Three years ago, I have inaugurated a new irregular series on my blog assessing the merits of UK prime ministers (illustrated through the lens of a single board game each). The rating system seemed robust enough to apply it to other countries/leaders (at least if they are more or less democratic). Thus, we branched out to American presidents and German chancellors. Today’s subject is the rare German president with political power – Paul von Hindenburg, the second and last president of the Weimar Republic. And which game could be more appropriate for him than Weimar (Matthias Cramer, Capstone Games/Skellig Games/Spielworxx)?

The Rating System

Some caveats ahead: The presidents will be rated by the knowledge of their time. If they or their contemporaries could not have known about the effects of something, I will not use my hindsight to mark it as a mistake of theirs. The assessment is focused on their conduct as president.

Now, to the system itself: There are three policy field categories (foreign, domestic, and economic policy) and three more general ones (vision, pragmatism, integrity). A president can earn from one to five stars in each category (for a total sum of up to 30). In detail, the president is assessed as follows:

Foreign policy: Did the president increase German influence in the world and the security of Germans at home? Did the president wield German power responsibly and with positive results for the regions affected?

Domestic policy: Did the president increase the liberty of Germans to express themselves and to participate in the political process? Did the president promote domestic security and shape the framework for fair justice dealing with offenses?

Economic policy: Did the president facilitate the prosperity and economic security of Germans (including in the mid- and long-term)? Was the president’s economic policy based on mutual benefit of those involved or did it unduly burden one side?

Vision: Did the president have an idea of what Germany and Europe (the latter counting for more in times of German influence being great) should look like beyond the immediate future? Did the president’s policies steer Germany (and, if applicable, Europe) in this direction?

Pragmatism: Did the president succeed in seeing their policy through from inception to completion? How well did the president manage the support from parliament, society, the administration, the media?

Integrity: Did the president understand the office as a means to benefit themselves, special interest groups, the entire country, or another community? Did the president respect the boundaries of the office?

Note: If you have read my UK prime minister or US president ratings, you will remember that I rated them on the global impacts of their vision as well. As the rating system is only really applicable to democratic leaders and no democratic German leader ever had the chance to conduct a truly global policy, I only assess their vision on national and European grounds.

In all other ratings (UK prime ministers, US presidents, German chancellors) the subject’s life after holding the office is also assessed (for they are still seen as ex-office holders, but as a secondary consideration). This does not apply here, as – spoiler! – both Weimar Republic presidents died in office.

Hindenburg’s Life

Paul von Beneckendorff und Hindenburg was born in 1847, when Prussia was still an absolute monarchy. Like most men in his family, he opted for a military career and had his baptism of fire in Prussia’s wars of unification: He fought at Königgrätz (Sadowa) against the Austrians at age 18, at Sedan against the French three years later. The socialist Paris Commune which had been formed against both the Prussian siege of Paris and the liberal French government filled him with a horror of civil war and revolution which would influence him all his life. Back from the wars, Hindenburg enjoyed a successful career as an officer, culminating in his promotion to (full) general in 1905. In the forty years between the victory over France in 1871 and his retirement (aged 63) in 1911 he would not fight another war.

Hindenburg was recalled into active service shortly after the outbreak of World War I and placed at the head of the 8^th Army, the only German force dealing with Russia’s invasion of East Prussia. At the advice of his energetic chief of staff Erich Ludendorff, Hindenburg opted for a daring counter-attack which annihilated one of the two Russian invasion armies. The actual execution of the plan was left to Ludendorff. Hindenburg’s main contribution was to remain steadfast when Ludendorff wanted to abandon the plan in the middle of the operation during one of his nervous fits – a pattern which would become characteristic for the rest of the war. Hindenburg and Ludendorff had won the most significant German victory of the early weeks of the war, and they had done so on German soil. The fundament for the myth of Hindenburg was in place.

