Page 81 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

54 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

However, the bizonal Industrie- und Handelskammern lobbied for a free
market economy and supported Erhard’s economic liberalisation in
politics, by mainly appealing to the Economic Council via the liberal and
conservative parties, and in public expressed by a resolution published in
the domestic and foreign press in April 1948:

The committee of the consortium of the chamber of industry and
commerce in the conjoined economic area sees in the adherence to a
controlled economy a significant causation for the gradual decline of
the German economy. Therefore, [the committee] argues for a return
to a market economy [...]. Only in conjunction with a free economy,
the Marshall-Plan can release the essential initiative for improved
German and therewith European economic conditions. Thus the
consortium of the chamber of industry and commerce considers the
accelerating gradual reduction of the controlled economy as
paramount [...].
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Another vital ingredient to implement the Social Market Economy on
the policy level was arguably the informal and intimate contact Erhard
kept with numerous industrialists, such as the Managing Directors of
Salamander and Degussa, Theo Hieronimi and Felix Prentzel, the Director
of Reemtsma, Rudolf Schlenker, Otto Seeling of the Deutsche Tafelglas AG
and Karl Neuenhofer of Brown, Boveri & Cie. Amongst those Erhard
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frequently invited to a so-called ‘round table’ were the members of the
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Wirtschaftspolitische Gesellschaft von 1947 e.V. (WipoG) (Politico-Economic
Society of 1947) founded in Frankfurt on 1 November 1947. This neo-
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liberal lobbying organisation which aimed to arouse public interest in
economic issues and to promote the Social Market Economy listed
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amongst others the following members: the Executive Chairman of the
Metallgesellschaft in Frankfurt, Alfred Petersen, the President of the
Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Augsburg, Otto A. H. Vogel, the
private banker Robert Pferdmenges, the journalists Hans-Christoph
Seebohm and Volkmar Muthesius, the former Chairman of the bizonal
Department for Economics in Minden, Rudolf Mueller, then State
Secretary in the bizonal Administration for Economics, Walter Strauß, the
former Prussian Minister of Finance, Otto Klepper, the Senator for
Economic Research and Foreign Trade in Bremen, Gustav W. Harmssen,
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and the future Federal President, Theodor Heuss. According to other
sources, the latter’s successor in office, Heinrich Lübke, the Executive
Chairman of the Salamander AG, Alex Haffner, and the journalist Erich
Welter also attended the foundation of the WipoG. Unquestionably and
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interestingly, however, Alfred Müller-Armack was an associate member