Farm-Germany

One of the hypothesis that the soviets proposed for post WW2 settlement (I do not remember exactly if at Yalta or at Potsdam or somewhere else), was to utterly spoil germany of its industry infrastructure and reduce it forcibly to an agrarian state.
Such a country would have been (according to the proposal) united and independent from the two blocks.
Was is a possible option, at least in the short run?
How to accomplish that?
What the consequences?
 
It's been discussed before and the conclusion is it just is'nt gonna happen since it would require literal genocide of millions of German people
and would be a stupid idea in general.
 
*sigh* There's been dozens of threads on the issues. It really wasn't doable - the Allies tried in OTL, but abandoned it. In essence, there's a number of reasons:

- You'd have to either kill or expulse half of Germany's population, which ethic questions aside, would have been a very arduous task.

- The economic downturn would be considerable, and the lack of Germany's economic power would hinder/slow the reconstruction of Europe after WWII.

- The begin of the Cold War made any of those plans not only impractical, but also potentially dangerous for both sides: why waste resources on deconstructing Germany if the other side uses that for their course?
 

Emera78

Banned
From a purely technical point of view, I see no reason why this should be impossible.

Bangladesh has 162 million people and area of only 147.000 square kilometers. Germany would have 357.000 squre kilometrs and around 65 million people in 1946 to feed. Of course the climate is a bit different, but this doesn't look like an impossible goal. Would probably require a support from outside for a decade or so. This is from purely technical point of view, disregarding realities of Cold War.


The economic downturn would be considerable, and the lack of Germany's economic power would hinder/slow the reconstruction of Europe after WWII.
I don't know-such scenario requires no Cold War, and who knows how economy would develop with the rest of non-Western Europe and Soviet Union(or Russia) open to foreign investments and capital and the same in regards to West.


Such a scenario requires IMHO a longer, more bitter war, up to 1946-47, with possible earlier success against SU(capture of Moscow?), and perhaps a limited missile strike against USA with atomic bombings against Germany as response. A grimer, harsher war, weak or fragmented Soviet Union, could both allow the thought of farm-Germany to be accepted by Allies, and with no Soviets as opponents, there would be no need for reconstruction of Germany as power.
 
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Typo

Banned
Bangladesh has 162 million people and area of only 147.000 square kilometers. Germany would have 357.000 squre kilometrs and around 65 million people in 1946 to feed. Of course the climate is a bit different, but this doesn't look like an impossible goal. Would probably require a support from outside for a decade or so. This is from purely technical point of view, disregarding realities of Cold War.
You are disregarding the fact that agricultural productivity is not reliant on area alone
 

Susano

Banned
You are disregarding the fact that agricultural productivity is not reliant on area alone

Actually, most of Germanys soil is quite fertile. The problem is rather that if you demontage an industrial society you simply cannot expect it to run 100% agricultural efficiency. The Morgenthau Plan did calculate that several million Germans would die due to it.
 
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