Technology and the West German Wirtschaftswunder

By any standard, the West German economy has performed exceedingly well since the beginning of the 1950s. West Germans have enjoyed satisfactory-at times spectacular-growth rates, perennial trade surpluses, a steadily improving standard of living, and low rates of inflation. Recently, growth has subsided somewhat, and unemployment, for many years very nearly nonexistent, has become an intractable problem, but the West German economy remains an object of admiration and envy throughout the world.' Spectacular growth rates were characteristic of many Western economies in the postwar years.2 But enormous obstacles to reconstruction distinguished the West German situation: bombing destruction was extensive, dismantling of factories continued into the 1950s,