While Hindenburg, now the commander-in-chief of the German forces on the Eastern Front, had suddenly become the most admired and revered German, the ambitious Ludendorff also urged him to demand greater influence over the course of the entire war. That embroiled the duo Hindenburg-Ludendorff in a continued rivalry with the OHL (Oberste Heeresleitung, Supreme Army Command) under Erich von Falkenhayn. Hindenburg, brought up with the values of a Prussian officer, was now routinely insubordinate to his military superior Falkenhayn, until Emperor Wilhelm II sacked Falkenhayn in August 1916 and replaced him with Hindenburg. Of course, it was once more Ludendorff, who (now as First Quartermaster General) pulled the strings.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff widely sidelined the emperor and ran Germany as a quasi-military dictatorship. However, their double role of political and military decision-makers did not come with increased effectiveness:  What the politicians Hindenburg and Ludendorff demanded (a victorious peace, vast annexations, a German hegemony over Europe), the generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff could not deliver. And while the military leadership of the German armies remained strong, the political decisions lacked judgment – unlimited submarine warfare drew the United States into the conflict on the Allied side in 1917; the mishandling of relations with post-revolutionary Russia tied down German forces in the east. Hindenburg and Ludendorff gambled on a last offensive in the west in 1918 – and lost. The reserves were spent now. As the Allied armies pressed forward in a counter-offensive, making peace seemed like the best option to Germany’s military dictators.

They applied to US President Woodrow Wilson for peace – in the hope that a lenient peace based on the Fourteen Points could be obtained. Wilson, however, remained firm: On the one hand, he insisted on parliamentary government for Germany (and thus the end of the OHL dictatorship); on the other, the territorial losses and military restrictions to be applied to Germany seemed dishonorable to Hindenburg and Ludendorff. One way or the other, their desire to remain responsible for the country waned – they complained in bitter terms how they had been “stabbed in the back” by a non-supportive home front. In the end, Ludendorff resigned, but Hindenburg stayed on as the head of the OHL – but complemented with a chancellor whose power base was the German parliament. Their attempt to save the German monarchy with an orderly transition out of the war was quickly swept away by the revolting masses in the revolution of November 1918.

Now Hindenburg showed remarkable pragmatism. While the revolution was made by the Social Democrats, pariahs under the monarchy to which Hindenburg was so attached, his dislike for them was outweighed by his horror of civil war. Together with Ludendorff’s successor, general Wilhelm Groener, he placed the German army at the disposal of the new government led by Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert… with the understanding that it would be used to quell any Bolshevik unrest. The (Majority) Social Democrats thus were able to complement their political dominance over the more left-leaning Independent Social Democrats with the hard power of the army and usher in a parliamentary republic.

As with Ludendorff, Hindenburg let Groener fill the active role in their partnership while providing the myth surrounding his person. Groener and he made sure that the army, still spread out from France to Ukraine, returned in an orderly fashion. When the Treaty of Versailles was offered to the German government, Hindenburg personally understood that there was no alternative to it – Germany could not have renewed the war with the Allies. As he felt the Treaty was humiliating, though, he left it to Groener to advise the government to accept.

Once the Treaty was signed, Hindenburg retired to private life, but remained immensely popular, a beacon of the anti-republican Germany. When he stated at the parliamentary committee of inquiry dealing with the end of the war that the German army, “undefeated in the field” had been “stabbed in the back,” (by whom exactly, he did not specify – listeners felt free to fill in the blank with their preferred choice of enemy, usually “the Jews” or “the Socialists”) it gave the myth a quasi-official sanctioning.

His relationship with the German right, however, was rather complicated. Hindenburg was close with some members of the DNVP (Deutschnationale Volkspartei – German National People’s Party), but never became a party member. He did join the ideologically similarly inclined Stahlhelm (Steel Helmet) association of former soldiers, though. He condemned both major right-wing coup attempts of the early Weimar Republic – reluctantly in the case of Kapp and Lüttwitz, forcefully in the case of his former partner Ludendorff with the upstart demagogue Adolf Hitler.  

