Talk:Wirtschaftswunder

Band
The link for the band "Wirtschaftswunder" seems inappropriate - does anyone have any suggestions for actual references? --Onlyemarie 01:13, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Talk from the "Marshall Plan
My personal take on the subject would be (should anyone care) that, as the industrial heart of Europe, Germany was necessary for European recovery. Once the U.S. stopped mucking about with lowering the German standards of living, as ordained in the occupation directive, the JCS 1067, the West Germans bootstrapped themselves and pulled the rest of Western Europe up with them. Without the JCS 1067, which was finally scrapped in July of 1947 and which explicitly forbade efforts which could help the West German economy recover, we finally have the currency reform which takes place in 1948 and gets the economy going again. The slowing down of the programme of dismantling of German factories also helps a lot. By using the Marshall plan loans to pay for the reparations they have to pay they can effectively push the reparations forward in time, until they have a functioning economy again. As General Clay, military governor of the U.S. occupation zone said: "We began to slowly wipe out JCS-1067. When we were ordered to put in a currency reform this was in direct controvention of a provision of JCS-1067 that prohibited us from doing anything to improve the German economy. It was an unworkable policy and it wasn't changed just without any discussion or anything by those of us who were in Germany. It was done by gradual changes in its provision and changes of cablegrams, conferences, and so on." Still, the Germans were not very happy with the policies that remained.
 * Picture of demonstration against dismantling (7 June 1949) Workers in the Ruhr demonstrate against the dismantling of their factories by the Allied forces of occupation.
 * Picture: Another Demonstration, August 1949
 * Picture: dismantling the German Iron and Steel Industry
 * Dismantling list for the western Allied forces (17 October 1947)  Stor stark7 03:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Letter from Konrad Adenauer to Robert Schuman (26 July 1949) Warning him of the consequences of the dismantling policy.
 * Letter from Ernest Bevin to Robert Schuman (30 October 1949) Brittish and French foreign ministers. Bevin argues that they need to reconsider the Allies' dismantling policy in the occupied zones

Turning Germany into an Agricultural and Pastoral state

 * Proposed post surrender plan for Germany (September 1944)
 * Roosevelt and Churchill Signed a version of this plan at the second Quebeq conference. Churchill removed some and added the word "pastoral" to make the deal sound less brutal.
 * When the press got wind of it and all hell broke loose, President Roosevelt pretended it was raining and denied signing it.


 * Still:


 * General Eisenhower, military governor of the U.S. occupation zone, and later U.S. President distributed one thousand copies of it to his officers in Germany.
 * (Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, p.422.)
 * Sort of a "hint, hint, nudge, nudge..."


 * Two years later,in early 1947, this kind of thinking was aparently still so ingrained in large parts of the U.S. administrations thinking that former U.S. President Herbert Hoover had to make this warning in one of his situation reports on Germany.

'There are several illusions in all this "war potential" attitude.
 * a. There is the illusion that the New Germany left after the annexations can be reduced to a "pastoral state". It cannot be done unless we exterminate or move 25,000,000 people out of it. This would approximately reduce Germany to the density of the population of France.
 * ...'

The Morgenthau Plan was broadly implemented, not just dividing Germany by three (DDR, FRG and Austria) but also by dismantling whole sectors of the German industry, stealing hundreds of patents and factories. The contribution of German high tech to the post-War American Wirtschaftswunder was ten times larger than the money Germans got back through the Marshall Plan. American Aircraft and Aerospace industry was based on German patents, German brain drain and German engeneering, including the Apollo XI Program which send Armstrong to the Moon thanks to Werner von Braun. --81.37.38.195 (talk) 14:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

More Spam/Voices on Allied Economic policy towards Germany 1945 - 1950

 * Gunther Harkort Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), 1949-52.

QUESTION: At what stage, in your view, was it recognized that German recovery was essential to full European recovery?

