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FRG and the Economic Miracle

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1 FRG and the Economic Miracle
Week 19, March 3

2 Themes in this lecture:
1. Adenauer’s Germany and constitution (Grundgesetz) 2. Integration into the W world 3. Reparations for the Holocaust 4. population influx 5. SPD 6. Economic miracle 7. Coming to terms with the past

3 Konrad Adenauer,

4 “No experiments!”

5 Integration into the Western World
Oct 1949, joined Organization for European Economic Cooperation March 1951 revisiting of Occupation statute April 1951 European Coal and Steel Community -- Robert Schumann, the French foreign minister May 51 Member of Council of Europe 1957 Germany founding member of European Economic Community September 1952 Luxemburg agreement (Reparations agreement between Israel and West Germany)  Ratification one of the conditions for the end of the occupation status, gave Germany sovereignty  Paris Agreements of 1955: rights to independent foreign policy, rearmament, joining NATO, Saar back (1957)

6 European Economic Community, 1958

7 Reparations to Israel, 1956 (train from Esslingen factory train)

8 Population in flux Expellees: Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Bavaria; 10 mio altogether in Western Germany from 12 mio. altogether POWs: 3 mio in the Soviet Union, ca 1 mio died; returning until Adenauer’s visit to Moscow about “the last ten thousand” Refugees from East Germany, ca 3 mio in the 50s West German emigrants to East Germany (0,5 mio, including Lothar Bisky, the later chairperson of the PDS)

9 Return of the German POWs

10 Emigration from Germany
Migration to the US ( ) Canada ( ) Australia (80.000) UK (50.000) Uprooted expellees, many unemployed before the economic recovery started; Others eager for experiences abroad after the Nazi years

11 Anticommunism

12 Kurt Schumacher,

13 Herbert Wehner, Godesberg program of 1959: definitive turn away from Marxism and towards a People’s Party -- Volkspartei In 1960, Wehner delivered a groundbreaking eighty-minute speech in the Bundestag where he aligned the SPD with Western integration and expressed his readiness to join the Union in a common foreign policy and in constructive collaboration "in the democratic whole,"  a new policy for the SPD

14 The Economic miracle The architect, Ludwig Erhard
And the results: new prosperity and lifestyle. Economic growth of 8% a year; start through the Marshall Plan; German economy had American backing; social economy, but little direct impact of the state. Erhard: planned economy until 48/49, vouchers etc  free market is much more efficient. Low wage demand and few strikes; many people willing to work (expellees and refugees) Democracy associated with economic success and not crises. democracy through welfare. People had memories of many lean years

15 The Song of the Economic Miracle (Aren’t We Wonderful. dir
The Song of the Economic Miracle (Aren’t We Wonderful? dir. Kurt Hoffmann, 1958)

16 Critics: Heinrich Böll, Siegfried Lenz, Group 47
Billiards at Half-Past Nine, 1959

17 Coming to terms with the Nazi past
Hans Globke director of the Federal Chancellery, In 1935, authored the commentary to the Nuremberg laws


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