Sir, – Petra Gerlach-Kristen’s excellent article (Opinion Analysis, August 29th) on the lessons the Germans took from reunification reinforces the point that the Germans are wary of apparently easy solutions to the current crisis.
However, the article made one error. Germany’s last bout of hyper-inflation was not in 1923 but was after the second World War, well within the living memory of many Germans. It was ended, and the German “economic miracle” started, with a series of wrenching free-market reforms of which a new currency (and a consequent end to inflation) was just one.
In 1948 German economic output was only 40 per cent of 1936 levels; by 1951 it was 137 per cent and by 1960 it was 280 per cent. The Germans achieved their “miracle” by facing up to their situation and reforming every part of economic life. In 1948 Ludwig Erhard, the Bonn minister for economics from 1949, promised them that these new policies would “shatter any illusions” and “expose the stark realities of our economic life clearly and brutally”. In 1955 he warned: “Where all groups want to have special protection and more security, people will enjoy less and less freedom and will lose more and more genuine security. There can be no doubt that the advantages that some people are out to acquire can only be acquired at the expense of others.”
On this trajectory of recovery from a crisis, where are we? – Yours, etc,