Defying strong domestic opposition and the wishes of the Allies, Erhard successfully abolished wage and price controls in Erhard made a major contribution to the success of the fragile West German political system. Through his successful economic policies, average economic growth was around 8 per cent per annum. This translated into rapidly improving living conditions and the beginning of a consumer society from the late s.
In domestic politics, Erhard found it difficult to establish his authority, with his predecessor, Adenauer constantly sniping at him from the background. Subjects: Social sciences — Politics.
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Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice. In the field of domestic policy, successes included further privatisations of federally owned businesses, the expansion of opportunities for wealth formation by employees through savings and share-ownership arrangements, and fresh ideas for the pursuit of educational and research policies at the federal level.
The Federal Republic also took culturally important steps of self-reflection by holding prominent trials of Nazi war criminals and conducting a related discussion about the length of time during which legal redress could be sought for the associated crimes.
After he was forced to resign as chancellor and party chairman, Erhard continued to be active in politics and the media as honorary chairman of the CDU, as a member of the Bundestag where, from onward, he was president by seniority, and as the founder of the Ludwig Erhard Foundation. To a greater extent than almost any other politician of the Federal Republic, he became a legend during his own lifetime.
With his round face, sonorous Franconian accent, optimistic temperament, and his almost ever-present cigar, he has remained a popular icon of West German economic success to the present day. Economic policy makers from across the political spectrum invoke his name and present themselves as his intellectual heirs. Since the beginning of his political career, however, Erhard has also been subjected to a great deal of criticism that still reverberates today.
There has been debate over his role during the Nazi period, for example, although a careful and thorough biography that would bring to light and link up all the relevant sources in a knowledgeable fashion is still lacking. The originality and soundness of his thought has also been called into question, and he has been accused of having a deficient style of leadership.
From time to time, market sceptics have also cast doubt on the fundamental importance of the regulatory decisions for which Erhard bore responsibility. That Erhard was ill-suited to the business of politics is probably the most valid of all these criticisms. Power bored him; it meant nothing to him. He was cut from much softer cloth than Adenauer and had no talent at all for political intrigues. Inspired by a political mission that he pursued quite candidly, he sometimes blundered when having to make compromises.
He was an educator who wore the mantle of a politician but was always at odds with the mechanisms and motivating forces of party competition and organised interest groups. As chancellor, he relied on discussion within the cabinet, and he permitted himself to be outvoted without threatening to invoke his executive authority.
A political style that was sceptical of power made him effective and influential as a minister of economic affairs, but it was no help to him as chancellor in the shark tank of Bonn. He did not cultivate or use party-political instruments of power. One case in point was the ongoing speculation over his membership of the CDU. Presumably, given the absence of a formal membership application it was simply tacitly assumed that he was in fact a member, in consideration of the erstwhile practices of the CDU as a poorly organised party of notables.
Yet he was more receptive to the advice of intellectuals than any other chancellor, and he counted sceptically-minded and independent spirits among his counsellors. Nevertheless, Erhard was definitely his own man and not merely someone who carried out the ideas of others. What distinguished Erhard from predominantly theoretical political economists was his understanding of the market from the viewpoints of business management and the consumer, as well as his desire for a practicable approach to policy that, while keeping to its objectives, would be flexible and durable in everyday decision-making — for example, in the form of a proactive and finely tuned policy of economic stimulus or stabilisation.
It did not refer, in his understanding, to an amalgamation of mutually incompatible principles of social and economic organisation. Whereas a planned economy and economic interventionism turn citizens into subjects and supplicants, a social order based on freedom assures them not just prosperity, but also dignity, maturity and the opportunity for self-fulfilment.
An unseasonable and in many respects solitary reformer, Erhard rose from modest and precarious beginnings to achieve a historical stature that, could best be compared, in German history, with that of Freiherr vom Stein or Wilhelm von Humboldt. Paderborn u. Hentschel, Volker: Ludwig Erhard. Ein Politikerleben. Hohmann, Karl Hg. Reden und Schriften. Koerfer, Daniel: Kampf ums Kanzleramt. Erhard und Adenauer. Stuttgart Where previously the state had determined the price of certain products, from then on prices were regulated by supply and demand.
Ludwig Erhard was an early advocate of a liberal, social economic order, both during his time as Minister of Economics and prior to that as Professor of Economics. In West Germany that led to an unbroken period of economic growth that lasted around one and a half decades. For many years Ludwig Erhard was the most popular politician in West Germany. In terms of foreign policy, Chancellor Erhard attached particular importance to relations with the United States and Israel.
He also began slowly opening up to the East by establishing trade missions in Poland, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. Data privacy information We use cookies to enable you to make the best possible use of our website. Click here for the privacy policy Required for technical reasons cannot be deselected more information open Minimise Some cookies are necessary to make the basic functions of the website available to you and, therefore, cannot be deactivated.
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