The Making of the German Post-war Economy: Political Communication and Public Reception of the Social Market Economy after World War Two, by Christian L. Glossner

‘The Social Market Economy’ was the title given to the economic policy put into practice in West Germany by Ludwig Erhard from the summer of 1948 to the retirement of Konrad Adenauer in 1963, when Erhard himself became the Federal German Chancellor. Those years saw the transformation of West Germany's economy from stagnation to export-led growth. This was sometimes described as the German ‘economic miracle’, a description Erhard rejected, saying that there had been no miracle, only the predictable result of sound economic principles sensibly applied. Christian Glossner's book investigates the ways in which the theories of the Social Market were communicated to decision-makers in occupied Germany from 1945 to 1949 and how they came to be accepted by a majority of the German public. Having described the various groups who were trying to defend the concept of a free market at the end of the war, Glossner pays particular attention to the ways in which free-market economists such as Walter Eucken in Freiburg, Alfred Müller-Armack in Cologne and the exiled but highly influential Wilhelm Röpke in Geneva tried to overcome the difficulties of communication in occupied Germany after 1945. Since newsprint was scarce, newspapers were limited in their effectiveness as a means of spreading neo-liberal views. Communication therefore required a great deal of personal effort, and Glossner provides information on a number of the initiatives taken to support the restoration of a free market in Germany. Ludwig Erhard, who had gained prominence by being selected by the Americans as the Economics Minister in Bavaria and was later to become an honorary Professor of Economics in Munich, was an indefatigable networker in this respect, keeping in close touch with leading industrialists, members of Chambers of Commerce, bankers, journalists and politicians.