Working group Erwin von Beckerath
The Erwin von Beckerath working group was a private group of German liberal economists who, in 1943 and 1944, conspiratorially drafted concepts for an economic order for the period after the Second World War . The considerations of this group were incorporated into the conception of the social market economy after the war .
The work of the Economics Working Group , which belonged to Class IV of the Academy for German Law directed by Jens Jessen , was discontinued in March 1943 as "not war-important". This working group then continued to work unofficially, using the name of the previous chairman as a designation. The "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Erwin von Beckerath" was also called "Freiburg Circle" by its members, since the meetings - apart from the preparatory meeting in the Rhöndorfer Hotel Wolkenburg - usually took place in Freiburg im Breisgau . The district was later referred to more precisely in historiography as the “Third Freiburg Circle” in order to distinguish it from the Freiburg Circle (Nazi era) , which was broader in terms of personnel and topics .
The aim of the working group was to design an economic order for the period after the Second World War. The numerous documents of its activity were published in 1986.
Apart from the chairman Erwin von Beckerath, the three Freiburg national economists Constantin von Dietze , Walter Eucken and Adolf Lampe worked in this group , then especially from Jena Franz Böhm and Erich Preiser , from Marburg Gerhard Albrecht and from Cologne Theodor Wessels . Lampe was the secretary and tireless organizer of the circle. When he and von Dietze were arrested by the Gestapo on July 20, 1944, the work of the district ended.
In a certain sense, the circle was continued in 1948 by the Scientific Advisory Board at the Administration for Economic Affairs of the United Economic Area, later the Federal Ministry of Economics, especially since Erwin von Beckerath also headed this body.
The circles from the war time are not to be confused with the so-called Freiburg Liberal Circle of the FRG in the 1970s.
literature
- Christine Blumenberg-Lampe: The economic policy program of the “Freiburg circles”. Draft of a liberal-social post-war economy. Economists against National Socialism . Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1973, ISBN 3-428-03025-7 .
- Christine Blumenberg-Lampe: The way to the social market economy. Papers, minutes, reports from the Erwin von Beckerath working group 1943–1947 . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-608-91399-8 .
- Lüder Gerken (Ed.): Walter Eucken and his work. Review of the pioneer of the social market economy . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2000, ISBN 3-16-147503-8 , pages 95-96.
- Nils Goldschmidt (Ed.): Economy, Politics and Freedom. Freiburg economists and the resistance . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-16-148520-3 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Christian L. Glossner: Making of the German Post-war Economy: Political Communication and Public Reception of the Social Market Economy After World War Two . In: International library of twentieth century history , IB Tauris, 2010, ISBN 978-0857714589 , p. 37.