Page 93 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

66 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

planning and the practicality in terms of applicability of policies and
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stipulated the postulate ‘socialism as day-to-day task’. By a gradualistic
economic policy, Schumacher gave priority to pragmatic solutions carried
out by a centralised administration in order to help the people and
deferred programmatic developments of overall political and economic
concepts: ‘we need concrete programmes for assistance in day-to-day life
[...]; there is no programme that can tell us how an acute emergency can be
solved under certain conditions.’ Thus, despite the early appeals of
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various economic theorists, such as Gustav Klingelhöfer, to search for a
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new economic structure, the SPD’s economic direction and definition of
the Economic Democracy remained to a large extent undecided. Although
according to the party there was neither uncertainty nor dissension about
the social democratic economic policy, diverse concepts collided at
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different meetings and party conventions and are evidence of an
unfinished debate and a conflict of interests. It is not the intention of
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this chapter to present these economic concepts in detail as done in other
academic publications, but to show the broad spectrum of social
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democratic ideas which may have complicated a consistent appearance
and coherent communication of ideas.
At the first party congress in Hanover in May 1946, for instance,
traditional socialist views met liberal market-oriented agendas. In his
position paper, the confidant of Kurt Schumacher and Director of the
bizonal Department of Economics in Minden, Viktor Agartz, proclaimed
a socialist planned economy characterised by central governmental control
and extensive nationalisation. Although most Social Democrats favoured
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nationalisation and a certain form of economic control to cope with the
economic situation at this time, some party members, such as the
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academic Fritz Naphtali and the Secretary General of the Zonenbeirat der
Britischen Zone, the Advisory Council of the British Zone, Gerhard Weisser,
endorsed a limitation of governmental interference in the market and
private initiative. Eventually, Weisser succeeded in influencing the party
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members and the party executive by his liberal socialism, which was
reflected in the economic principles adopted at the party conference.
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Whilst the principles of the SPD for the formation of a socialist German
economic constitution also considered nationalisation and state-control as
essential, the supporters of an indirect control of the economy, namely a
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more liberal economic policy, increasingly won recognition.
Whereas Viktor Agartz was the keynote speaker at the party conference
in Hanover, Gerhard Weisser was given the opportunity to present his
views at the meeting of the Wirtschaftspolitischer Ausschuss beim Parteivorstand,
the intra-party commission for the formulation of a socialist economic
programme, which was chaired by Kurt Schumacher. Weisser also