, more than 3 million German refugees had toflee their homes.Those who survived the hardshipsflooded into mostly destroyed German cities orovercrowded rural areas—with little more than what they wore on their bodies.After 1945, the remaining German territory was divided into four occupation zones—with the three Western ones (administered by the US, English and French army)later becoming the‘Federal Republic of Germany’while the Eastern one (occupiedby the Russian army) came under communist rule and later turned into the ‘GermanDemocratic Republic’. From an economic point of view, these developments strangulated the freeflowof goods among the different parts cutting deeply into the traditional trade structureof the county. Moreover, during the disastrous winter of hunger in 1946/47 alonemore than 400 000 Germans starved to death, died of frost, hunger-related diseasesor took their lives out of sheer despair.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

650 HAB t

Penerbit

Switzerland : Springer Nature., 2021

Deskripsi Fisik

395 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783030707996

Klasifikasi

650

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Business

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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