HARKORT: The waiver of implementation of the Morgenthau Plan and its toned-down offshoots -- (Directive JCS 1067, Potsdam Conference, Industrial Plans) -- points out the beginning of the realization that without including Germany we cannot make Europe viable again. In the Harriman Report of November 1947 this is stated quite clearly (p. 117): "No part of the economic aid requested by the CEEC (the later OEEC) countries is more fundamentally necessary to the recovery of Western Europe than the aid asked for the rehabilitation of German industry, agriculture and transport."


 * Charles P. Kindleberger Chief, Division German and Austrian Economic Affairs, Department of State, Washington, 1945-48

MCKINZIE: Of course, I should explain, one reason that I keep asking you about the positions that your office was taking is that I am aware that you got documents of a kind of conflicting nature. You got the Morgenthau business from the Treasury Department on one hand, and on the other hand there was residue of all of that planning that was done in the State Department by Leo Pasvolsky’s people, which did envision a rather early return of Germany into some sort of European economy. Dean Acheson says in his book that he didn't realize that Europe without a reconstructed Germany was analogous to a body without a heart. He and other people had felt that perhaps Great Britain could assume the economic role that had been played by Germany previously, and somehow this was all your heritage or the legacy that was dumped into your office.

KINDLEBERGER: I would allow no member of my staff to use the cliche "the heart of industrial Germany" for the Ruhr. I wasn't worried about that. If Acheson did it he was out of line. No, it's true that we very quickly became aware of the role of Germany in Europe. The Germans had problems of their own. The coal question is one I spoke of. Very quickly it became the repair of mining machinery in Poland--Poland acquired Silesia, the Silesian mines.

As all the capital equipment of Europe was very far depreciated it needed to be replaced and renewed and the Poles couldn't do it. How are you going to get Polish mining going without helping the German machinery industry. And we found ourselves in this very fast.

So what we tried to do was to convert the Morgenthau doctrine in U.S. economic policy toward Germany into a statement which said, "The Germans have sinned. They have gotten way out of line and they have hurt people, therefore, we are going to pull them down quickly to the level of the neighboring countries and it's going to be short, sharp, quick, surgical," but then we let them go. Now the Russians never would agree to this as far as I know, and we had to agree that there were some industries which they could not operate. But that was the interpretation and I think that's a reasonable way to sort of thread your way. We also would add, by the way, in the spring of ‘47 when food was scarce, that the Germans were last in line. Food got terribly scarce worldwide and the Marshall plan I think was in large part a response to a very bad harvest.


 * E. Allan Lightner, Jr. Assistant Chief, 1945-47, and Associate Chief, 1947-48, of the Central European Affairs Division, Department of State

MCKINZIE: Kindleberger contends that sometime in 1946 the economic people came around to the view that there would have to be some reconstruction of German industry even above the level of industry agreement, which was being hassled around about then or had been hassled around previously.

LIGHTNER: Well, to us those months between V-E Day and mid-'46 seemed a long time. That's when much of the dismantling was taking place. It was a crucial period when much time was being lost in restoring the economy and our group in CE found that we were being opposed at every turn by those who wanted to carry out literally the provisions of JCS-l067. You know, Jimmy Riddleberger was the one who sweated out this whole business of dealing with the Civil Affairs Division of the War Department during the days of planning for the occupation of Germany, and also later on in dealing with the Kindleberger group.

MCKINZIE: You look at the period between the Morgenthau plan and the Marshall plan, one of which represents a "salted earth" policy, and the other an industrial development policy. The question of historians who are always concerned with pinning things down to precise things inevitably comes down to: what was the turning point? Was there any particular event or any absolutely crucial time period in which the change from the Morgenthau plan to the direction of the Marshall plan was made?

