Page 71 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

44 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

for Economics as Director of the Central Department for Pricing and
Wages. However, Miksch was not only an architect of regulatory policy
but also a close advisor to Erhard, who referred to the ordo-liberal
economist as the main advocate of returning to a free market economy.
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Surprisingly, Miksch was a member of the German Social Democratic
Party, which favoured a controlled economy; some argue that the ordo-
liberal economist hoped to ‘teach Social Democrats some sensible
economics.’ Indeed, Leonhard Miksch advocated the reactivation of the
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market economy in numerous academic essays addressing mainly experts
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and politicians. However, the former publicist – beginning in 1929,
Miksch worked for 15 years as a journalist at the Frankfurter Zeitung (FZ),
where he managed the economic policy section – also appealed to the
general public with various journalistic essays.
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In contrast to Leonhard Miksch, Walter Eucken, who considered
himself first and foremost a scholar, rarely addressed the general public.
Although Eucken aimed to promote his neo-liberal views to the
populace, his academic monographs and the Freiburg School’s own
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publication series were received by a mainly academic audience. In order
to communicate between academia and a wider readership, the advocate
of ordo-liberalism and influential journalist, Erich Welter, encouraged
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Eucken to contribute journalistic essays. Although Eucken published
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few newspaper articles, when Welter became editor of the Frankfurter
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Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) in 1949, ordo-liberalism determined the approach
of that national newspaper to political economy. Thus Eucken’s own ideas
finally reached the wider public. Unfortunately, Walter Eucken’s death in
1950 ended cooperation with the FAZ and newspapers in general.
While the social scientist and economist Alexander Rüstow formulated
his neo-liberal maxims in exile in Istanbul, and proclaimed his views
mainly to an academic readership, the credit for having promoted and
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established ordo-liberal ideas in the German general public is primarily
due to Wilhelm Röpke. In times when many academics considered it
beneath their dignity to approach the general public, the German
economist addressed a readership outside academia in more than half of
his roughly 800 newspaper and journal articles. After accepting a
professorship at the renowned Institut Universitaire de Hautes Études
Internationales (IUHEI) (Graduate Institute of International Studies) in
Geneva in 1937, the exiled German economist used the Swiss media and
in particular the liberal-conservative international daily Neue Zürcher
Zeitung, which appeared in occupied West Germany by special editions
seven times a week, in order to publish his socio-economic views and
recensions of other German economists’ scripts, such as Walter Eucken’s
acclaimed Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie (Principles of National