Page 38 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

CONCEPTION AND COMMUNICATION 11

generally only four political parties which had received supra-regional
prominence were admitted in the three western zones of occupation: the
oldest party, the socialist SPD, the communist KPD, the politically
progressive and economically conservative FDP, and the conservative
CDU. Without doubt, the Bavarian CSU needs to be added here; often
misunderstood due to the fact that it widely cooperated with the CDU, it
formally and organisationally constituted an independent party. Thus five
parties, which could claim representative character at a zonal level,
received a licence. Among those, particularly the two people’s parties
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SPD and the CDU held pre-eminent positions with regard to the
formation and final implementation of the Social Market Economy in
post-war West Germany.
As the western and eastern zones embarked on their steadily divergent
economic and political paths, occupiers and occupied formed an
increasingly close, albeit still unequal, partnership. Although one cannot
necessarily infer that party formation meant that the supreme authority of
the occupying powers was at an end, as suggested by Peter Pulzer, it
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enabled and facilitated the emancipation of German politics. In particular
the American authorities opted for a more cooperative approach and
conciliatory attitude towards the West German people, which was
reflected in the speech given by US Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, in
Stuttgart on 6 September 1946:

When the ruthless Nazi dictatorship was forced to surrender
unconditionally, there was no German government with which the
Allies could deal. [...] It never was the intention of the American
Government to deny to the German people the right to manage their
own internal affairs as soon as they were able to do so in a
democratic way with genuine respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms. [...] It is the view of the American
Government that the German people throughout Germany, under
proper safeguards, should now be given the primary responsibility for
the running of their own affairs.
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On 11 July 1947, Washington issued new guidelines that replaced the
former ‘Directive 1067 by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to the
Commander-in-Chief of the US Forces of Occupation Regarding the
Military Government of Germany in the Period Immediately Following
the Cessation of Organised Resistance’. Whereas the latter temporary
wartime document, issued on 26 April 1945, stated that ‘no political
activities of any kind shall be countenanced unless authorized,’ the new
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Directive 1779 articulated the determination to rehabilitate Germany and