For Germany and all other countries liberated from the Nazi dictatorship, the end of the Second World War created the opportunity for a better beginning. In the following three years, the newly gained freedom of the German people already manifested itself in an intense political debate and a vigorous cultural life, at least in those parts of the former Reich now occupied by the Western Allies. At the same time, however, the standard of living fell to a dismally low level, far worse even than the economic hardship endured at the height of the hostilities. In the memory of Germans who lived through these days, it is not the war itself but the three years after which have become deeply engrained as the time of hunger and misery when even the Catholic Archbishop of Cologne publicly encouraged his flock to go on stealing the food and the coal they needed to survive the winter. In early May 1947, the food rations issued in major industrial centres of Western Germany were down to 740–800 calories per day, i.e. roughly one-quarter of the pre-war consumption of 3,000 calories. And while industrial production in the rest of Western Europe already exceeded its 1938 level by 7 per cent in 1947, West German factories still churned out no more than 34 per cent of their pre-war output. There was hardly any hint of an economic miracle to come.