Book contents
- Edward A. Tenenbaum and the Deutschmark
- Studies in New Economic Thinking
- Edward A. Tenenbaum and the Deutschmark
- Copyright page
- Dedicated to
- Contents
- Figures
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Ludwig Erhard, Who Took Credit for Edward A. Tenenbaum’s Success
- 3 Edward A. Tenenbaum’s Family Roots, Adolescence, and Military Experience until 1946
- 4 In Action for OMGUS and Currency Reform in Germany 1946–1948
- 5 From OMGUS to Civil Service in Washington, DC and for Europe 1948–1953
- 6 Life and Fate as a Businessman and Family Man 1953–1975 and Beyond
- 7 Conclusion
- Notes
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Index
7 - Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2024
- Edward A. Tenenbaum and the Deutschmark
- Studies in New Economic Thinking
- Edward A. Tenenbaum and the Deutschmark
- Copyright page
- Dedicated to
- Contents
- Figures
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Ludwig Erhard, Who Took Credit for Edward A. Tenenbaum’s Success
- 3 Edward A. Tenenbaum’s Family Roots, Adolescence, and Military Experience until 1946
- 4 In Action for OMGUS and Currency Reform in Germany 1946–1948
- 5 From OMGUS to Civil Service in Washington, DC and for Europe 1948–1953
- 6 Life and Fate as a Businessman and Family Man 1953–1975 and Beyond
- 7 Conclusion
- Notes
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Index
Summary
Here I concisely summarize Tenenbaum’s currency-reform activities in West Germany. I pick up the question what role the Reich Group Industry, managed by Ludwig Erhard’s brother-in-law, who in 1943 commissioned Ludwig Erhard’s study "War Financing and Debt Consolidation," had played in Erhard’s second turncoat behavior up to his unsolicited application for commissions by the US Occupation Power. I praise General Lucius D. Clay’s shrewdness in using Erhard with his free market rhetoric as a pawn in the struggle to keep socialism and communism in West Germany at bay. I advance a thesis why Erhard appropriated Tenenbaum’s merit. In the first two postwar decades, it seems to have been mentally impossible for the people of defeated Germany – still infected by Nazi antisemitism - to recognize and appreciate the fact that the basis of West Germany’s resurgence, the currency reform of 1948, was owed to Jewish masterminds. I conclude with a comparison of Tenenbaum’s and Erhard’s characters.
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- Information
- Edward A. Tenenbaum and the DeutschmarkHow an American Jew Became the Father of Germany’s Postwar Economic Revival, pp. 626 - 630Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024