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As the United States became the "arsenal of democracy" during World War II, economic mobilization brought a double victory for the American people by ending the decade-long Great Depression at home, as well as playing a pivotal role in defeating the Axis Powers abroad.
- Europe, Great Depression In
EUROPE, GREAT DEPRESSION IN. World War I exacerbated old...
- End of the Great Depression
The New Deal programs introduced after 1933 had helped...
- Europe, Great Depression In
The Great Depression played a significant role in the onset of World War II by exacerbating the economic struggles and political instability in Germany following the Treaty of Versailles.
Dec 16, 2011 · But exactly how World War II got us out of the Depression is generally ignored -- even though it provides a lesson at odds with the accepted interpretation.
- Overview
- Economic history
- Timing and severity
The Great Depression, which began in the United States in 1929 and spread worldwide, was the longest and most severe economic downturn in modern history. It was marked by steep declines in industrial production and in prices (deflation), mass unemployment, banking panics, and sharp increases in rates of poverty and homelessness.
What were the causes of the Great Depression?
Four factors played roles of varying importance. (1) The stock market crash of 1929 shattered confidence in the American economy, resulting in sharp reductions in spending and investment. (2) Banking panics in the early 1930s caused many banks to fail, decreasing the pool of money available for loans. (3) The gold standard required foreign central banks to raise interest rates to counteract trade imbalances with the United States, depressing spending and investment in those countries. (4) The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930) imposed steep tariffs on many industrial and agricultural goods, inviting retaliatory measures that ultimately reduced output and caused global trade to contract.
Read more below: Economic history: Causes of the decline
stock market crash of 1929
Read more about the stock market crash of 1929.
The timing and severity of the Great Depression varied substantially across countries. The Depression was particularly long and severe in the United States and Europe; it was milder in Japan and much of Latin America. Perhaps not surprisingly, the worst depression ever experienced by the world economy stemmed from a multitude of causes. Declines in...
The Great Depression began in the United States as an ordinary recession in the summer of 1929. The downturn became markedly worse, however, in late 1929 and continued until early 1933. Real output and prices fell precipitously. Between the peak and the trough of the downturn, industrial production in the United States declined 47 percent and real gross domestic product (GDP) fell 30 percent. The wholesale price index declined 33 percent (such declines in the price level are referred to as deflation). Although there is some debate about the reliability of the statistics, it is widely agreed that the unemployment rate exceeded 20 percent at its highest point. The severity of the Great Depression in the United States becomes especially clear when it is compared with America’s next worst recession, the Great Recession of 2007–09, during which the country’s real GDP declined just 4.3 percent and the unemployment rate peaked at less than 10 percent.
The Depression affected virtually every country of the world. However, the dates and magnitude of the downturn varied substantially across countries. Great Britain struggled with low growth and recession during most of the second half of the 1920s. The country did not slip into severe depression, however, until early 1930, and its peak-to-trough decline in industrial production was roughly one-third that of the United States. France also experienced a relatively short downturn in the early 1930s. The French recovery in 1932 and 1933, however, was short-lived. French industrial production and prices both fell substantially between 1933 and 1936. Germany’s economy slipped into a downturn early in 1928 and then stabilized before turning down again in the third quarter of 1929. The decline in German industrial production was roughly equal to that in the United States. A number of countries in Latin America fell into depression in late 1928 and early 1929, slightly before the U.S. decline in output. While some less-developed countries experienced severe depressions, others, such as Argentina and Brazil, experienced comparatively mild downturns. Japan also experienced a mild depression, which began relatively late and ended relatively early.
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Pop Quiz: 15 Things to Know About the Great Depression
The general price deflation evident in the United States was also present in other countries. Virtually every industrialized country endured declines in wholesale prices of 30 percent or more between 1929 and 1933. Because of the greater flexibility of the Japanese price structure, deflation in Japan was unusually rapid in 1930 and 1931. This rapid deflation may have helped to keep the decline in Japanese production relatively mild. The prices of primary commodities traded in world markets declined even more dramatically during this period. For example, the prices of coffee, cotton, silk, and rubber were reduced by roughly half just between September 1929 and December 1930. As a result, the terms of trade declined precipitously for producers of primary commodities.
The U.S. recovery began in the spring of 1933. Output grew rapidly in the mid-1930s: real GDP rose at an average rate of 9 percent per year between 1933 and 1937. Output had fallen so deeply in the early years of the 1930s, however, that it remained substantially below its long-run trend path throughout this period. In 1937–38 the United States suffered another severe downturn, but after mid-1938 the American economy grew even more rapidly than in the mid-1930s. The country’s output finally returned to its long-run trend path in 1942.
The most devastating year of the war for Stuttgart opened with a massive British attack against the city on 21 February 1944 by 598 bombers, losing only seven Lancasters and a single Halifax to German action thanks to two diversionary flights over the North Sea and to Munich two hours prior.
#Date And TimeArea(s) DamagedCasualties125 August 194000:16–01:24Gaisburg, Stuttgart-East; UntertürkheimFour killed, five injured.28 November 194021:16–24:00None killed, three injured310 February 194100:28–01:43No casualties45 May 194200:33–02:43Zuffenhausen; Bad Cannstatt13 killed, 37 injuredThe nation was mired in the Great Depression (1929 – 1939), which continued until preparations for World War II (1939 – 1945) began to revive the economy. The causes of the Great Depression were complex and rooted in the transition of an economy based on the production of durable goods and building infrastructure to one based on the ...
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