Rebuilding Germany
The Creation of the Social Market Economy, 1945–1957

This book examines the 1948 West German economic reforms that ushered in the fabled 'economic miracle'.

James C. Van Hook (Author)

9780521039963, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 August 2007

332 pages
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.9 cm, 0.503 kg

"Van Hook is to be commended...for his compelling treatment of Erhard's annus mirabulus in 1948. Considering the highly technical and model-driven state of economic history, it takes a certain boldness for non-quantitative historians to assert a casual relationship between economic policy and economic outcomes." - William Glenn Gray, Purdue University

The social market economy has served as a fundamental pillar of post-war Germany. Today, it is associated with the European welfare state. Initially, it meant the opposite. Rebuilding Germany examines the 1948 West German economic reforms that dismantled the Nazi command economy and ushered in the fabled 'European Miracle' of the 1950s. Van Hook evaluates the US role in German reconstruction, the problematic relationship of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and his economics minister, Ludwig Erhard, the West German 'economic miracle', and the extent to which the social market economy represented a departure from the German past. In a nuanced and fresh account, Van Hook evaluates the American role in West German recovery and the debates about economic policy within West Germany, to show that Germans themselves had surprising room to shape their economic and industrial system.

Preface
List of abbreviations
Introduction
1. Planning for reconstruction
2. The future of the Ruhr: socialization, decartelization, restoration, 1945–8
3. High hopes and disappointment: the SPD and the planning regime, 1945–7
4. Ludwig Erhard, the CDU and the free market
5. Free markets, investment and the Ruhr: the Korean war crisis
6. The social market economy and competition
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Economic systems & structures [KCS], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], European history [HBJD]