The German Question

The German Question by Wilhelm Röpke is the book that inspired the postwar economic reform in Germany — which Röpke himself did not believe had gone nearly far enough. It was published in 1945 in Switzerland, one year after Mises's Omnipotent Government and Hayek's Road to Serfdom. In a policy sense, it is more sweeping than the former and more radical than the latter.

It is more than a plea to get rid of price controls. It is a call for wholesale moral, political, and economic reform, for in Röpke's view it was not enough to get rid of corrupt leadership; what had to be purged completely was the principle that the central state is in charge of the whole of society.

A thorough de-Hitlerization would require dismantling the central state and restoring the old city-states — completely ending the monopoly on industry and education and medical care — and a restoration of sound money, not to mention free trade with the world.

It becomes clear why Röpke's books were banned by the Nazis — and why they deserve far more attention than we've given them.

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