Lucky Boy in the Lucky Country

The Autobiography of Max Corden, Economist

Warner Max Corden

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783319651668
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

Corden has written a charming and insightful account of his professional and personal life, from his childhood in Breslau, Germany, until his retirement in Melbourne.
The book is divided into two parts. Part I considers Corden's early life, from a young boy growing up in Nazi Germany, to his immigration from England to Australia and what that means for the author's self-identity. Part II addresses Corden's work on the Australian Protection Policy for which he is perhaps best known, before reflecting upon the author's time at Oxford University and the Australian National University, and, finally, moving on to review contributions made at the IMF, Johns Hopkins University, and The World Bank.
This book will be of interest to all aspiring economists, as well as established economists familiar with Corden's work. It is an inspiring and profound record of the intellectual journey made by one of Australia's best known economists.

Part IThe Early Years

© The Author(s) 2017

Warner Max CordenLucky Boy in the Lucky CountryPalgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thoughthttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65166-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Breslau Boy

Warner Max Corden¹

(1)

University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Warner Max Corden

URL: http://www.maxcorden.com

End Abstract

A Journey to England

On 19 April 1938 at the Breslau railway station, a small boy with coal-black curly hair arrived with a lady, presumably his mother. He was ten years old, though he probably looked younger. It was in the afternoon. He was carrying a raincoat over his arm and a small case. His mother, who seemed a bit weepy, told him not to lose the raincoat and case, and to remember two words, namely “Thank you” and Danke Schön, which means “Thank you” in German. He took up his seat in the train to Berlin. Of course he was alone. The trip lasted about five hours. At the Berlin railway station, he got out with his coat and case and met his Aunt Siddy, who brought him to her home by taxi. There he met his cousin, Peter, who was nine years old, and they all had supper together. But then something strange happened. Peter just disappeared!

After supper Aunt Siddy took the little boy into their living room, where she had made up a bed for him on a big couch. He took his pyjamas from his case and got dressed for going to bed. And Aunt Siddy pulled the curtains together and the room was dark, ready for his sleep. Then she left the room.

And then, something quite extraordinary happened, never to be forgotten by the little boy and his cousin, even when they were both over 80 years old. Peter emerged from underneath the couch. All this time he had been hiding there.

That was the end of the first day.

The next day, in the evening, Aunt Siddy took the little boy to the Berlin Railway station and put him on a train that was going to Holland, right across Germany to the West. He would travel with an elderly gentleman, probably Jewish, whom he had never met before. Even now, he does not know who he was. As the train left Berlin station and the little boy looked back, he could see the fireworks in Berlin. That would have been because of celebrations since 20th April was Hitler’s birthday.

At the border between Germany and Holland some very nice Dutch officials came by and looked at passports. What a pleasure to meet some nice officials! Then the train went on to Hook van Holland, the port from where boats went to Harwich, England.

When and where did the little boy sleep? I don’t know. I don’t think he slept on the boat. But he remembers walking on the deck early in the morning. But there was something he does remember. He was always drawing, and he had coloured pencils and paper in his case. What he could see in front of him was the sea, but that is not what he was drawing. He was drawing a scene of mountains, and a winding mountain footpath, and a little house. That was odd, considering what he was seeing. Two English ladies (elderly, perhaps 40) were very surprised and asked him. In a letter to his parents, he claimed later that they had had a conversation, which his parents thought improbable when his only English was “Thank you”. But why was he drawing a mountain scene while looking at water? Years later, he was able to explain it. His mother had taken him on a holiday for just the two of them shortly before he left for England, and that was in the beautiful mountain country near Breslau—das Riesengebirge (Giant Mountains)—close to the Czech border, and it is a holiday he has never forgotten.

The end of this short story is that at Harwich, in England, he took a train to London, still with the unknown gentleman, and at Liverpool Street Station Aunt Elli was waiting for him. She took him by taxi to her small terrace house in Blenheim Terrace, St John’s Wood, where he met his Uncle Henry and, more important, their dog, Jacky. He was then allowed to take Jacky for a walk to the end of the street, where it met the main road (Abbey Road).

This Was Me!

Of course, that little boy with curly black hair was me. My name was Werner Max Cohn. Werner is a common German name, but I don’t know why that was chosen. Max was the name commonly used for my maternal grandfather, though his actual first name was Matthias.

I was born on 13 August 1927 in Breslau, the second largest city in Prussia and the eighth largest in Germany at the time. It was the capital of the province of Silesia. At that time, the population of Breslau was about 600,000, of which roughly 24,000 were Jews. The Jewish community of Breslau was the third largest in Germany, after Berlin and Frankfurt.

From Bohemia to the Weimar Republic

Breslau has a complex history as the capital of the province of Silesia but under varying names as the province has had changing overlords. From 1335, it was a part of the Kingdom of Bohemia until 1526 when it came to be ruled by the Habsburg Monarchy (i.e. the Austro-Hungarian Empire). In 1741, after the Seven Years War, Frederick the Great acquired it for Prussia from Maria Theresa. Subsequently in 1871, it became a part of the new German Empire, in which Prussia was the most important component. Throughout this time, the population of Breslau was (like my family) German speaking.

From 1918, the Kaiser’s Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic, which was destroyed by Hitler’s Nazis in 1933. And that is where my story really begins.

