Page 157 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

130 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

whereas the economically liberal Union parties and the Liberal Democrats
in particular attained an extraordinarily good election result; in Hesse, by
obtaining 29.1 per cent of the vote, the FDP even came close to becoming
the second biggest party. Moreover, according to an EMNID survey of
21
housewives on the topic of ‘free market economy or government control
of the economy’, as many as 74 per cent favoured a free market
economy. While the significance of these results is indeed arguable, the
22
debate on the future economic model for Germany had undoubtedly
reached the households and marketplaces, the very public sphere.
23
Henceforth, not only organisations and interest groups, such as the
employer and employee associations, but increasingly also ordinary
citizens aimed to influence the political and public debate on economic
and financial reorganisation. As early as September 1945, professional
associations had re-emerged in Germany, in particular in the agricultural
sector. This was most pronounced during the years of food shortage when
the farmers’ unions adopted a mediating role between producers and the
administration in Frankfurt. In this function, the associations criticised the
intended economic policy of the Economic Council, and exerted influence
through the CSU. Next to the farmers’ unions the industrial associations
are to be mentioned at this stage. Although the Allies initially did not grant
the employers an effective organisation, seeing it be tainted by National
Socialism, this did not mean that the industry was unable to articulate its
interests. On the contrary, various trade associations, such as the
Wirtschaftsvereinigung Eisen- und Stahlindustrie, the Wirtschaftsverband Eisen-,
Blech- und Metallwarenindustrie, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Eisen und Metall, or the
Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Bauindustrie in den Vereinigten Westzonen, and chambers
of industry and commerce formed and were finally recognised; by autumn
1948, around 1,500 such industrial associations were accredited in the
Bizone. The economically liberal employers and industrial associations
aimed to influence the Economic Council mainly through the liberal and
conservative parties in order to push economic developments in their
favour. In opposition to the employers’ associations, the zonal precursor
of the Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB) (Federation of German Trade
Unions) which was formally founded as an umbrella organisation of
sixteen national trade unions organised on industrial lines later on 13
October 1949, sent proposals to the Länder governments, the Economic
and the Parliamentary Council regarding uniform labour law, the freedom
to form trade unions, the right to strike, and also socialisation, which it
wished to see inserted into the Basic Law. The two major political parties
24
obliged on many of these requests, sometimes over the protests of the
FDP/DVP. Similarly, the DGB urged that the future federal government
be empowered with authority to establish bodies of social or economic