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Germany's Postwar Growth: Economic Miracle or Reconstruction Boom?
By Richard Reichel
Introduction
During the past two decades there has been a heated debate about the causes of the German so-called Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) after the Second World War. This debate came somewhat unexpectedly, as the German war generation always took it for granted that the impressive growth record in the 1950s and 60s was a consequence of economic liberalization after 15 years of tight planning and state interventionism under the Nazi dictatorship (Buchheim 1989). Indeed, after the introduction of the Soziale Marktwirtschaft (social market economy) in 1948, Ludwig Erhard, the first federal economics minister, enjoyed a legendary reputation. Nevertheless, Erhard never saw himself as a "miracle man." He always emphasized that Germany's rapid growth was due to a sound economic policy, in particular the implementation of a free economic system (Erhard 1958).
In the 1980s, this view was challenged by historians and economists who argued that Germany's postwar growth was essentially the result of a reconstruction boom after the lost war. The main German advocate of this reconstruction theory was the historian Werner Abelshauser (1983). He questioned the impact of the currency reform—a core ingredient of Erhard's economic policy—on economic growth. Rudi Dornbusch also questioned the conventional view. He pointed to the Japanese experience in achieving strong economic growth in the 1950s and 60s "in an environment where competition and liberalism were decidedly absent," and argued that France performed nearly as well as Germany "with a system far away from German liberalism" (Dornbusch 1993: 882). Dornbusch is wrong for two reasons. First, Japanese growth was highest in the 1960s, not in the 50s when the income gap was largest. Second, France's growth rates did not approach those in Germany, which were much higher.
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