The immediate aftermath of the war seemed to confirm Hitler’s apocalyptic view: Germany would be condemned to irrelevance and deprivation if it could not secure for itself a strong economic position. It had now ceased to exist as a political, military and economic unit. The country was a smoldering pile of rubble. The Rhine ran clean because there were no factories left to pollute it. What few coal was produced couldn’t leave the mines. For years there wasn’t enough coal for heating. Famine struck Western Europe and Germany received the least priority for food.
Yet it was Stresemann who was avenged in the end. As he predicted, the other great powers would realize they needed Germany for its economy and that would allow it to regain a place in the European stage. By 1947 America realized the value of a prosperous West Germany as a bulwark against communism and, after overcoming the resistance of France, which still expected to retain the resources of the Ruhr, changed its policy to one of reconstructing a strong German economy.
West German and European recovery proceeded as miracles. However, a cost had to be paid for that: not just West Germany but also the victorious states found themselves with constrained sovereignty. The age of great powers was over. Within Germany the scope of discussion about possible geopolitical courses of action, once wide in Weimar years, shrank.
The book ends here but I'll still write some more, particularly on the topic of undermobilization.