Page 105 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

78 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

conclusive social democratic economic alternative was presented to the
139
public. Thus, when the price development stagnated noticeable in
December 1948, Erhard and the coalition of CDU/CSU, FDP and DP
had a good reason to be optimistic regarding the first Bundestag or federal
elections in the subsequent year.
While the success of the Social Market Economy became increasingly
noticeable to the general public in the first few months of 1949,
Schumacher and the recently established central Wahlkampfprogramm-
kommission (election campaign programme commission) in Hanover, on
which the leading figures of the party were represented under the guidance
of Fritz Heine, who had coordinated SPD campaigns in the late Weimar
period, continued to believe in the public interest in socialisation and
140
141
the failure of Ludwig Erhard and his economic policy. According to
142
most political leaflets distributed by the Social Democrats, the capitalist
system did not give consideration to the economic and social needs but
was responsible for the widening of economic and social disparities in
German society. Schumacher, who endorsed this position in his
143
speeches throughout the campaign, reminded West Germans that
circumstances for many continued to be desperate by pointing out the
squalid living conditions, unemployment, high prices, and dislocation that
beset many at that time. In addition, he asserted that the bourgeois parties
had nothing to do with the economic upswing that West Germany had
enjoyed since the currency reform. Instead, the economic improvement
was rather the result of factors, such as a milder winter, a good harvest,
and the funds provided by the European Recovery Programme. While
144
also other leading Social Democrats merely criticised Erhard’s economic
policy, the SPD did not provide any concrete economic programme but
145
rather extended the election campaign to class struggle. Consequently,
146
in order to underline the support of the unemployed and blue-collar
workers, the Social Democrats opened their campaign in Gelsenkirchen in
the Ruhrgebiet on 19 June 1949 while Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig
Erhard started in middle-class Heidelberg. In his numerous election
speeches, Kurt Schumacher polemised with aggressive rhetoric that due to
Erhard’s economic policy an upper class was living in luxury compared to
ordinary Germans who suffered from economic depravity and
unemployment. Similarly, the SPD election appeal accused the
147
Administration for Economics in Frankfurt as an instrument of
Klassenkampf von oben (class conflict from above) which solely made the
poor needier and the wealthy richer. In order to avoid social frictions
148
but mainly to cope with the economic situation of post-war Germany, the
party brochure Wahlaufruf of the SPD advocated economic planning and
149
socialisation of certain key industries, such as raw material sectors.