Page 31 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

4 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

changes of wording – if traceable – need to be observed. While the stance
of the SPD on the formulation and implementation of an economic
model for post-war Germany has been extensively examined, a detailed
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study on the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and a lengthy monograph
on the Bizonal Economic Council in general are still missing. In
examining the respective academic and political ambitions to influence the
economic policy in post-war West Germany and to eventually implement
their particular economic system for the emerging Federal Republic of
Germany entering force in 1949, the focus has been neither on the genesis
nor the theoretical definition of individual economic concepts but on their
respective communication to both the political classes and the public.
Despite increasing research and interest on the formation of the
German post-war economic model, the communications of academic
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concepts and party programmes to the public and the involvement of the
German people in political and economic decision-making have not been
adequately explored. Anton Riedl’s doctoral thesis on the backing given to
Ludwig Erhard’s politics by liberal sectors of opinion forms a prominent
exception; but it is rather selective in its study of the media, and is focused
on the post-1949 era. Similarly, Mark E. Spicka’s examination of election
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propaganda and various public relations campaigns, reflecting new
electioneering techniques borrowed from the United States, such as public
opinion polling and advertising techniques, is confined to conservative
political and economic groups seeking to construct and sell a political
meaning of the Social Market Economy and the economic miracle in West
Germany during the 1950s. Thus, by examining the role of the public as
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actual sovereign in the formation and implementation of a particular
socio-political and economic model for post-war Germany, this research
aims to fill this gap in popular and academic writing, and to contribute to
the historical understanding of the economic reconstruction of post-war
Germany.
Both the Allies and German political parties aimed to design a
democratic economic system consistent with the preferences of the
citizens. In view of the inhumane totalitarianism and militarism of
National Socialism, any new socio-political and economic order was
supposed to be democratic and foster a humane and free society based
on Christian values. In this regard, Immanuel Kant’s postulate for
solidarity and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s accentuation of
reconciliation and of the dialectic abolition of inequalities became the
categorical imperatives. Although the German idea of the state had
historically been formulated by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Ferdinand
Lassalle, and Johann Karl Rodbertus, as a Volksgemeinschaft (people’s
community) in which the individual has less rights but rather duties,