Page 62 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

THE FREIBURG CIRCLES 35

Working Committee for Bavaria), had had similar experiences: in their
case, it was the former Director of the Nuremberg Institute for Economic
Studies, Ludwig Erhard, who had submitted his Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur
Neuordnung des deutschen Geldwesens (Draft Law on the Reorganisation of
German Finance) to OMGUS in July 1945; this market-researcher, who
had previously studied long-term economic problems of the city of
Nuremberg and thus had demonstrable experience in dealing with
problems of war debt and economic policy in a defeated country, was
soon to occupy the attention of the domestic political audience.
Initially more promising, however, was the contact between the AG EvB
and the French Military Government, i.e. the Gouvernement Militaire en
Allemagne. In August 1945, the latter’s economic and planning divisions,
i.e. the Section Economie Générale (Economic Office) and the Section de
Documentation à la direction de l’Economie Générale (Documentation Office for
Economic Policy) in Freiburg/Baden, proposed a cooperative venture by
asking the Freiburg economists to be available as experts; this initiative for
cooperation presumably emanated from an order issued on 13 June 1945,
which requested the military authorities to establish a Service de Statistique et
d’Etudes Economiques (Service for Statistics and Economic Studies) for the
French occupying power. In the hope of revitalising the AGEvB, the
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reduced working group, operating under the name Comité d’Etudes
Economiques (Committee for Economic Studies), elaborated around 20
reports for the French military authorities until spring 1946. When the
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German economists criticised the French economic policy, namely
l’économie dirigée (Directed Economy), cooperation was jeopardised.
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Finally, the detention of Adolf Lampe, who was accused of supporting the
former Nazi wartime economy by his book Allgemeine Wehrwirtschaftslehre
(General Wartime Economics) published in 1938, brought cooperation
between the Freiburg economists and the Allies to an end in March 1946.
Although the theoretical developments of the AG EvB attracted interest,
the Allies in their actual economic policy did not apply them.
Nevertheless, Erwin von Beckerath considered the reports to be
important for the economic reconstruction of Germany and so
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encouraged their publication. Although a publisher, namely the Bondi-
Verlag in Bonn-Bad Godesberg, was found and other members of the
working group agreed, this project was never realised. This could be
attributed to the scepticism and objection of Adolf Lampe who
considered the reports to be only half-finished, potentially risking public
misconceptions. The reports by the AG EvB merely formed the basis for
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various articles mainly published in the fortnightly periodical Die
Gegenwart.
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