The November 1948 West German General Strike

Nine million workers in the American and British-occupied sectors staged a one-day work suspension to protest skyrocketing inflation and frozen wages

I don’t usually do German history posts back to back, but while I was researching my November 9 article, I found several links in German-language media about the November 12 Generalstreik in the West German Bizone (the sectors of west Germany occupied by British and American forces after the end of World War II).

It was the largest general strike ever in the former West Germany and I had never read anything about it.

I can’t find any mention of it in English-language sources, likely because American and British news outlets were focused on the Berlin Blockade and subsequent Berlin Airlift that were happening at the same time.

(Note: All excerpts and quotations below have been translated from German into English.)

Inflation, currency reform and low wages

On November 12, 1948 - 77 years ago this past Wednesday - around 9 million workers in the American and British sectors (this is out of a total workforce of 11 million) staged a 24-hour work stoppage to protest unaffordable food prices coupled with depressed wages.

The conflict was rooted in the currency reform measures taken in June of that year that replaced the Rentenmark and Reichsmark, which had become almost worthless due to inflation, with a new currency, the Deutsche Mark.

At the same time, Ludwig Erhard, director of the Economic Administration of the Combined Economic Area, lifted existing price controls and rationing.

Despite a considerable expansion of the supply of goods, demand was many times higher. This triggered price increases of up to 200 percent. Consequently, there was a sharp decline in the wage share, as the wages, which had been legally frozen since 1939, were not released. Riots repeatedly broke out in many cities of the American-British Bizone, particularly at weekly markets, and demonstrations were called for by various trade unions.¹

Smaller strikes, particularly by miners in the Ruhr region, and large public demonstrations in the cities of Stuttgart, Bremen and Mannheim took place throughout the last weeks of October 1948.

A poster calling for a general work stoppage for the 12. November, 1948. Image in the public domain, reproduced via Creative Commons license.

By November, there was overwhelming public pressure on unions and company works’ councils to organize something larger. However, after some demonstrators rioted in Stuttgart, the occupying powers banned large-scale public demonstrations, and officials in the French sector also prohibited any strikes.

Thus, the executive board of the German Federation of Trade Unions called for an official “work suspension” to occur on November 12 limited to the ‘bizone’ of the American and British sectors.

The demands of the workers were:

• Reversal of the preferential treatment of property owners through the currency reform and equalization of burdens in favor of wage earners,

• Combating price gouging,

• Planning and management of the economy,

• Transfer of basic industries and banks into the public sector,

• Democratization of the economy and equal participation of trade unions in all bodies of economic self-management.

The response was overwhelming. Of the 11.7 million workers in the combined zones, 9.25 million participated in the strike.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, 2,100 out of 3,000 factories came to a complete standstill. On average, strike participation was around 80 percent.

…

In Herne and Wanne-Eickel, too, hardly a hand stirred from midnight to midnight that day. The winding gears of the mine shafts and the machines in the factories stood still, and the offices in the government buildings of both Emscher cities were deserted.²

Birth of the social market economy

As planned, the work stoppage took place for just 24 hours, with mixed results.

The leaders of the combined economic area (its adminstrative council was the precursor to the government of the Federal Republic of Germany) did take measures to combat price gouging and they implemented some price and quality controls for sellers.

But the workers’ demands for the transfer of industries to the public sector and an official role for trade organizations in developing government policy went largely unheeded.

Today Ludwig Erhard is credited as the “father” of Germany’s social market economy, an economic model that balances an open market economy with with protections for the poor and for workers to maintain social balance.

In an essay published for the Ludwig Erhard Association, journalist Philipp Plickert argues that the general strike, while huge, was ultimately unable to stop Germany from transitioning from a planned economy to one based on the principles of the free market.³

But since the strike only lasted a day, its impact was somewhat diminished. Erhard didn’t back down on the main issue: no new general price controls. However, he pushed forward with the so-called “Everyman Program”: hundreds of thousands of shoes, children’s coats, and fabric for clothing were sold to the population at reduced prices. Some of the materials came from army stockpiles. Erhard also benefited from the launch of the Marshall Plan, which somewhat improved the supply of raw materials. Thus, Erhard weathered the November crisis, and the free-market course was saved.

But others credit the the general strike itself, as well as the many demonstrations and smaller strikes that preceded it, with prompting Erhard and other leaders to alter their original plans to shift the country to an economy completely governed by principles of the free market.

The striking workers and the trade unions had demands that were both economic (lower prices, lifing of the wage freeze) and political (nationalization of certain industries, laws on economic co-determination), noted historian Uwe Fuhrmann in a 2018 interview with the left-wing media outlet, ND.⁴

They saw a role for themselves in helping to determine the structure of the economy of the new nation as it was being developed, he said.

At that time, Erhard still wanted to introduce a free market economy. And that’s where the protest movement came into play, which persisted and, along with its demands for lower prices, also called for a different economic system.

Although their political dimension was not successful and the general strike was largely forgotten as the German economy flourished and the country reunified, there are still lessons to be drawn today from that event, Fuhrmann added.

Let’s extrapolate the nine million strikers out of twelve million total employees in 1948 to the Eurozone: if one hundred million workers were to strike for the socialization of key industries, higher wages, and a different economy, then—I’m certain of it—we would achieve the social Europe that many trade unionists, for example, dream of.
This is the perspective for change that can be derived from the experience of 1948: activating people instead of waiting for better concepts that are supposed to somehow prevail on their own.

1. 12, November, 1948: 75 Jahrestag des Generalstreiks in der amerikanisch-britischen Bizone. Hessische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung.

2. Revolution wird nicht geduldet! Der Generalstreik vom 12. November 1948. Herne von damals bis heute. Digitale Gesichtsbuch für Henne und Wanne-Eickel.

3. Ein Generalstreik konnte Erhards reformen nicht stoppen. Philip Plickert. Stiftung Ludwig Erhard.

4. Der Mythos der Bundesrepublik. Nelli Tügel ND. November 11, 2018.