When president Friedrich Ebert died in 1925, lesser men had to fill his shoes. None of the various candidates running in the first round of the presidential election came close to a majority by themselves. Coalition building was the order of the day now. The pillars of the republican order (Social Democrats, (Catholic) Center, and left-leaning Liberals) would put the Center candidate Wilhelm Marx forward as a joint candidate. While the right-leaning Liberal candidate Karl Jarres had received the most votes in the first round, the parties of the right feared that he would not be able to stand against a united republican camp. The constitution, however, allowed for candidates to be entered in the second round who had not been running in the first. And which candidate would, on merit of his personality, have a better chance than the old war hero, the victor of Tannenberg?

Hindenburg electrified a certain part of the electorate. Others criticized his closeness to the old monarchy (Hindenburg had sought approval from the exiled Wilhelm II before running, but denied this), his lack of experience with parliamentary politics, and his age (he was 77 already, and would be 84 by the end of his term). Hindenburg was elected in the second round with a plurality of the votes.

The election of a Reichspräsident is one of the turning points in a game of Weimar: The winner receives the very powerful Reichspräsident card which allows the player to use one of their cards twice every turn. As you only hold five cards each turn, being president thus guarantees you to be 20% more effective! In the game, Hindenburg acts as the candidate for the DNVP (which is an amalgam of various nationalist groups extending beyond the DNVP proper). His chances to win are typically pretty good, as the DNVP has many opportunities to place more party bases early in the game… and, as the DNVP typically does not score a lot of points in the early game, other players might also be more likely to cast their votes for Hindenburg in the second round of the election.

Early in his term, Hindenburg surprised many of his critics: Despite his background, he kept within the confines of the republican constitution (and declared publicly that he did not seek a return to monarchy), despite his inexperience, he immediately found a role in the political process (for example, it was his stern intervention that brought the quarrelling parties to form a government in 1926), and despite his age, he did not seem to lack vigor.

Hindenburg even showed his trademark pragmatism: When Hans von Seeckt, the chief of the German army, invited a Prussian prince to an army exercise, Hindenburg promptly sacked him to avoid tensions with the Allies. And when the Social Democrats won the 1928 parliamentary elections and formed a “grand coalition” government with the Center and the Liberals, Hindenburg worked well with them.

Yet his old networks persisted, and in the eyes of the monarchists, the military men, the aristocratic magnates of the old Prussia, it was clear that the Social Democrats, no, the whole parliamentary system needed to go. As Hindenburg grew older and relied more on his advisers (chief of them his son Oskar and Kurt von Schleicher from the Army Ministry), his attachment to the parliamentary, constitutional system lessened. When the Social Democratic Chancellor Hermann Müller opposed an agricultural aid package from which the aristocratic magnates would benefit most, Hindenburg decided it was time for a change in government. Together with Oskar and Schleicher, he sounded out the parties on the political right to form a minority government which would not act through parliament, but through presidential emergency decrees. They were intrigued.

The last Weimar Republic government which had a parliamentary majority broke apart in 1930 – ostensibly over a rather minor disagreement regarding the budget for unemployment insurance (by then, Germany was in the throes of the Great Depression). The schemers behind the scenes quickly put up a new minority government led by Heinrich Brüning from the right wing of the Center. Brüning would spend the next two ears trying to combat the crisis with a deflationary policy exacerbating the economic woes of the country. The Social Democrats opposed Brüning and, when he couldn’t get a majority for his budget, forced new elections in September 1930. Neither they nor the government succeeded at the polls, though – instead, the Nazi Party leaped from a fringe group to the second-strongest force in parliament (behind the Social Democrats). Brüning continued his minority government based on presidential executive orders.

