The battered Saint Lorenz Church (left photo) towers above the ruins of Nuernberg, Germany, following an Allied bombing raid in January 1945. Six decades later (right photo) Nuernberg has rebuilt itself into a thriving city of half a million people.

A key goal of the Marshall Plan was to link Germany closely with Western Europe. In the late 1940s, Germany’s coal was crucial to European energy, much as petroleum and natural gas are crucial today. Marshall Plan funds rebuilt mines, agriculture, industry and housing across the continent, helping to jumpstart a return to prosperity. Thus, Europe’s cities were not rebuilt directly by Marshall Plan funds. Instead, Europeans did their own rebuilding, often brick by brick and stone by stone. (City of Nuremberg)