Pause on the Rhine

WEST GERMANY Pause on the Rhine

"Germany's economic expansion is slowing down," warned Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard in a radio speech to his countrymen last week. Gold and foreign-currency reserves shrank by $150 million in the last two months of 1957, construction was off by 4%, coal production had declined in 1957 for the first time since World War II, and unemployment had reached its highest level (1,200,000) since 1954. Privately, Erhard told friends that the German economy has paused for "a breathing spell." Confronted with the added threat of strikes by transport, coal and bank workers demanding shorter hours and more pay, the engineer of the German miracle had a typically German solution. Citizens, said Erhard, should "ponder whether the German people ought not to be prepared, instead of working less than a 45-hour week, to work one hour more."

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