LIGHTNER: I think it was fairly gradual. I think the military had their directives based, as I said before, very much on the philosophy of the Morgenthau plan, the basic JCS-l067. They had to accomplish the main chores, which everyone agreed had to be done at first, the denazification and the demilitarization. Germany never was to be in a position to wage war again. But how does one prevent a modern state from ever waging war again? Easy answer -- you strip it of its industries and you make it economically unable to produce the weapons of war. But that was overlooking a whole lot of other features, which made that concept impractical and unwise, Yet that was not apparent to the proponents of the Morgenthau idea at the beginning; but they found in practice, in administering defeated Germany, that it wasn't enough to prevent "disease and unrest;" the Germans could not live on that basis in the modern world. You couldn't hold them down to that point; we weren't that kind of conquerors. Anyway, it gradually became clear to our people who had favored the Morgenthau plan that in our own interest, in terms of our ability to accomplish our political goals in Germany, you had to give them hope for the future. How could we make them a democratic country by treating them as the Romans treated the Carthaginians. I guess the turning point was Secretary Byrnes' speech in Stuttgart in September 1946. By that time after the experience of running occupied Germany for a year, the more Draconian policies of JCS-1067 were being interpreted differently. More and more people along the line were coming to see that we had to help the Germans restore their economic life, their industries and so on. We were breaking up cartels, we were shipping some reparations to the Russians (dismantled industrial equipment), but at the same time with the other hand we were helping small industries and encouraging other forms of economic activity.

One of the reasons why it took so long to get the economy of Germany going after our own policy changed, was that the Germans took some time to recover from the effects of their defeat. Furthermore, you had an untenable situation in that Germany was divided into four zones -- four economic units. Potsdam said it should be one economic unit, but that wasn't the way it worked. There were four economic units, like little countries, with barriers between them, and it was impossible for them to have a viable economy under the circumstances. So, first you had two zones getting together for economic reasons -- the British and American. And finally, in the spring of 1948 on the eve of the London negotiations which led to the decision to create the Federal Government of Germany, all three Western zones came together as trizonia. This was nearly two years after the Stuttgart speech and the economic situation in Germany was still at a very low ebb. But the big upturn, the start of the economic miracle of West Germany's recovery was in sight. At least what sparked the recovery of Germany was the currency reform, the revaluation of the currency in Western Germany on a ten to one basis in May 1948. For the first time since the end of the war the Germans began to have some confidence in their future. The stocks that they had sitting on their shelves began to move off the shelves to be sold.


 * General William H. Draper Jr. Chief, Economics Division, Control Council for Germany, 1945-46; Military Government Adviser to the Secretary of State, Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers, 1947; Under Secretary of War, 1947; Under Secretary of the Army, 1947-49;

We were more hardboiled than anybody except the Russians. The British were the most sensible. The French were even better than we were, although they were pretty severe, too. The Russians went even beyond the Morgenthau plan. They were basing their tough attitude on the fact that their whole country had been ravaged and millions of their people killed. They had been invaded, and you have a certain point of view when that happens. They were there to take it out on Germany, I guess, and we were pretty near as bad, although we hadn't been invaded. Anyway, the level of industry was finally determined on a level that didn't last long; it wasn't realistic. It took about two years to change. It was after I was back in Washington as Under Secretary before that directive was finally officially revoked.

In the meantime, we didn't pay as much attention to it as perhaps we should from the point of view of military discipline. There were several efforts to pull me back and have me charged with not carrying out the directive.

General Clay always defended me. He knew perfectly well that such a policy couldn't last just as well as I did. We fought it out and finally persuaded Washington. General Marshall himself defended me in testimony before a Congressional Committee. So, it finally worked out. The real turning point came when the currency was devalued or revalued in 1948. At that time we gave the Russians the opportunity to do the same to revalue the mark in their sector, in their zone; they refused. I was back in Washington before this -- when they walked out of the four power council meeting -- the Kommanditura. A few days later they declared the blockade of Berlin.


 * Joseph D. Coppock Economic adviser, International Trade Policy, Department of State, 1945-53

I don't know just when the change of attitude shifted the other way, but I would guess that it came in the course of '46 or '47. That was the '46-'47 winter, which was bad; it became clear to some that you simply couldn't have a stripped down, poverty stricken Germany. Here I would say that Kennan and Nitze, and the political officers in the Department, were right. Emergency aid and then the Marshall plan were the answers.