Hindenburg and Schleicher regarded the Brüning experiment with ever less enthusiasm, and sought to push the government to the right – but they could not find the partners for such an enterprise yet: The DNVP refused to join the government coalition, and Hindenburg dismissed the Nazi Party because of his assessment of Hitler as too vulgar (understandable) and socialist (confusing his positions with those of the “national revolutionaries” in the Nazi Party). Hindenburg even gave in to Brüning’s and Groener’s (now Army Minister) pressure to outlaw the SS and SA Nazi paramilitary forces to stop the ever-increasing political violence in the streets.

After the seven years of his first term ended, Hindenburg, now aged 84, stood for re-election 1932. His main opponent would be Hitler. The parties who had supported Marx in his failed bid of 1925 had no candidate who could match the charisma of the other two – and so the left-leaning and centrist democratic parties rallied around Hindenburg. One would suppose that this would ensure a blowout victory – yet most of Hindenburg’s old supporters on the political right, concentrated in the rural, Protestant areas of Germany, defected to Hitler. Hindenburg won 53% of the vote in the second round and remained president.

Schleicher then pushed for a new, entirely non-parliamentary government, and when Brüning proposed a plan to settle derelict agricultural land in the east with the unemployed (to the detriment of the aristocratic owners), Hindenburg agreed that it was time for change. He dismissed Brüning, and, advised by Schleicher, appointed Franz von Papen (no party affiliation) chancellor. Papen was to govern with a cabinet of aristocrats which had no parliamentary basis whatsoever – the Cabinet of Barons.

Papen and Schleicher both courted the Nazis, but disagreed on the methods: Schleicher wanted to split the Nazis by allying with its “national revolutionary” wing; Papen (supported by Hindenburg) lifted the ban on SS and SA, ostensibly to decrease political tensions. The opposite happened: Nazi paramilitaries started a riot with Communist supporters in the working-class Hamburg suburb of Altona in which several people were killed. The fear of political violence provided a pretext for forceful government action: When there was no government majority after the state elections in Prussia, Hindenburg authorized Papen by executive order to depose the acting state government of the democratic parties (an open breach of the constitution).

Papen, however, had maneuvered himself into a dead end. His attempt of governing detached from parliament ignored the political will of the German people: Some of them might prefer the Nazis, others the Social Democrats, the Communists, or the Center – but barely anyone supported Papen, as the parliamentary election of November 1932 showed. Hindenburg sounded out all parties from the Nazis to the Liberals (but not the Social Democrats or the Communists), but failed to find a workable government.

Another solution had to be found. Schleicher convinced Hindenburg to sack Papen and took over as chancellor himself. His attempt to form a cross-ideological front of the army, the trade unions, and the “national revolutionary” Nazis made the established elites uneasy. Papen took his revenge by agreeing with Hitler on a coalition government – headed by Hitler, but with only a few Nazi ministers. Papen convinced Hindenburg that this was the way to tame the Nazis: Use their popular support while demystifying them as they got bogged down in the minutiae of government. On January 30, 1933, Hindenburg swore Hitler in as chancellor.

In Weimar, Nazi parliamentary rule would end the game – with all players losing. Hindenburg, playing with people of flesh and blood, rather than with wooden meeples, also seemed defeated after the Nazi takeover. He ceased resistance to Hitler and stood by him at the old church of the Potsdam Garrison in a symbolic merger of the old and the new national movement. In the meantime, the Nazis dismantled the democratic order. Paul von Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. No new president was elected. Instead, Hitler acted as joint head of state and government – Führer und Reichskanzler.

The Rating

Foreign Policy

Hindenburg generally supported the government position on foreign policy, which aimed at shedding the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty and re-admittance of Germany as a fully equal great power. He did misjudge at times how to achieve these goals – for example, he thought that the League of Nations would put additional shackles on Germany (unlike foreign minister Stresemann, who realized the League’s potential to adjudicate conflicts which were before handled directly between Germany and the Allies).

