Editing West Germany (section)

==Economy==
===Economic miracle===
The West German {{lang|de|[[Wirtschaftswunder]]}} ("economic miracle", coined by ''[[The Times]]'') began in 1950. This improvement was sustained by the currency reform of 1948 which replaced the {{lang|de|[[Reichsmark]]}} with the {{lang|de|[[Deutsche Mark]]}} and halted rampant inflation. The Allied dismantling of the West German coal and steel industry finally ended in 1950.

[[File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F038788-0006, Wolfsburg, VW Autowerk, Käfer.jpg|thumb|The [[Volkswagen Beetle]]{{spaced ndash}}for many years the most successful car in the world{{spaced ndash}}on the assembly line in Wolfsburg factory, 1973]]

As demand for consumer goods increased after World War II, the resulting shortage helped overcome lingering resistance to the purchase of German products. At the time Germany had a large pool of skilled and cheap labour, partly as a result of the flight and expulsion of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe, which affected up to 16.5 million Germans. This helped Germany to more than double the value of its exports during the war. Apart from these factors, hard work and long hours at full capacity among the population and in the late 1950s and 1960s extra labour supplied by thousands of {{lang|de|[[Gastarbeiter]]}} ("guest workers") provided a vital base for the economic upturn. This would have implications later on for successive German governments as they tried to assimilate this group of workers.<ref>[[David H Childs]] and Jeffrey Johnson, West Germany: Politics And Society, Croom Helm, 1982 [https://books.google.com/books?id=PJUOAAAAQAAJ&q=West+Germany+-+politics+and+society] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160519121934/https://books.google.com/books?id=PJUOAAAAQAAJ&dq=West+Germany+-+politics+and+society&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=Ga1ab-mhef&sig=SQ_14UMa9GfjbECQA7pXF0RSe_Y&hl=en&ei=eO7uSouhMof6-Abkt8juCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBEQ6AEwAA|date=19 May 2016}}</ref>

With the dropping of Allied reparations, the freeing of German intellectual property and the impact of the [[Marshall Plan]] stimulus, West Germany developed one of the strongest economies in the world, almost as strong as before the Second World War. The [[Economy of East Germany|East German economy]] showed a certain growth, but not as much as in West Germany, partly because of continued reparations to the USSR.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Giersch |first=Herbert |title=The fading miracle : four decades of market economy in Germany |date=1992 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-35351-3 |location=Cambridge [England] |oclc=24065456}}</ref>

In 1952, West Germany became part of the [[European Coal and Steel Community]], which would later evolve into the [[European Union]]. On 5 May 1955 West Germany was declared to have the "authority of a sovereign state".<ref name="Sovereignty" group="lower-alpha"/> The [[British Armed Forces|British]], [[Military of France|French]] and [[Military of the United States|U.S. militaries]] remained in the country, just as the [[Red Army|Soviet Army]] remained in East Germany. Four days after obtaining the "authority of a sovereign state" in 1955, West Germany joined NATO. The UK and the USA retained an especially strong presence in West Germany, acting as a deterrent in case of a Soviet invasion. In 1976 West Germany became one of the founding nations of the [[Group of Six]] (G6). In 1973, West Germany—home to roughly 1.26% of the world's population—featured the world's [[list of regions by past GDP (PPP)|fourth largest GDP]] of 944 billion (5.9% of the world total). In 1987 the FRG held a 7.4% share of total world production.