ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Planning for freedom – The repression and opposition of economists during the Nazi regime in Germany illustrated by the example of the Freiburg Circles
Author: Goldschmidt Nils
Although it is a well-known fact that the Freiburg School under the leadership of Walter Eucken has mainly influenced the success of Germany’s post-war “Social Market Economy”, it is less known that these ideas have been developed also in direct opposition against the Nazi regime. Walter Eucken and other Freiburg economists were leading members of the so-called “Freiburg Circles”, three different, but related resistance groups. These groups, initially established in reaction to the “Reichskristallnacht”, published several memoranda and papers, often with specific focus on a post-war social and economic order, that respects individual freedom. Until the disastrous failure to overthrow Hitler in July 1944 – which led to severe interrogation, arrest and conviction even of Freiburg economists – the (economic) ideas of the “Freiburg Circles” were prominent even among other resistance groups. Thus, if one wants to understand the development of post-war Germany one has to bring more light into these historical events. It can be shown that the idea of a liberal, but socially committed market economy of post-war Germany is also an outcome of a struggle for freedom against political repression.
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