Almost three million well-heeled Germans had to cede half of their wealth

Fritz Schäffer, the first Bavarian prime minister after the Second World War, was convinced that there must be a redistribution of wealth in war-ravaged Germany at zero hour. The CSU politician did not make friends with the idea of ​​special taxes. And yet the young Federal Republic saw the largest redistribution campaign that has ever taken place in a free market economy: In today's monetary terms, 60 billion euros were collected from property, mortgage and loan profit taxes and paid out to millions of the destitute. On September 1, 1952, the law on the so-called equalization of burdens came into force.

Apparently, the idea has lost little of its socio-political appeal. Because in the debate on how the state should cover the high corona costs, the demand for a new special tax based on the historical model of burden sharing also emerged.

Schäffer, also the Federal Republic's first Minister of Finance, wanted to build a socially and politically pacified new society - and relied on the solidarity of the citizens: "It is natural that one thinks that those who suffered property damage in the war turn to the , who kept the assets during the war,” the minister explained.

Suffering, misery and despair were omnipresent. Immediately after the end of the war, 15 million people lived in the country, many of whom didn't have much more than their tattered clothes: bomb victims, homeless people, former concentration camp prisoners. Twelve million people alone were looking for a new home in the west as expellees from the former eastern German territories. 18 million people, more than a third of the population of the Federal Republic at that time, were entitled to payments from the equalization of burdens.

For Horst Waffenschmidt (CDU), Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of the Interior between 1982 and 1997, the equalization of burdens was "the first major test that Germany's newly created, liberal and social constitutional state had to pass". "He passed this test," said Waffenschmidt in 1987 on the 35th anniversary of the law's entry into force. The burden sharing remains "an impressive example of the solidarity of our people". The historian Rudolf Morsey came to a similar conclusion: “The equalization of burdens reduced a threatening potential for social tension.”

First, due to time constraints, the "Emergency Aid Act" was passed, which was intended to alleviate the greatest need of the victims. A tax of 3 percent was levied on the existing property, which was due immediately. "In the three years from 1949 until the Equalization of Burdens Act came into force, DM 6.2 billion had already been spent," reported Henning Bartels, Vice President of the Federal Equalization Office, which was responsible for equalizing the burdens.

The Bundestag passed the "Law on a General Equalization of Burdens" against the votes of the SPD and the KPD. The SPD justified its rejection primarily with the relatively small skimming off of the really large fortunes. For example, anyone who owned a house that was worth 100,000 marks on the day the law came into force was to pay a property tax of 50,000 marks by 1979.

Almost three million well-to-do citizens paid into the equalization fund. They had to relinquish half of their wealth, spread over 30 years in quarterly tranches of around 0.4 percent. There was no question of a partial expropriation, hardly any of the assets were lost, which SPD party leader Erich Ollenhauer also criticized. Passing the law, he said: “It is really the culmination of this policy of favoring large private property. The result of this policy is that today in none of the belligerent countries in Western Europe is there such a tantalizing contrast between the greatest luxury and pitiful poverty as here in the Federal Republic.”

Because the state needs a lot of money because of Corona and also as a result of the Ukraine war, burden sharing is again in the debate today. But many experts consider such a step to be completely excessive - not least for constitutional reasons. The head of the Institute of German Economics, Michael Hüther, is also strictly against it. He warns "not to unsettle the citizens with historical will-o'-the-wisps". The scientific service of the Bundestag judged that with regard to the equalization of burdens (LAG), the starting position in 1952 and the current one are not comparable: "The asset levy according to the LAG does not offer itself as a model for the current situation."

The historian Heinrich August Winkler has a different view of the situation. He told the Tagesspiegel in 2020 at the beginning of the corona pandemic: "Germany will not be able to avoid a large-scale redistribution - a burden sharing between those who suffer less from the material consequences of this crisis than those whose professional existence is at stake And: "The dimensions of this redistribution will far exceed those of the historic equalization of burdens in favor of those who were expelled from their homes and those who were bombed out in the 'old' Federal Republic."

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