The Wirtschaftswunder (, "economic miracle"), also known as the Miracle on the Rhine, was the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II (adopting an ordoliberalism-based social market economy). The expression referring to this phenomenon was first used by The Times in 1950.
Beginning with the replacement of the Reichsmark with the Deutsche Mark in 1948 as legal tender (the Schilling was similarly re-established in Austria), a lasting era of low inflation and rapid industrial growth was overseen by the government led by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and his Minister of Economics, Ludwig Erhard, who went down in history as the "father of the West German economic miracle." In Austria, efficient labor practices led to a similar period of economic growth.
The era of economic growth raised West Germany and Austria from total wartime devastation to developed nations in modern Europe. At the founding of the European Common Market in 1957 West Germany's economic growth stood in contrast to the struggling conditions at the time in the United Kingdom.
West Germany
The fundamental reason for the quick economic recovery of West Germany can be found in the ordoliberal growth model. Germany had a skilled workforce and a high technological level in 1946, but its capital stock had largely been destroyed during and after the war. This small capital stock was compounded by the difficulty in converting the German economy to the production of civilian goods, as well as rampant monetary and regulatory problems, leading to an unusually low economic output during the first post-war years.
These initial problems were overcome by the time of the currency reform of 1948, which replaced the Reichsmark with the Deutsche Mark as legal tender, halting rampant inflation. This act to strengthen the West German economy had been explicitly forbidden during the two years that JCS 1067 was in effect. JCS 1067 had directed the U.S. forces of occupation in Germany to "take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany".
At the same time, the government, following Erhard's advice, cut taxes sharply on moderate incomes. Walter Heller, a young economist with the U.S. occupation forces who was later to become chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President of the United States John F. Kennedy, wrote in 1949 that to "remove the repressive effect of extremely high rates, Military Government Law No. 64 cut a wide swath across the German tax system at the time of the currency reform." Individual income tax rates, in particular, fell dramatically. Previously the tax rate on any income over 6,000 Deutschmark had been 95 percent. After tax reform, this 95 percent rate applied only to annual incomes above 250,000 Deutschmark. For the West German with an annual income of about 2,400 Deutschmark in 1950, the marginal tax rate fell from 85 percent to 18 percent.
Erhard also issued a decree abolishing price controls. This move was conducted without the permission of the Allied occupying powers, and was opposed by the Social Democratic Party, most West German manufacturing interests, and according to Erhard, at least some of his own advisers. At the time, food was difficult to find in stores at the artificially low price, and was instead often acquired by barter or through the black market. Once the price controls were removed, the shortages disappeared and the economy improved dramatically. The removal of price controls returned supply and demand to equilibrium. Once the goods could be sold for the higher price that reflected buyer demand, it incentivized producers to increase production, ultimately increasing economic efficiency.
The Allied dismantling of the West German coal and steel industries decided at the Potsdam Conference was virtually completed by 1950; equipment had then been removed from 706 manufacturing plants in the west and steel production capacity had been reduced by 6,700,000 tons. Although the industrially important Saarland with its rich coal fields was returned to West Germany in 1957, it remained economically integrated in a customs union with France until 1959, and France extracted coal from the area until 1981.