Well, let's see, where were we?

MCKINZIE: Well, we had gotten off on the problems of Germany. I didn't want to interrupt you there.

COPPOCK: I don't know the exact timing, but certainly whatever support there had been for the pastoral Germany disappeared pretty largely during 1946, because it became very evident that the overriding question was which side Germany was going to be on in the postwar situation. The threat of the Russians was evident enough, very evident indeed to those of us who had been through the OSS experience and were in the State Department. And all this time we hoped for, but did not expect, a cooperative Russia.


 * General Lucius D. Clay Deputy to General Eisenhower, 1945; deputy military governor, Germany (U.S.) 1946; commander in chief, U.S. Forces in Europe and military governor, U.S. Zone, Germany, 1947-49; retired 1949.

MCKINZIE: It also makes it difficult, doesn't it, in matters of policy setting, because you had JCS-1067, which was as I understand it, a compromise between the War Department and the Department of State on how...

CLAY: JCS-1067 would have been extremely difficult to operate under. If you followed it literally you couldn't have done anything to restore the German economy. If you couldn't restore the German economy you could never hope to get paid for the food that they had to have. By virtue of these sort of things it was modified constantly; not officially, but by allowing this deviation and that deviation, et cetera. We began to slowly wipe out JCS-1067. When we were ordered to put in a currency reform this was in direct controvention of a provision of JCS-1067 that prohibited us from doing anything to improve the German economy. It was an unworkable policy and it wasn't changed just without any discussion or anything by those of us who were in Germany. It was done by gradual changes in its provision and changes of cablegrams, conferences, and so on.

MCKINZIE: You must have had some backstopping in Washington to be able to do that.

CLAY: At that time I happened to have been very close to Mr. Byrnes, having worked for him. I could go to Mr. Byrnes (he was very close to the President), and he would go to the President. We'd get this thing resolved in short order.

MCKINZIE: Did you discuss with Mr. Byrnes the deteriorating situation with the Soviets before he made his very famous speech, now called the Stuttgart speech, in September of 1946?

CLAY: I urged him in the first place to come to Stuttgart. I had written him a letter about my own views of the situation and it was that letter which he used as the basis for this speech. He visited me in Berlin and we went over together. He had that passage in there, "as long as any other foreign country's troops are in Germany we're going to be there," which was the most important part of the speech. He tried all of that morning to get hold of the President by telephone to get his approval, and then left word that he was going to put this in if he didn't hear anything to the contrary. I'm sure that whatever he said there he had assurance that President Truman approved.

At that time their relationships were very close.

//

MCKINZIE: In the winter of 1946-47, you were under a directive that the German standard of living couldn't be any higher than that of France, in particular. Do you recall when you began to think in terms of rebuilding Germany as a part of solving a larger problem?

CLAY: In 1946 we got authority, as we brought food into Germany, to sell it to the Germans for German marks. We could use this money as we saw fit; for our own support, but also to aid and help the German economy. When we put in the currency reform in 1948, I saw a Germany where the people were working; which was going to come back quicker than the rest of Western Europe. I, of course, saw that that would never be allowed to happen.

My interest in having a revived Western Europe came from my realization that we could not have an economic recovery in Germany unless it was done as a part of all of Western Europe. It was about this time that the congressional committee came over studying the Marshall plan, the Herter Committee. We preached this to this committee all the time. As a matter of fact, one of the members of that committee, who spent a whole month in Germany at that time, was Everett Dirksen. He came back a very strong supporter of an economic program that would apply to all of Western Europe, including West Germany. I would say that this came to me, in a reverse sense, in '46. I began to realize that we couldn't develop Germany faster than Western Europe. On the other hand, if we left an economic vacuum in Germany, Western Europe could never come back.


 * Clifford C. Matlock Economist and political officer, U.S. Dept. of State, 1946-62; Political adviser, European Coordinating Committee, London, 1949-50;

MATLOCK: Yes, the German problem was the heart of the Europe problem.

MCKINZIE: Yes.

