Erhard Likely To Succeed Adenauer

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28866, 10 April 1959, Page 11

Erhard Likely To Succeed Adenauer

(Rec. 8 p.m.) BONN, April 8. Dr. Ludwig Erhard, a possible successor to Dr. Konrad Adenauer as West German Chancellor, is known as “the producer of the West German economic miracle.”

The 62-year-old professor of economics became West Germany’s first Economics Minister in November, 1949, and has held the post ever since. He became Vice-Chancellor in 1957.

He has become a symbol for West Germany’s post-war recovery.

Dr. Erhard served as a noncommissioned officer in World War I, and then studied economics at Nuremberg and Frankfurt. He was head of an institute for economic research in Nuremberg

when Hitler came to power in 1933. He refused to join the Nazi Party and was later dismissed from his job at the institute. A group of German industrialists gave him funds to carry on his work. After the start of World War 11, Dr. Erhard began work on a secret plan to readjust Germany’s monetary system to post-war peace-time conditions. It became the bases of a draft for a currency reform which was successfully carried out in 1948.

Professor Erhard has always been a forceful exponent of free enterprise economy. He is a Protestant.

Dr. Erhard’s popularity was demonstrated anew recently when Dr. Adenauer put him forward as a candidate for the presidency.

For almost the first time, the Chancellor’s party turned against one of his decisions, and said Dr. Erhard was needed in active politics. Dr. Eugene Gerstenmaier, another possible successor to Dr. Adenauer, was an active opponent of the Nazis. He was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment in 1944 for participation in the antiHitler plot, which was smashed after a bomb had been placed in Hitler’s headquarters. Dr. Gerstenmaier first became a member of the Lower House in 1949. His advocacy of closer cooperation with the Social Democratic Party—the main opposition in the Lower House—on foreign policy has led to criticism from members of his own Christian Democratic party. He has also favoured a more flexible line in talks with the Russians than has been officially accepted in Bonn. He was one of the first to suggest a peace treaty with Germany as a subject for discussion at a summit conference.