Page 104 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY 77

consequences of an inadequate communication of the SPD’s
achievements in this quasi-parliament to the public. Although the whip
and the voting behaviour improved when the SPD presented a second
motion of no confidence against Ludwig Erhard and Hermann Pünder on
10 November 1948, the motion for dismissal was rejected by 52 to 43
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votes and the labour party failed to use the potential of the Economic
Council which was increasingly in the focus of the press and the public
since its inception on 10 June 1947.
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The social democratic electoral campaign for the local and communal
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elections in the second half of the year 1948 was confined to the
criticism of the economic policy performed by the Administration for
Economics. The political leaflets and election posters denounced the
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Social Market Economy and its direct tangible accompaniments, such as
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the increase of prices and rising unemployment. Equally in political
and public speeches and newspaper articles, Social Democrats merely
criticised Erhard’s political procedure and remained vague about an own
economic concept. While no viable and concrete economic alternative
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was presented to politics and the public at that time, there were indeed
some social democratic options, such as a regulated market economy
discussed at the party conference in Düsseldorf in September 1948.
However, according to the party chairman, Kurt Schumacher, who
attacked Erhard’s ideas as absurd and concluded the early ending of the
Social Market Economy and of its proponent, a transition to normal
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economic conditions was only possible via a controlled economy – a
perception he believed to share with the public. After the Bavarian
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unions called for a mass rally in August at which around 100,000 workers
protested against rising prices, and later when the trade unions, headed
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by the Social Democrat and union official, Hans Böckler, led a general
strike on 12 November 1948 in which the men in the picket line claimed
socialisation, planning and control of the economy, the representative
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chairman of the SPD, Erich Ollenhauer, considered Schumacher’s
perception affirmed. The SPD hoped to benefit from this public
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criticism on the present governance and immediately tried to integrate the
dissatisfaction among the workforce in its strategies and campaigns.
Hence, it supported this ‘understandable reaction of the organised
workforce against the economic policies of Erhard.’ This climax of
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public resentment provided ammunition for the social democratic
Minister for Economic Affairs of North Rhine-Westphalia, Erik Nölting,
who attacked Ludwig Erhard and the Social Market Economy in the so-
called Frankfurter Streitgespräch, a public dispute between the two
contestants, taking place in Frankfurt on 14 November 1948. There,
however, Nölting’s statement did not go beyond criticism and no