Page 123 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

96 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

responsible for its implementation – however, both were accountable for
the communication of economic policy.
In this context and in order to convince the party of the concept of the
Social Market Economy, Adenauer invited the independently aligned
Erhard to present his views to the executive committee of the CDU in the
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British zone of occupation in Königswinter on 24/25 February 1949.
Erhard’s speech supposedly resonated a great deal among the zonal
committee, which reaffirmed Adenauer’s belief that the CDU should build
its economic policies upon Erhard’s principles. Only a month later, the
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zonal economic committee, which at Erhard’s suggestion was
complemented by a supra-zonal committee with the members Franz
Etzel, Hugo Scharnberg, Friedrich Holzapfel, Karl Müller, Andreas
Hermes, Johannes Albers and Hanns Seidel to formulate principles for the
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upcoming federal elections, submitted a concept which was not only
based on the Director for Economics’ neo-liberal and social agenda, but
explicitly advocated the Social Market Economy. In view of the
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stagnating prices and the necessity to use a convincing economic
manifesto, which emphasised the distinctions between the Union and its
political opponent, the concept of the Social Market Economy prevailed
within the CDU albeit with objections from the Christian Socialists and
worker representatives who adhered to the Ahlener Programm. After the
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CSU also expressed its commitment to a market economy with social
balance, and Hanns Seidel advocated Erhard’s liberal and social economic
model at the CSU’s party convention in Straubing in May 1949, the
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economic principles elaborated by the CDU/CSU’s Working Committee
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centred the Social Market Economy. Finally, these principles were
adopted as party platform and manifesto for the upcoming federal
elections at the CDU’s party conference in Düsseldorf on 15 July 1949.
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In contrast to the Ahlener Programm, these so-called ‘Düsseldorfer Leitsätze’
not only provided an attractive slogan to reach consensus within the party
and to win public consent, but the principles also precisely defined the
underlying economic concept:

The “Social Market Economy” was taken as a basis for the German
economic policy. [... It] is the socially limited constitution of the
commercial economy in which the effort of free and proficient
people is accommodated by an order generating a maximum of
economic benefit and social justice for all. This order is achieved by
freedom and commitment expressed [...] by real competition in
performance [...]. The Social Market Economy is in sharp contrast to
the system of the command economy [...] but also in opposition to
the so-called “free market economy” of liberal coinage.
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