100th birthday of Walter Eucken - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1991 - 100 Pfennig

Walter Eucken was born on January 17, 1891 in Jena, the son of the philosopher and Nobel laureate Rudolph Eucken. He studied economics in Kiel, Bonn and Jena, received his doctorate in 1913 in Bonn, participated as a front officer in the First World War and habilitated in 1921 in Berlin. In 1925 he received his first chair at the University of Tübingen; In 1927 he was appointed to the University of Freiburg / Breisgau. He worked there until his death on March 20, 1950. Eugene's research program is based on the recognition that the novel living conditions of modern industrial society lacked a functioning and decent order. The social question of the 20th century is still insufficiently solved in the spirit of the 19th century; Economics faces huge challenges - inflation, global economic crises, social tensions - helpless; Under the pressure of day-to-day problems, politics conducts experiments that are not thoroughly considered and that have many undesirable or unbearable consequences. Eucken re-analyzed the problem of order of modern industrial society, and he became a recognized authority in economic and sociopolitical issues, which should be solved in a spirit of freedom and social commitment. Eugen's most important works are "The Foundations of National Economics" (Jena 1940) and "Principles of Economic Policy" (published posthumously: Bern / Tübingen 1952). Since 1948 »Ordo« has been published, an Eucken-initiated and co-founded »Yearbook for the Order of Economy and Society«. During the National Socialist reign, Eucken, together with other scientists in confidential "Freiburg circles," worked out the "fundamentals of a transitional economy from the war to peace and the creation of a new economic order after the collapse of the regime." Although these ideas could not be activated immediately after the end of the war, Freiburg could not influence the economic and political development of West Germany in the French occupation zone. Eugene's convictions, however, have later unfolded an immense, to the present persistent power of radiation through the work of his pupils in science, politics and journalism. (Text: Dr. Horst Friedrich Wünsche, Ludwig-Erhard-Foundation Bonn)