Industrial recovery after the Great Depression in select European countries 1928-1938

The Great Depression of the early twentieth century is widely considered the most devastating economic downturn that the developed world has ever seen. Industrial output was severely affected across Europe, and in Germany alone, it fell to just 58 percent of its pre-Depression level by 1932. Other Central European countries, such as Austria and Czechoslovakia, also saw their output fall to just sixty percent of their pre-Depression levels, while output in Western and Northern Europe declined by much less. By 1937/8, almost a decade after the Wall Street Crash, most of these countries saw their industrial output increase above its pre-Depression level. Germany saw its output increase to 132 percent of its 1928 output, as it emerged as Europe's strongest economy shortly before the beginning of the Second World War.