Page 113 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

86 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

alternative economic concept to the socialisation plans of the Social
Democrats for both the upcoming parliamentary debates and the
communal elections taking place in September and October 1946. Thus,
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Adenauer was at that time a double focal point, namely in formulating as
well as communicating a unifying and attractive party platform based on a
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so-called ‘Wirtschaftsdemokratie’ (Economic Democracy).
According to previous academic research, Adenauer succeeded in
convincing the respective regional associations of the Union in the British
and American zones of occupation to abandon the ‘unsubstantial’ term
‘Christian Socialism’ and to abstain from general socialisation at the
conference in Stuttgart on 3 April 1946. This research on the
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communication of economic and socio-political conceptions, however,
has revealed that not only the return to Christian-humanistic values and
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the intention for a restart of a democratic, liberal and social Germany,
but also Christian Socialism or Socialism in Christian responsibility and
socialisation played a distinctive role in the campaign for the first local
elections in 1946 – in particular though within the East-CDU under Jakob
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Kaiser. When the latter even promoted Christian Socialism in Dortmund
in the Ruhr area, and furthermore in the run-up to the local elections in
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September and October the CDU in North-Rhine Westphalia argued for a
controlled economy in order to overcome the contemporary economic
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and social misery, the CDU appeared to be far from a united and
consolidated political party. Fundamentally, at that time the Union was
still fragmented and did not possess a supra-zonal party platform defining
uniform and universal economic and socio-political objectives.
In order to overcome the party’s internal fragmentation and to
consolidate the CDU organisationally and programmatically, Adenauer
pushed for consultations in order to produce an attractive manifesto based
on an equally liberal and social party platform at the first party convention
of the Rhenish CDU in Düsseldorf on 10 December 1946. In view of the
forthcoming Landtag elections in Baden, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-
Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein and Wuerttemberg-
Hohenzollern in spring 1947, the party chairman in the British zone
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thereupon presented an agenda which both emphasised personal liberty,
which he perceived to be fundamental to political, economic and cultural
life, and rejected socialism – considered to be opposed to freedom – at the
convention of the zonal CDU in Lippstadt on 17/18 December 1946.
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While the CSU identified an economic concept between both liberalism
and socialism termed Mittlerer Weg (Middle Way) and successfully
campaigned against general socialisation and for economic autonomy in
the regional elections already taking place in Bavaria on 1 December
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1946, the CDU in the British and French zones of occupation still did