After the war, when Germany had to pay to rebuild Europe, most of the money came from Bavaria, which was an extremely rich region at the time. So they were bombed back to the stone age AND broke. Bavaria had to settle as a region of Germany instead of becoming their own independently wealthy country.
Whoever told you that is most likely exactly the kind of nationalist Bavarian with a superiority complex that annoys the rest of us Germans.
The reparations of Germany was paid for mostly by East Germany, and we are talking up to 97-98 % of all reparations. So no way Bavarians paid most of it. Source (under the headline Wert der Entnahmen aus SBZ und DDR) is sadly only German book and Wikipedia, not in the English one.
And Bavaria profited from the separation of Germany, since a lot of companies in the now soviet controlled eastern sector went to Bavaria. For example Audi or Allianz. Which then of course helped during the rebuilding.
But that is just what annoyed me enough to write this comment. Otherwise I fully agree, there is a lot of nice stuff and friendly people in Bavaria.
Thanks for the info! I was told on a Munich tour once that Hitler gutted the finances and resources of Bavaria for WWII, then after the war ended, what was left went toward reparations. They claimed that Bavaria basically footed the bill for most of Germany, during and after the war, leaving them broke and dependent.
I guess my tour guide didn’t know what he was talking about.
Yeah I expected something like that. In my experience Tour guides are really great at telling a story and entertain us, that’s their job. But how true those stories are… =)
Whoever told you that is most likely exactly the kind of nationalist Bavarian with a superiority complex that annoys the rest of us Germans.
The reparations of Germany was paid for mostly by East Germany, and we are talking up to 97-98 % of all reparations. So no way Bavarians paid most of it. Source (under the headline Wert der Entnahmen aus SBZ und DDR) is sadly only German book and Wikipedia, not in the English one.
And Bavaria profited from the separation of Germany, since a lot of companies in the now soviet controlled eastern sector went to Bavaria. For example Audi or Allianz. Which then of course helped during the rebuilding.
But that is just what annoyed me enough to write this comment. Otherwise I fully agree, there is a lot of nice stuff and friendly people in Bavaria.
Thanks for the info! I was told on a Munich tour once that Hitler gutted the finances and resources of Bavaria for WWII, then after the war ended, what was left went toward reparations. They claimed that Bavaria basically footed the bill for most of Germany, during and after the war, leaving them broke and dependent.
I guess my tour guide didn’t know what he was talking about.
Yeah I expected something like that. In my experience Tour guides are really great at telling a story and entertain us, that’s their job. But how true those stories are… =)