Talk:Ludwig Erhard

CDU party membership
See http://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/:CDU-Altkanzler-Ludwig-Erhard-Mitglied-CDU/587764.html (german) and others. There is a certain suspicion that Erhard never was a member of CDU. --Constructor 11:10, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The official CDU membership of Erhard is an open question for many years. The current discussion does seem more a "Loch Ness" debate.It can be .. but it cannot be too. Regarding the historic facts this story belongs more to the section "Trivia" --80.135.246.5 10:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

German chancellors aren't regared as being (in this particular case) the "28th chancellor of Germany", they are rather considered being the "2nd Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany". No one would call Konrad Adenauer the 27th chancellor, he is the 1st. This is the same to every chancellor of post second world war Germany. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.123.210.230 (talk) 15:42, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Neoliberalism
In the Economics Minister section it isn't explained that in Erhard's time Neoliberalism hadn't the same sense than today, being closer to Ordoliberalism/German Liberalism and it was neo in the same sense that Social liberalism was a new liberalism in relation to Classical liberalism. The Mont Perelin society broke into a Freiburg and an Austrian school faction which is why it included classical and neoliberals like Mises and Hayek. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.82.92.235 (talk) 13:19, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Chancellor, 1963-66
''"Erhard believed the major world problems were soluble through free trade and the economic unity of Europe (as a prerequisite for political unification); he alienated French president Charles de Gaulle, who wanted the opposite." ''

What does that mean? Earlier in the Economics Minister section is says "He was deeply critical of a bureaucratic-institutional integration of Europe on the model of the European Coal and Steel Community." It is contradictory. The opposite of what did de Gaulle want? Supporting the economic and political unity of Europe is arguably the same as supporting the ECSC, which it says he strongly opposed. This could all be a lot clearer.Wpalfreman (talk) 07:37, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

1948 economic problems and unrest
There is no mention of the 1948 protests, unrest and general strike which are generally thought to have been a reaction to the high inflation and unemployment arising shortly after the introduction of the Deutschmark and removal of price controls (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Mark#Economics_of_1948_currency_reform or the German page on Erhard). This results in a severely biased presentation of Erhard's policies as an uninterrupted success story. Tdent (talk) 19:25, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Life and Work
I removed the following statement

(1) On the other hand he signed off his letters with 'Heil Hitler!' and he (2) embraced annexationist policies that continued to influence his economic policies as finance minister and chancellor during the postwar period.

If (1) is true it should not be too difficult to find a source for that, in which case it should be reinstated. But context is important here, and standalone and unsourced it is simply a defamation. (2) again, this is OK if this is sourced, but standalone it is not clear what the annexationist policies are, and how they influenced his politics; without source / explanation this is defamatory

Erhard's seat in the Bundestag
He obviously had one, so which one was it? Was he elected from a constituency or on a state list? Lockesdonkey (talk) 18:14, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Initially he wasnt even member of a party when the Free_Democratic_Party_(Germany) proposed him as Minister of economics to Adenauer. He became member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany many years later but allegedly never payed his membership dues and according sources from the CDU itself it is not clear if he actually was member of the Christian Democratic Union. Nevertheless he was on the list as member of the German Parliament or Bundestag as direct candidate of the CDU in the city Ulm. --Kharon (talk) 09:12, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Minister of Economics, not Minister of Finance
Erhard was Minister of Economics, not Minister of Finance. Yanis Varoufakis writes in his book titled And the weak suffer what they must? that Erhard was Adenauer's finance minister. Well, I guess I know which source Varoufakis used. ;-) --Zaunkoeniglich (talk) 18:44, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Erhard was Head of the "de:Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft". There is a seperate "de:Bundesministerium der Finanzen". These institutions did change their name, where put together to one and seperated again later in their history, as the government saw fit, but it actually did not change in Erhards time as Minister under Adenauer. Varoufakis has mixed it up obviously if he described it as you say. --Kharon (talk) 23:58, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Activities as Chancellor
This is the only information of Erhard's activity in interior policy:

Domestically, a number of progressive reforms were carried out during Erhard's time as chancellor. In the field of social security, Housing Benefit was introduced in 1965.

And this is the only information of Erhard's activity in foreign policy:

Under Erhard's government the Federal Republic entered into diplomatic relations with Israel in 1965.

The follwing statement is correct, too, but the reasons are not understandable:

Through his endorsement of the American goal of military victory in Vietnam, Erhard sought closer collaboration with Washington and less with Paris... Faced with a dangerous budget deficit in the 1966–1967 recession, Erhard fell from office in part because of concessions that he made during a visit to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Johnson required money for the costs of the US Army in Germany, but Erhard claimed his budget being too small for it. Johnson was not amused, of course, and not impressed. Erhard was not able to manage his budget problem, though he was Professor of Economics. The following government managed the Offset agreement with the United States in the course of four months, what Erhard was unable to do.

The CDU membership is not fully clarified. Very likely he became member early in 1966, shortly before he was elected as chairman (otherwise he could not have been elected). His membership is said to have been backdated to 1963, so it looks like that he had been CDU member during the whole period of chancellorship. The word "never" is definitely incorrect. Dioskorides (talk) 19:51, 12 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Oh, reverted. But the section on German policy after Erhard belongs to the lemma "Germany", not Erhard.
 * By the way: " In the 1980s Chancellor Helmut Kohl, however, reverted to Erhard's approach in collaborating with the Reagan administration in its hard-line anti-Soviet policy." is misleading, Kohl continued Brandt's and Schmidt's Ostpolitik. Kohl has never revived the Hallstein doctrine. Kohl even supported East Germany with billions of Deutsche Mark, when they needed money to avoid bankruptcy. Kohl became Soviet's Gorbachev's "best friend". --Dioskorides (talk) 20:11, 12 June 2024 (UTC)