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The article traces the history of the Bretton Woods monetary system from its inception in the mid-1940s to its collapse in the early 1970s. Focusing particularly on economic, monetary, and fiscal policy in the Federal Republic of Germany during this time period, the authors chart debates in West German politics, in the European Economic Community (EWG/EEC), and internationally on such questions as currency revaluations, the global market for gold, and the contribution of competing interest rate policies, particularly of the German Bundesbank and the U.S. Federal Reserve System, to the breakdown of the monetary system. The influence of the Bretton Woods System on the subsequent system of cooperative monetary policy in the EEC, known as the Snake in the Tunnel, is also considered.

The article is a summary of the social and political history of the refugee and asylum policy in the two post-war German states, the Federal Republic and the GDR, from the end of the 1940s to the mid 1970s. This text aims to show the developments in constitutional law, migration policy and political culture that were accompanied and also influenced by migration in the two post-war Germanies. Inspired by the approach of the French historian Grard Noiriels, these developments are illustrated using a particular historical migration case, namely the refugee and asylum policy in post-war Germany. While asylum as an arbitrary act remained under total control of the communist party officials until the decline of the GDR, the West German right of political asylum was permanently subject to the conflicts and new interpretations which accompanied the changes toward a democratic society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the history of the refugee and political asylum policies in Germany between the 1940s and the 1970s. Whereas in East Germany (GDR) the law of asylum remained an arbitrary issue that was subject solely to the considerations of the national communist party, the laws regarding asylum in West Germany (BRD) were subject to ongoing discussions and interpretations up until 1993 when the constitution was changed. The dynamics of change with regard to the asylum policies in West Germany were influenced by the political situation in the postwar West Germany against the background of the Cold War which had led to new interpretations of the meaning of the rule of law, democracy and the weight of constitutional norms for the political culture of West Germany.