Part of this deal was the movement of millions of Germans from these areas into the rest of Germany. Part of Poland's 'restitution' was to 'move' westward, losing territory next to the Ukraine and getting Silesia and eastern most part of then Germany up to the Oder-Neisse rivers. The death rate in those camps was very high (from 19% to 39%). Immediately after the war, millions (~7.7m) of German soldiers were kept in POW camps. Many Germans died in the war, leaving a generation gap just like WWI. Most of the econmy in the post war years was geared towards physical rebuilding. In the invasion of Germany from 1944 to 1945, many German cities were bombed extensively. There are a number of very obvious and not obvious effects on Germany, both practical and social. But again, that's a subject for a bookshelf, not a single post. Of course, even with that help, conditions in Germany (and a lot of other places) were quite rough for the decade or so following WWII. There were certainly elements of the population that would've preferred to take a more punitive stance, but the combination of moral and practical considerations made the Marshall plan reasonably popular. They sold the idea to their populations by downplaying the responsibility of average citizens in the former Axis countries. In America, the money for reconstructing Europe (not just Germany, though that was a lot of it) was called the Marshall plan. So, the western Allies invested a lot in reconstructing the German economy. They wanted the local economy to be both able and willing to support the capitalist faction if that happened. The western Allies, especially America, knew that if there was to be another shooting war, it would likely be along this border. Germany ended up being partitioned, with the Russians controlling the east and the western Allies taking the West (incidentally, Korea's division into North and South happened at the same time and for the same reason). Moreover, they needed to prepare for a possible war with Russia, which meant fortifying the areas they'd occupied. They knew that the harsh settlement after WWI, coupled with the worldwide Depression of the 30s, had had a lot to do with the popular support for Naziism and they worried that another long period of suffering could make the German population go Communist. They did this because they wanted, at all costs, to limit the spread of both Communism and Russian power (which they thought were closely related, but that's another issue entirely :P). Even before the war ended they were working to soften public attitudes towards the German people, as opposed to the Nazi leadership. American leaders took a more pragmatic view than the general citizenry. While there was a lot of resentment towards the Axis peoples, the growing rivalry between Russia and the western Allies changed the dynamics a lot. I'll take a shot at the discrimination portion: This is a pretty big question entire books have been written on the subject of postwar Germany.

After effects post effect stack