Page 115 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

88 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

programme set clear boundaries regarding nationalisation limited to basic
industries and governmental control of the economy by maintaining
private entrepreneurship. Hence, the far-reaching party platform adopted
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in Ahlen was to a large extent in line with Adenauer’s economic
conception and can therefore not be regarded as a document of
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Christian Socialism or as ‘clearly a programme of the left’. In fact, the
Ahlener Programm was significant because what appeared to be Adenauer’s
compromise with leftist elements within his own party was actually a
clever tactical ploy. Unlike Kaiser, Adenauer believed that ‘with the word
‘socialism’ we will win over five people and twenty will be driven away.’
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He and his allies succeeded in reducing the programme of Ahlen to little
more than a statement of ideals. As far as Adenauer was concerned, the
real significance of the programme’s more liberal economic elements lay in
the function they served within the CDU itself. The reason for the
programme’s adoption was to provide the party with an economic
programme which, as a compromise, would minimise internal party
argument, and allow the CDU under Adenauer’s direction, to continue to
concentrate on developing its political programme as a whole. Adenauer
recognised that at some point in the future West Germans would have to
make a choice at the ballot box between a planned economy and a market
economy. In 1947, however, the time for this choice had not yet come,
and Adenauer and Erhard were still laying the foundation on which it
would be made. Moreover, the Ahlener Programm is significant with regard
to the fact that economic principles were anchored in a party platform for
the first time; so far the programmatic declarations by the CDU for a
political and economic reconstruction of Germany were characterised
mainly by socio-political postulates rather than by economic-political
ideas. Predominantly due to the severe economic situation after the cold
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winter of 1946/47, and further the challenge to integrate the refugees and
expellees coming to Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War,
economic and social concerns dominated both the political and public
debate in spring 1947.
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Therefore, comparable to the party platform, the concepts of social and
economic policy increasingly came to the fore in the run-up to the Landtag
elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower
Saxony on 20 April, and in Baden, Rhineland-Palatinate and
Wuerttemberg-Hohenzollern on 18 May 1947. Whereas mainly socio-
political issues had dominated election campaigns in the previous year,
henceforth, these were widely displaced by socio-economic affairs.
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Nonetheless, comparable to the SPD’s campaign, the emphasis of
Christian-humanistic values and the intention for a restart of a democratic,
liberal and social Germany were still central themes in the campaigns in