MATLOCK: That's a quote from Churchill about 1952 and I happen to agree with it as of that date.

MCKINZIE: Until 1950 it appeared that very many people in the State Department did not particularly see it that way.

MATLOCK: You mean they didn't favor German rearmament?

MCKINZIE: They didn't favor German rearmament or German industrial redevelopment very much.

MATLOCK: That's right, the whole U.S. policy until 1950 was to hold Germany down and deny it military strength. The British were still dismantling German industry as reparations when I went to London. They were getting the stuff out. Germany was trade competition. The British always thought about trade. They don't much anymore, but they did then. So they were among the last I think to stop dismantling German industry.

Well, you know, I was just a staff man, I didn't raise any objections to the demilitarization policy. I don't remember thinking there was anything wrong with it.

MCKINZIE: There was some talk too that unless Germany were given a full part in NATO that the influence of the occupying powers would begin to decline, that there was a kind of natural life of occupation after which you get out and make friends or you...

MATLOCK: That's right. Well, there was a real issue within Draper's immediate staff, and David Bruce's staff, involving me and Tommy Tomlinson and some others. One point of view, which I espoused, was that the occupation was over. The Contractual Agreements had not been signed, but I said, "The occupation in substance is over. We have told Germany (the West German Federal Republic of course) that we want it for a partner in alliance against Russia. The occupation is therefore over,


 * After six months of silence from your audience I conclude that nobody cares for your personal take on German's post-war economic recovery. Cheers. -Ashley Pomeroy 14:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The Morgenthau Plan and the American post-War Wirtschaftswunder
The Morgenthau Plan which was broadly implemented after WWII, meant the stealing of hundreds of German patents by the U.S. and the USSR and the dismantlement and transfer of factories to both nations.

Whole German industries like Aircraft and part of the Chemical and Pharmeceutical industries were robbed and sent to America and Russia. In fact, these patents and the brain drain were the base of the American Apollo XI and Saturn Projects to send an American to the Moon, a project headed by the German Werner Von Braun, as everybody knows.

Germany just received through the Marshall Plan 10% of the wealth stolen. Whole sectors of the economy like Aircraft never recovered but they were essential to the American post-War Wirtschaftsunder.--81.37.38.195 (talk) 14:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Also, I wonder where you get your figures (10% of wealth stolen). Nevertheless, what you're saying is - this is a case of the term really fitting, the Wirtschaftswunder was a true Wunder. --Bezzemek (talk) 20:30, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Discussion page
I find some parts of this page not to be objective, the use of words like "steal" "stolen" and soforth, are highly SUBJECTIVE and biased. It also does not take into account the reasoning behind these actions; this nation-state started a war of conquest/aggression and lost, many of its leaders were convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, therefore some if not most of this punishment was retribution that the other countries were owed as well as to remind their future leaders what happens to those who commit such crimes and the nations the govern/rule. Talk of no help with reperations, well, that is as absurd as bank bailouts! " The Marshall Plan made up only 10% of reperations paid" Reperation are paid as a penaly for wrong-doing, not as an agreed upon debt, thus are SUPPOSED to punative. This was interesting, informative, but highly biased, as if the German nation governed by the NAZI party was an innocent bystander to a war they just happened to be drawn into, whne in fact, they started and then proceeded to plunder the nations they captured as well as terrorizing and killing their citizens. Otherwise, this was a fine article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SloanerOboner (talk • contribs) 17:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

