Walter Eucken

Nationality

Germany

Date of Birth

1891

Date of Death

1950

Political
Preference

Walter Eucken was a German economist of the Freiburger school. He is best known for being the father of ordoliberalism, a German variant of economic liberalism that emphasises the need for the state to ensure that the free market produces results that are beneficial to the whole of society. After serving in World War I, Eucken taught at Berlin, Tübingen and Freiburg University, where he remained until his death. While Eucken was a conservative nationalist, he opposed Martin Heidegger’s move to impose the Nazi regime’s policies on Freiburg University when he became its rector. After the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938, Eucken was one of several Freiburg academics that formed the Konzil with a number of local priests to debate the Christian obligation to oppose the Nazis. As a member of these Freiburger Circles, Eucken co-authored an appendix to a memorandum in which the group’s ideas for a social and economic order after the war was outlined. This liberal competitive system was going to replace the Nazi regime’s economic policy if the Stauffenberg assassination of Adolf Hitler had succeeded on 20 July 1944. The assassination attempt failed, and Eucken was arrested together with other members of the Circles. He was released after being interrogated twice, but two of his colleagues were executed. After World War II, Eucken’s economic theories were influential in triggering the successful reforms that would be known as the economic miracle or the Miracle of the Rhine.