Domestic Policy

Hindenburg was not particularly interested in domestic policy and left it largely to the chancellors and their ministers. Whenever he did get involved, however, it was to detriment of the freedom of the German people: His initial refusal to outlaw SS and SA contributed to the rise of political violence, as did his speedy cancellation of the ban after only three months. The subsequent Strike on Prussia was the most obscene breach of the constitution before the Nazis dismantled it altogether – without encountering resistance from Hindenburg, whose credibility with the military, administrative, and business elites might have prevented their walkover.

Economic Policy

Once more, Hindenburg largely went along with the policies of his chancellors. In the case of Brüning’s attempt to combat the recession with the tightening of spending, that was catastrophic. Whenever Hindenburg attempted to leave his own mark, it was in favor propping up the failing system of East Elbian agriculture in a lucrative way for the old aristocratic elites.

Vision

What did Hindenburg eventually want? – He favored monarchy over republic, but did not seek a return to it in office. He swore an oath to the constitution, but treated it ever more casually the longer he ruled. His preferences for governing with, against, or beside parliament shifted according to his chancellors and advisors. He attempted to include or exclude the Nazis at times, and eventually was swallowed by them.

Pragmatism

Hindenburg started strong in this regard: He was instrumental in the formation of governments and got along well with parties as different as the Social Democrats and the German National People’s Party. He also got his way in the change of governments from 1930 on (even though a good deal of this was conceived rather by his son and Schleicher). Yet these tactical strokes did not lead to strategic gains, and in the end, Hindenburg outmaneuvered himself with the Nazi-led coalition government.

Integrity

Hindenburg attached great importance to be regarded as above the parties, as a representative of all Germans. Yet in practice, he played favorites, most notably in his economic policy which was shaped by his close connection with the East Elbian agricultural magnates. Hindenburg could also be petty, as when he refused to visit the Rhineland and Westphalia in 1930 because the Stahlhelm had been outlawed there for their breaches of the Versailles Treaty. On a grander scale, Hindenburg tested the limits of the constitution from 1930 on with his various non-parliamentary governments… and in the end, attacked the constitution frontally in the Strike on Prussia.

Overall: Hindenburg played a complex role in the Weimar Republic. While his age and his tendency to let others plot the course of action excuse him from some of the blame, he crucially contributed to the extension of the economic woes and political violence which engulfed the republic, and directly aided the steady erosion of parliamentary rule from 1930 on. Hindenburg enters the list at the very bottom.

1. Abraham Lincoln 28/30
2. Franklin D. Roosevelt 25/30
3. Friedrich Ebert 25/30
4. Winston Churchill 25/30
5. Robert Walpole 24/30
6. Willy Brandt 23/30
7. Konrad Adenauer 22/30
8. Harry S. Truman 21/30
9. John F. Kennedy 17/30
10. Hermann Müller 17/30
11. Ludwig Erhard 12/30
12. Paul von Hindenburg 10/30

How would you rate Hindenburg? Let me know in the comments!

Further Reading

Hindenburg has found surprisingly little attention in recent English-language scholarship. The standard scholarly biography in German is Pyta, Wolfram: Hindenburg. Herrschaft zwischen Hohenzollern und Hitler [Hindenburg. Rule between the Hohenzollern and Hitler], Siedler, Munich 2007.

A shorter, more accessible treatment is Rauscher, Walter: Hindenburg. Feldmarschall und Reichspräsident [Hindenburg. Field Marshal and Reich President], Ueberreuter, Vienna 1997.

For the broader context, see: Herbert, Ulrich: Herbert, Ulrich: A History of Twentieth-Century Germany, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2019.

