the Economic Miracle Week 19 March 3 Themes in this lecture 1 Adenauers Germany and constitution Grundgesetz 2 Integration into the W world 3 Reparations for the Holocaust 4 population influx ID: 530800
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Slide1
FRG and the Economic Miracle
Week 19, March 3Slide2
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 pastSlide3
Konrad Adenauer, 1876-1967Slide4
“No experiments!”Slide5
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)Slide6
European Economic Community, 1958 Slide7
Reparations to Israel, 1956(train from Esslingen factory train)Slide8
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 1955. 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)Slide9
Return of the German POWsSlide10
Emigration from Germany
Migration to the US (380.000) Canada (235.000)
Australia (80.000)
UK (50.000)
Uprooted expellees, many unemployed before the economic recovery started;
Others eager for experiences abroad after the Nazi years Slide11
AnticommunismSlide12
Kurt Schumacher, 1895-1952Slide13
Herbert Wehner
,
1906-1990
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 SPDSlide14
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 Slide15
The Song of the Economic Miracle (
Aren’t We Wonderful?
d
ir. Kurt Hoffmann
,
1958)
http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v
=SGBVB3KBPn8Slide16
Critics: Heinrich Böll
, Siegfried Lenz, Group 47
Billiards at Half-Past Nine
, 1959Slide17
Coming to terms with the Nazi past
Hans
Globke
director of the Federal Chancellery, 1953-1963
In 1935, authored the commentary to the Nuremberg laws