West Germany’s era marked itself by currency reform, not liberation from Nazism

Evidence

The new calendar' in Germany did not have the datemark before liberationafter liberation’, but `before currency reformafter currency reform’ (as Peter Rühmkorf put it). Germany was integrating itself into the West and was busy with reconstructiona process Horkheimer wanted very much to contribute to. There was much eagerness to suppress memories, and a great deal of reluctance and inadequacy in the financial restitution and compensation which Germany was forced by the victorious Western powers to provide to victims of the former regime. In a country like this, surely talk of a crisis in the concept of reason and a plea for reason to achieve self-reflection on the totality must have sounded completely abstract and out of touch. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1911

Categorization

• CANDY: Rühmkorf’s aphorism — ‘before liberation vs after currency reform’ — is a quotable, meme-able frame for postwar Germany.
• XREF: connects to: Germany financed postwar reconstruction mainly through money creation, not household savings; Germany’s postwar boom was financed by money creation, not foreign aid — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 143; Mont Pèlerin circles shaped postwar German currency policy but lost on antitrust. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 29

Broader Connections

• Germany financed postwar reconstruction mainly through money creation, not household savings #corroborates (0.85)
• Germany’s postwar boom was financed by money creation, not foreign aid #corroborates (0.82) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 143
• Mont Pèlerin circles shaped postwar German currency policy but lost on antitrust. #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 29