Last year, I have inaugurated a new irregular series on my blog assessing the merits of UK prime ministers (illustrated through the lens of a single board game each). The rating system seemed robust enough to apply it to other countries/leaders (at least if they are more or less democratic). Thus, I’m branching out! After our first US president earlier this year, we now do a German chancellor – Ludwig Erhard, nicknamed “The Father of the Economic Miracle”. After a quick introduction to the rating system and an overview of Erhard’s life, we go straight into the rating. The accompanying game will be Wir sind das Volk! (Richard Sivél/Peer Sylvester, Histogame).

The Rating System

Some caveats ahead: The chancellors will be rated by the knowledge of their time. If they or their contemporaries could not have known about the effects of something, I will not use my hindsight to mark it as a mistake of theirs. The assessment is focused on their conduct as chancellor, but includes their life after holding the office (in which they will still be regarded in the public eye as (ex-)chancellors).

Now, to the system itself: There are three policy field categories (foreign, domestic, and economic policy) and three more general ones (vision, pragmatism, integrity). A chancellor can earn from one to five stars in each category (for a total sum of up to 30). In detail, the chancellor is assessed as follows:

Foreign policy: Did the chancellor increase German influence in the world and the security of Germans at home? Did the chancellor wield German power responsibly and with positive results for the regions affected (the latter counting for a greater deal in times of German power being great)?

Domestic policy: Did the chancellor increase the liberty of Germans to express themselves and to participate in the political process? Did the chancellor promote domestic security and shape the framework for fair justice dealing with offenses?

Economic policy: Did the chancellor facilitate the prosperity and economic security of Germans (including in the mid- and long-term)? Was the chancellor’s economic policy based on mutual benefit of those involved or did it unduly burden one side?

Vision: Did the chancellor have an idea of what Germany and Europe (the latter counting for more in times of German influence being great) should look like beyond the immediate future? Did the chancellor’s policies steer Germany (and, if applicable, Europe) in this direction?

Pragmatism: Did the chancellor succeed in seeing their policy through from inception to completion? How well did the chancellor manage the support from parliament, society, the administration, the media (the latter counting for more in more recent years)?

Integrity: Did the chancellor understand the office as a means to benefit themselves, special interest groups, the entire country, or another community? Did the chancellor respect the boundaries of the office?

Note: If you have read my UK prime minister or US president ratings, you will remember that I rated them on the global impacts of their vision as well. As the rating system is only really applicable to democratic leaders and no democratic German leader ever had the chance to conduct a truly global policy, I only assess their vision on national and European grounds.

Erhard’s Life

Ludwig Erhard was born on February 4, 1897. His parents owned a clothing store in Fürth, a city in the south of Germany. Erhard was initially destined to follow them in the business, but came back from World War I badly wounded and unable to stand for an extended period of time (as we would have had to as a store owner). He thus turned to academia and studied business. After graduating, he managed his parents’ store for a short time before it went bankrupt in 1928. Erhard then succeeded in following his academic aspirations and worked at various institutes and universities. Erhard was no supporter of the Nazi regime which took power in 1933, but conducted advisory research for them. In 1942, he failed in a bid to head his university’s institute for economics (losing to a member of the Nazi party) and was soon after forced out of the institute. He then set up his own one-man think tank, writing on how to re-build Germany’s economy after the war.

These studies – and Erhard’s relative distance from the Nazi regime – recommended him to the post-war authorities. After quick stints on the local and regional level, he was appointed Head of the Special Office for Money and Credit (and soon after Director of Economics) of the Anglo-American occupation zone in Germany. When he was informed by the Allied authorities of their decision to introduce a new currency (the Deutsche Mark) in the three western occupation zones, Erhard went ahead and also announced the lifting of price-fixing and production controls for most goods.

Economically speaking, the monetary reform and abolition of state control over the economy were not an immediate success. Prices shot up (while wages were still fixed) and unemployed quadrupled to 12%, thus, unrest (leading to a general strike) spread in West Germany. However, the abolition of price-fixing all but abolished the previously ubiquitous black markets. Erhard’s reputation thus was stellar, and the newly formed big-tent center-right party CDU (Christlich-Demokratische Union, Christian Democratic Union) invited Erhard to join forces with them. Erhard, who personally was more of a classical liberal than a conservative, joined with the intent of committing a large party to his ideas of free markets, and successfully ran for parliament on the CDU ticket in West Germany’s first national elections in 1949. Erhard then became Minister for the Economy in the new administration, a post he would hold for the next fourteen years.

