[Erhard said that] in the next four years he would fight unrelentingly against all forms of restrictive practices. The threat to the German economy c… - Ludwig Erhard

Freedom can be saved only for those who are willing to hold and defend it, and for whom it means more than a desirable, but not really essential luxury. Freedom demands above all self-restraint, and it does not flourish in an atmosphere that is indifferent to values. Even where we speak of individual freedom, we think of it in relation to the human conscience, and having its proper place in the community and the body social. I repeat what I have often said: "Freedom without order will only too easily drift into chaos—order without freedom will deliver us to coercion."

Any liberal system must proceed from the assumption that freedom is one and indivisible and that elementary human freedom in all spheres of life must go hand in hand with political, religious, economic and spiritual freedom. The strategy of collectivist thinking has always been to split up this most essential and most universal of human values as a means of making inroads into the free system itself.

[Erhard said that] a new phase in the development of the German free economy would begin with the transformation of publicly owned enterprises into joint stock companies in which those with small savings could invest.