reasons
"The West German Wirtschaftswunder was partly due to the economic aid provided by the United States and the Marshall Plan, but mainly due to the currency reform of 1948 which replaced the Reichsmark with the Deutsche Mark as legal tender, halting rampant inflation." Neither was the reason for the economic upswing, the Wirtschaftswunder. The Marschall Plan was mostly a morale boost and had quite small impact on the economic development. In fact, it had a smaller volume than reparations to the U.S. and came later than the obvious beginning of the recovery. The overemphasis on the Marschall Plan is a federal republican myth (among Germans) and a result of U.S.-centric point of view (among Americans). The currency reform was no reason either - it was rather the removal of an obstacle. The real reason is simple macroeconomics; see the Solow-Swan model, for example. A strong growth was unavoidable in that situation because of high savings rates and skilled workforce; the nation accumulated capital quickly and therefore the economy grew quickly. The British state had not defaulted on the war debt, financed a military in 1946-1954 and strangled its economy with taxation plus the economy started at a point of much less destruction in 1945. That's why the British hadn't such a growth. 84.44.254.115 (talk) 18:09, 17 October 2009 (UTC) Lastdingo (talk) 18:09, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Lastdingo, you have some good points that would be good for the article. It could really benefit from further elaboration on the factors that DID cause the Wirtschaftswunder. Udibi (talk) 09:00, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with this explanation. See Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism", which explains that the real reason was primarily the forgiveness of debt--the key difference from the Treaty of Versailles--together with the Korean War and increases in worldwide demand (but Germany was better able to respond to increased demand than France or the UK, for instance, due to debt forgiveness that was not available to France or the UK). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.51.122.18 (talk) 22:05, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I have this draft, which I think explains it well:Lastdingo (talk) 09:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

The fundamental reason for the quick economic recovery of West Germany can be found in the Exogenous growth model. West Germany had a skilled workforce and a high technological level in 1946, but its capital stock had largely been destroyed during the war. This small capital stock as well as production conversion back to civilian goods, monetary and regulatory problems led to an unusually low economic output during the first post-war years. These initial problems were overcome by the time of the currency reform of 1948 which replaced the Reichsmark with the Deutsche Mark as legal tender, halting rampant inflation. This act to strengthen the German economy had been explicitly forbidden during the two years that the occupation directive JCS 1067 was in effect. JCS 1067 had directed the U.S. forces of occupation in Germany to "…take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany". The Allied dismantling of the West German coal and steel industries decided at the Potsdam conference was virtually completed by 1950; equipment had then been removed from 706 manufacturing plants in the west and steel production capacity had been reduced by 6,700,000 tons. Although the industrially important Saarland with its rich coal fields was returned to West Germany in 1957, it remained economically integrated in a customs union with France until 1959 and France extracted coal from the area until 1981.
 * Beginning of draft

West Germany proceeded after 1948 to quickly rebuild its capital stock and thus to increase its economic output at stunning rates. The very high capital investment rate thanks to low consumption and a very small need for replacement capital investments (due to the still small capital stock) drove this recovery during the 1950's.

In addition to the physical barriers that had to be overcome for the German economic recovery (see the Morgenthau Plan) there were also intellectual challenges. The Allies confiscated intellectual property of great value, all German patents, both in Germany and abroad, and used them to strengthen their own industrial competitiveness by licensing them to Allied companies. Beginning immediately after the German surrender and continuing for the next two years the U.S. pursued a vigorous program to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents in Germany. John Gimbel comes to the conclusion, in his book "Science Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany", that the "intellectual reparations" taken by the U.S. and the UK amounted to close to $10 billion. During the more than two years that this policy was in place, no industrial research in Germany could take place, as any results would have been automatically available to overseas competitors who were encouraged by the occupation authorities to access all records and facilities.

The Marshall Plan gave a moral boost, but very little actual financial assistance until the recovery was already in full swing.

Meanwhile thousands of the best German researchers and engineers were being put to work in the Soviet Union and in the U.S. (see Operation Paperclip)

Contrary to popular belief, the Marshall Plan, which was extended to also include Western Germany after it was realized that the suppression of the Western German economy was holding back the recovery of the rest of Europe, was not the main force behind the Wirtschaftswunder. Had that been the case, other countries such as the United Kingdom (which received higher economic assistance from the plan than Germany) should have experienced the same phenomenon. One must never underestimate the effect of the "unofficial contributions" of 150,000 U.S. troops earning as much as 4 Deutsche Marks to the dollar, depending on the exchange rate. These marks were consumed within Germany to buy food, luxury items, beer and cars, as well as entertaining the locals and for prostitutes. During exercises such numbers of soldiers would swell to over a quarter-million. However, France did experience a similar phenomenon (known as Trente Glorieuses). Nonetheless, the amount of monetary aid (which was in the form of loans) received by Germany through the Marshall Plan (about $1.4 billion in total) was far overshadowed by the amount the Germans had to pay back as war reparations and by the charges the Allies made on the Germans for the ongoing cost of occupation (about $2.4 billion per year). In 1953 it was decided that Germany was to repay $1.1 billion of the aid it had received. The last repayment was made in June 1971.