Early in Erhard’s tenure, economic success blossomed: The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 re-committed the American economy to war production – and West Germany seized the opportunity to produce the civilian goods not made in America anymore. The West German economy boomed. Unemployment fell. Wages rose. Exports grew manifold. And Erhard, who steadfastly (but not always successfully) defended his liberal economic principles against any attempts to introduce more state intervention, became the lucky charm of the German “economic miracle”.

Erhard’s corresponding popularity made him a natural contender for the succession of West Germany’s first chancellor Konrad Adenauer. When Adenauer finally resigned in 1963 (aged 87), the CDU and its allies in government elected Erhard as the new chancellor. Erhard, never a politician’s politician, refrained from domestic initiatives. His foreign policy was based on the attempt to align West Germany closer with the United States and Great Britain at the expense of the cordial Franco-German relationship his predecessor had built. Erhard won a resounding electoral victory in 1965, but his relationship with his own party remained frail. When a mild recession hit West Germany and the budget was threatened by Erhard’s earlier commitment to payments to the United States and Britain to make up for the spending of their troops stationed in Germany (the “offset arrangement”), his government broke down (1966). Erhard was forced to resign. The new government which was based on the CDU and the long-time oppositional Social Democrats elected Kurt Georg Kiesinger as his successor. Erhard retired to a quiet life, but remained a member of parliament until his death on May 5, 1977.

The Rating

Foreign policy:

Erhard’s only field of ambition during his chancellorship – and also the area of his most obvious failure. His pivot away from France damaged the Franco-German relationship and European integration (which he, against his general economic principles, did not seek anyway). On the other hand, Erhard could not make good on his aim to improve German-American relationships – his professed dislike for France took any kind of lever out his hand, and his willingness to accede to American demands (like promising full payment in the offset arrangement) did not result in any favors in return from the United States (the key prize would have been if America had continued to seek a Multilateral Force with nuclear weapons – which would have resulted in Germany’s nuclear sharing).

Domestic policy:

Erhard did not start any domestic policy initiatives and ignored the growing societal pressures beyond his favorite topic of the economy. In the rare cases that such topics were forced onto him, Erhard, to his credit, deviated from the previous course of German policy which had been to largely ignore the Nazi crimes: When he found out that his Minister for Displaced Persons, Refugees, and War Victims had been an active Nazi party functionary, Erhard forced his resignation (in a striking difference to his predecessor Adenauer, who kept his Chief of Staff for ten years despite the man’s well-known involvement in drafting the Nazis’ laws prosecuting German Jews).

As German law knew a statute of limitation preventing criminal prosecution after twenty years, all Nazi crimes would have gone unpunished from 1965 on. Erhard was in the minority of government members who wanted to extend the period of prosecution. Parliament passed an extension with a mixed-party majority – Erhard, however, had nor been able to convince his own government colleagues and was not instrumental in securing this majority.

Economic policy:

Another policy field of Erhard inaction – this time, however, by design. Erhard’s liberal economic credo kept him from intervening in the economy. That was defensible in the narrow view – economic activity in the short term – but defective otherwise: Erhard knew (more than a year before the budgetary crisis of 1966) that the economic downswing lowered public revenue while his promises concerning the offset arrangement would raise expenses. Erhard thus brought the budgetary crisis, over which he’d fall, onto himself. In the longer term, Erhard’s torpedoing of European integration denied the German economy export markets and delayed the innovation stimulus of increased competition.

