IV.

Economic Resurgence

In domestic affairs Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard, his economics minister, encouraged economic recovery through free enterprise aimed at the consumer market both at home and abroad. Industrial growth was aided by tax laws favoring business-owners, by heavy private investment, and by hardworking, relatively undemanding laborers. The workforce was augmented first by a large influx of highly skilled immigrants, who were among the more than 11 million refugees from East Germany and former German areas of Europe. Later, so-called guest workers (German Gastarbeiter) came from Italy, Spain, and Turkey. The result was the period of rapid industrial expansion and prosperity known as the Wirtschaftswunder (German for “economic miracle”). Funded by its growing industrial wealth, the government built an army and expanded the social welfare system.