The German Economic Miracle, Tenenbaum was the real author of the currency reform, not Erhard
Postwar Germany has appeared to the world as a model democracy and economy for fully seven decades. For the most part Germany’s economy grew steadily and inclusively, led by world-beating manufacturing exports.
But now Germany is firmly in the grip of malaise. The country’s export-led economic model has been unable to cope with its loss of competitiveness to China, and resentment of immigration has reached its highest level in the postwar years
Germany, like much of the West, is experiencing a rising far-right populist tide, with Alternative für Deutschland questioning the fundamental assumptions and norms of political behavior that that have governed Germany since the Federal Republic’s founding in 1949.
In exchange for receiving Marshall Plan aid, the German authorities were required to balance the budget, contain inflation, dismantle rationing, remove wage and price controls, encourage private enterprise, and liberalize trade.
In effect, they were asked to implement what came to be known a half-century later as the “Washington Consensus.”
Holtfrerich insists that Erhard actually played no role in designing the currency reform, despite having claimed credit for it for the remainder of his political career.
Straumann West Germany’s economic miracle would not have endured without the 1953 London Debt Agreement, which eliminated all possibility that the country would be saddled with massive reparation obligations to its wartime enemies, as happened after World War I
.
Holtfrerich’s book is a biography, the subject of which, Edward Tenenbaum, was the real author of the currency reform.
Tenenbaum served as an intelligence officer in the Twelfth Army Group during World War II, and in the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS), which administered the American occupation zone.
In Army intelligence and then at OMGUS, Tenenbaum worked closely with a more senior economic expert, Charles Kindleberger.
When confronted with the fact that Erhard was stealing his thunder, Tenenbaum is said to have casually replied, “Who cares who gets the credit?”
Barry Eichengreen Project Syndicate Oct 24, 2025
Charles P. Kindleberger
Kommentarer