Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/266351 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
IBF Paper Series No. 03-22
Publisher: 
IBF - Institut für Bank- und Finanzgeschichte e.V., Frankfurt a.M.
Abstract (Translated): 
This paper analyses the early years of the history of the Bundesbank from a history of economic thought-perspective. The study uses the example of Bernhard Benning, who was heading the Economics Department of the Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft, one major banks owned by the German Reich during the National Socialist era. After the war Benning became a member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank for 22 years. Benning was a student of Adolf Weber and was strongly influenced by the latter‘s opportunistic, conservative, and pro-business liberalism, rather than by ordoliberal ideas. Benning drew his legitimacy for his role in the early Federal Republic from his public criticism of war financing and from warning against inflation in the DonnerBenning Debate since 1942/43. In this tradition, the early Bundesbank was Weberian rather than ordoliberal, so fixed exchange rates were favored, and a strong business and investment perspective was adopted.
Subjects: 
Bundesbank
Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft
Adolf Weber
Ordoliberalism
National Socialism
Money
Inflation
JEL: 
B26
B31
E58
N14
N24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.