BWPicDestroyedFrenchTownNationalArchive

In addition to utterly devastating Eatern and Central Europe the
fighting between the Anglo-American alliance and Germany left
Western and Southern Europe in economic ruin. Moreover, the
Western and Southern European civilian populations suffered far more
than the military combatants. For example, France lost 350,000 dead,
and was left with only 20% of its pre-war stock of locomotives and
one-third its pre-war merchant fleet. The Dutch suffered 204,000
dead and lost 60% of their pre-war canal, rail and road transport. The
Norwegians lost 14% of their pre-war capital stock. The Greek death
toll reached 430,000 and Greece lost two thirds its merchant fleet,
1,000 villages destroyed, and one-third Greece's forests. Italy lost 1.2
million of its homes and its economy was in shambles; as late as the
1950's one quarter of the Italian population lived in poverty.
Yugoslavia was in ruins, having suffered the worst of any Western or
Southern European country; ten percent of its pre-war population
dead (1.4 million people), 50% of its livestock dead, 20% of its homes
destroyed, and a third of all industrial wealth gone.

Picture Courtesy US National Archives, ARC identifier no. 196303