Adolf Weber's Munich School of Economics and Its Influence on the Early Bundesbank

The Example of Bernhard Benning

Bibliographic Data

ID4297464
AuthorsJan Greitens (Westfälische Hochschule, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume57
Issue2
Pages279-305
Publication date2025-04-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of Political Economy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2702 • E-ISSN: 1527-1919
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182702-11642404
OpenAlexW4404995052
LanguageEN
References cited20

This article analyzes 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 headed the Economics Department of the Reichs-Kredit-Gesellschaft, one of the major banks owned by the German Reich during the National Socialist era. After the war Benning was appointed a member of the board of directors of the Deutsche Bundesbank for twenty-two years. As a student of Adolf Weber and his Munich school of economics, Benning's views were shaped by classical liberal rather than ordoliberal ideas. His legitimacy in postwar Germany stemmed from his public opposition to war financing and warnings about inflation during the Donner-Benning Debate of 1942-43. In this tradition, the early Bundesbank was Weberian rather than ordoliberal, so, for instance, fixed exchange rates were favored, and a strong business and investment perspective was adopted

Economic history · Economics · German · Inflation (cosmology · Keynesian economics · Legitimacy · Opposition (politics · Political science · European history and politics · European Monetary and Fiscal Policies · History · Law · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

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