Vision:

Erhard’s overarching vision in life was to allow free individuals to pursue their ambitions in a market economy – but when he entered office, he felt the preconditions for that were already achieved (a debatable claim). Thus, his policy mostly consisted of staying the course. He did pitch a foreign policy plan to refuse the Soviet Union loans and then “buy” German reunification when the Soviet economy collapsed, but was met with (justified) bewilderment by both his domestic and foreign interlocutors. Domestically, his only contribution which went beyond the immediate needs was his idea of a “Formed-Up Society” in which both egoism and pluralism would be overcome – an idea that he brought up during the 1965 election campaign and did not return to afterward.

Pragmatism:

Likely Erhard’s weakest suit. While he did not attempt much, what he attempted usually fell flat because Erhard was unable to secure support for it (or because he wavered and dropped it in the face of resistance). He had lost his own party’s support for his foreign policy within his first year in office. Their support for his domestic activities (or, rather, the lack thereof) withered soon after. Particularly instructive is the aftermath of Erhard’s 1965 electoral victory: Erhard squandered this testament of his popularity with the voters within weeks. He had intended to downsize the cabinet (and thus to get rid of ministers appointed by his predecessor and unfriendly to him) but waited too long to begin that process. In the end, the parliamentary parties of the coalition partners CDU, its Bavarian sister party CSU, and the pro-business FDP prevailed in securing all the posts for ministers they wanted. Erhard was forced to accept a virtually unchanged cabinet. Only one year after his electoral victory, the remainder of his political capital was spent and he resigned.

Integrity:

Erhard came into office planning to abolish his predecessor’s “democracy of favors” which was based on securing the support of powerful interest groups like the churches, the farmers’ associations, the employers’ associations, or the trade unions by passing legislation and channeling government funding in their favor. While Erhard was not above combatting European economic integration (against his liberal credo of open markets and the benefits of competition) to protect the German farmers from their French competitors, he doled out distinctly fewer favors than his predecessor. He also confined himself to the limits the constitution spelled out and did not attempt to shape the state offices to his liking (as Adenauer had done when he tried to move from the chancellorship into the presidency – but, of course, turning the presidency into the more important office). Finally, Erhard’s more collegial government style confirmed that Germany had moved beyond authoritarianism.

Erhard is the rare case of a politician not defined by the highest office he attained: He took the decisive action of his life as Director of Economics for the Bizone. He is best remembered by the public as Minister for the Economy. Looking at his chancellorship, it’s easy to see why: During this short period in office, Erhard did not attempt much, and what he attempted usually failed. His successors were left to respond to pressures resulting from the changing civil society and to repair the damage done to Franco-German relations (only achieved around ten years later). Erhard positions himself on the lower rungs of the leaders rated.

Full ratings so far:

1. Abraham Lincoln 28/30
2. Franklin D. Roosevelt 25/30
3. Friedrich Ebert 25/30
4. Winston Churchill 25/30
5. Robert Walpole 24/30
6. Willy Brandt 23/30
7. Konrad Adenauer 22/30
8. Harry S. Truman 21/30
9. John F. Kennedy 17/30
10. Hermann Müller 17/30
11. Ludwig Erhard 12/30
12. Paul von Hindenburg 10/30

How would you rate Erhard? Let me know in the comments!

Further Reading

For short overview essays on all German chancellors from Bismarck on, see Sternburg, Wilhelm von: Die deutschen Kanzler. Von Bismarck bis Merkel [The German Chancellors. From Bismarck to Merkel], Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 2006 (in German).

For a recent English-language biography (or, rather, a hagiography), see Mierzejewski, Alfred C.: Ludwig Erhard. A Biography, University of North Carolina press, Chapel Hill, NC 2005.

The standard, primary-source based, scholarly biography (which is a bit vitriolic, but generally sound in its judgment) is Hentschel, Volker: Ludwig Erhard. Ein Politikerleben [Ludwig Erhard. A Politician’s Life], Olzog, Munich 1996 (in German).