The Korean war (1950-53) led to a worldwide increased demand for goods, and the resulting shortage helped overcome lingering resistance to the purchase of German products. At the time Germany had a large pool of skilled and cheap labour, partly as a result of the deportations and migrations which affected up to 16.5 million Germans. This helped Germany to more than double the value of its exports during and after the war. Apart from these factors, hard work and long hours at full capacity among the population in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s and extra labour supplied by thousands of Gastarbeiter ("guest workers") provided a vital base for the sustainment of the economic upturn with additional workforce.

From the late 1950s onwards, West Germany had one of the world's strongest economies. The East German economy also showed strong growth, but not as much as in West Germany, due to the bureaucratic system, emigration of working-age Germans to West Germany and continued reparations to the USSR in terms of resources.

Ludwig Erhard, who served as the Minister of the Economy in Adenauer's cabinet from 1949 until 1963 and later became Chancellor, is often associated with the German Wirtschaftswunder.
 * End of draft

Btw, I have a West German university degree in economics, including focus classes on economic growth & wealth distribution, fiscal policy and economic policy. Back in about '99, the exogenous growth model was taught to me by a prof as the primary explanation for the Wirtschafstwunder. Lastdingo (talk) 09:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * implemented Lastdingo (talk) 14:22, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Daniel Yergin's take
In the book (and later in the PBS documentary) The Commanding Heights, Yergin credits Ludwig Erhard for having unilaterally abolished all the price controls (established under the Nazi regime and retained under the Marshall Plan). Erhard undertook this action partly in keeping with the economic policies of the Christian Democratic Party and partly in retribution for General Clay's having withheld notification about the currency reform from him. While Yergin's objectivity might be questioned (he's definitely a free-market, pro-Hayek economic historian), there is no questioning the fact that Germany was suffering from hyperinflation, and that the black and gray markets easily accounted for 50% of all economic activity. The *official* currency was worthless; the *real* currency was cigarettes (for small purchases) and cognac (for larger purchases)...and this remained the case even *after* the currency reform. The German markets simply didn't function correctly, and per Yergin, this was a simple, direct consequence of the price control system.

The currency reform took place in June 1948. Hyperinflation remained. Within a week, Erhard abolished all price controls. Virtually overnight, hyperinflation vanished, as did the black and gray markets. This, then, would seem to be the event that actually touched off the Economic Miracle. (See pp. 16-19 of The Commanding Heights.)

Note that this explanation also works over a longer term. Investment is credited with building the Miracle, but investment was encouraged by the abolishment of price controls. A tightly-controlled economy is, historically, the most significant factor in producing investment risk aversion.

So I'd like to see more emphasis placed on deregulation in creating the Miracle. This would certainly be consistent with more recent Miracles that have occurred in India, China, Great Britain, and elsewhere. Would there be great objection to me including the deregulation angle? I'll happily field suggestions as to placement and wording (although the text need not be any more expansive than the first two paragraphs of this comment).

Byff (talk) 00:30, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That looks like a good idea. (Of course, subjects like this can attract some rather distorted coverage, so be careful with sources) bobrayner (talk) 08:34, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Deregulation merely removes a limiter from the economic potential. Other factors actually drive potential up. To say that deregulation lets an economy grow is like saying that releasing the brakes accelerates a car. 10:56, 2 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lastdingo (talk • contribs)


 * I tried to get the ball rolling, 12 years later. I don't know that I did a great job. I hope someone fixes any stylistic errors I may have made, instead of just deleting it. Benevolent Prawn (talk) 05:42, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Article seems terribly biased
I believe this article fails to maintain an unbiased viewpoint or neutrality. It has many opinions stated as facts, cited by partisan sources. Just because you have a book that says one thing, doesn't make it true - especially something difficult to prove. For example: this article says the Marshall plan was extended to West Germany because the poor economic conditions in West Germany were holding the rest of Western Europe back (and therefore not at all interested in West Germany's well-being), but completely ignores the well accepted fact that the Marshall Plan was extended to West Germany to beef up the country widely considered as the buffer between the East and the West. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.110.179.229 (talk) 04:02, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree, and the tone is not neutral at all. Joyninja (talk) 04:26, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Why isn't this page titled German economic miracle?
I thought wikipedia had a policy of using english? Jishiboka1 (talk) 13:42, 30 March 2022 (UTC)


 * "Wirtshaftwunder is probably the common name in English too. See: WP:ESTABLISHED. Schierbecker (talk) 21:36, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 8 December 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover)  The Night Watch     (talk)   23:20, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Wirtschaftswunder → German economic miracle – Clear WP:COMMONNAME, WP:RECOGNIZABLE title (t &#183; c)  buidhe  23:50, 8 December 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:45, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Some of the results of #1 include other economic miracles, but looking through the results it's clear that most of them (certainly more than 1/4) are referring to this topic. And other phrasings such as "West Germany's economic miracle" "economic miracle in the Bonn Republic" and the like support the use of a descriptive, English language title. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  23:50, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * German "economic miracle" 2,200 results on Google Scholar since 2022
 * Wirtschaftswunder 451 results excluding most German language publications
 * Oppose. While I usually prefer English translation, "Wirtschaftswunder" is sufficiently well established in English usage to refer to this event.  "German economic miracle" is ambiguous - firstly, it is inaccurate (it was West Germany not Germany), secondly, it is not sufficiently distinct from 1890s industrialization, which is also sometimes characterized as an economic miracle.  Also G-scholar hits are not reported correctly. "German economic miracle" has only 201 hits on G-scholar.  It is a 2:1 ratio in favor of Wirschaftswunder.  Walrasiad (talk) 17:51, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's reasonable to exclude other phrasings of the English translation when calculating the common name. Wirschaftswunder is equally ambiguous since it just means "economic miracle" in German. In English language sources, it can also refer to other periods of rapid growth in German economic history, or even other countries like Japan and Spain. The unambiguous term would be "West German economic miracle", which I would also support. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  05:46, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * "Wirthschaftswunder" is not a mere translation, but has become a proper term in English to refer specifically to the post-war economic miracle in Western Germany, and nothing else. Other uses of the term are trying to make a deliberate allusion to it. By contrast, "economic miracle" is a generic term, that could apply to, say, Italy or Singapore.
 * While "economic miracle" is more descriptive, it is not distinctive. And in English, the post-war economic miracle in West Germany has become distinctly known as "Wirtschaftswunder", and is immediately recognizable by that name.  Our own "Economic miracle" list page  refers to it as "Wirtschaftswunder"; while those of other countries or eras are given different names.
 * It is not the first time an untranslated foreign word has acquired a meaning in English to refer to a specific time and place, e.g. "Belle Époque". Walrasiad (talk) 04:18, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Weak oppose, Ngrams shows Wirtschaftswunder is used sufficiently in English, whereas search results for "German economic miracle" cannot be exactly relied on as the first page of that search includes results to a Dutch economic miracle and a Brazillian Agribusiness economic miracle. Searching the specific "German economic miracle" term results in only 202 results, since 2022 as above, but it is understandable that trying to prove a descriptive name is more common is difficult. If there were multiple names for this, with no clear common name, then a descriptive name may be a suitable alternative, but Wirtschaftswunder is used in English and per comments above.  Dank Jae  03:40, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Walrasiad and DankJae. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:13, 19 December 2023 (UTC)