But the story of Breslau does not end there: In 1945, Hitler’s Germany lost the Second World War and thus also lost Silesia to Poland. So now Breslau has the new Polish name of Wroclaw. For further details on all this, see Davies and Moorhouse’s Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City.

The year of my birth, 1927, was the time of the (democratic) Weimar Republic, after the great inflation of 1923 and six years before the Nazi takeover of 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor. Hence, it was a brief period of reasonable stability in Germany.

My Father, My Mother, and My Brother

My father, Rudolf Simon Cohn, had served in the Great War (he was 18 years old in 1914) and afterwards attended the University of Breslau and obtained a law degree. My mother, Kate Sophie Levy, also attended the university and studied English and French. She was 19 when they married in 1920. She did not complete her degree. As the names Cohn and Levy indicate, they were both Jewish.

My only brother, Gerhart Martin Cohn, was born in 1922. The name Gerhart was very popular in Silesia at the time because a local boy, Gerhart Hauptmann, poet and playwright, had won the Nobel Prize for literature. Martin was the name of Rudolf’s oldest brother who died unexpectedly in the same year at the age of 49. He was a railway engineer—and Gerhart also eventually became an engineer.

Louis Cohn from Provinz Posen

My father’s father, Louis Cohn, was born in Provinz Posen, and at the age of 14, in 1857, came to Breslau, a flourishing city at that time, as indeed later. Posen was a province of Prussia, just like Silesia. Many years earlier, it had been a part of the country of Poland, but the latter was then split between Prussia, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. Its population consisted mostly of Poles and also of a considerable number of Jews—the Poles having been the farmers and the Jews the traders. Like many of his fellow Jews, Louis came from a very small town (Samter) and was fairly orthodox in his religious beliefs and practices, though he did go to a Reform synagogue in Breslau. His mother’s maiden name was Hollander, and this gives an indication of the origin of her family. Her grandfather was a rabbi named Scholaum Amsterdam. It is well-known that many Sephardic Jews (refugees from Spain in 1492) went to the Netherlands, and, many years ago, many Jews went from western Germany (the Rhineland) and the Netherlands to Poland, bringing with them the Yiddish language, a medieval version of German.

A Flourishing Business in Breslau

When Louis went to Breslau in 1857, he was accompanied by his brother Moritz. Together, and with the help of funds from their sister, they purchased the business of two ladies with the surname of Trautner. This business was in Posamenten, which is often translated as “trimmings” but might possibly be described as haberdashery. It was located in a side street, running off The Ring (central square) of Breslau. Later they moved to Ring 52, and in 1902 purchased Ring 49 and had built in the latest Art Nouveau style a fine new building. This building was not damaged at the end of the Second World War; hence, it can still be seen.

The whole building was owned by the Cohn family, and the lower two stories were occupied by the family firm Geschwister Trautner Nachfolger. (This means the successors of the Trautner sisters.) That northern side of the Ring came to be known popularly as the Trautner side. Louis, presumably with the support of his brother, Moritz, devoted himself to building up and managing this firm. He died unexpectedly early at the age of 60 in 1903, and thus was hardly able to enjoy his success. But he had laid the foundation for the considerable success of the Cohn family. He had himself become a highly respected citizen of Breslau, and he was an active member of the Jewish community.

Briefly, the subsequent history of Trautner was as follows. Louis had six surviving children, five boys and one girl. (See the Cohn family tree on page 8.) After his first wife died, he married Margarethe Hainauer, mother of the youngest three, namely Willy, Erna, and Rudolf (my father). Martin was the oldest, an engineer, whom I have already mentioned. The second was Hugo, who succeeded his father in the management of Trautner. He managed the firm jointly with his uncle Moritz, brother of Louis. In 1939, Moritz emigrated with his family to South America. Hugo died in 1932, and then my father, Rudolf, the youngest son of Louis, took over. But it seems that in the same year, or possibly even earlier, the firm had got into financial difficulties. This was most likely an effect of the Great Depression which hit the German economy particularly hard. So the firm was sold to a Jewish businessman, but Rudolf stayed as manager, and this is the role in which I remember my father vividly. At this stage, the ownership of the Ring 49 building (as distinct from the Trautner firm) stayed with the family.

Please note that in the family tree, the three oldest sons of Louis, namely Martin, Hugo, and Franz, all died before the first impact of the Nazi takeover in 1937 (dates of death: 1922, 1932, and 1934 respectively).

My Father Becomes Unemployed

In 1937, the Nazi regime commenced the process of Arisierung: only an “Aryan” (non-Jew) could manage other Aryans. Therefore, my father was dismissed as manager of Trautner. Some person named Paul Grzesik took over in 1938. My father, thus, became unemployed. I am sure that was decisive: the family had to emigrate. In retrospect, that decision was the best thing that could have happened. In July 1939, the remaining member of the family, Willy, the fourth son of Louis—about whom I shall be writing much more—sold the Ring 49 building, no doubt under pressure, to the same Grzesik.

Aunt Elli and Aunt Siddy

I have already mentioned my mother’s two sisters, namely Aunt Elli and Aunt Siddy.

Until 1933, Aunt Elli and her husband Heinrich had lived in Berlin. When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Heinrich had the wisdom to decide that Germany was no longer a country he wanted to live in. That was incredibly sensible and turned out very important for the whole family, including Gerhart and me. So, Heinrich and Elli immigrated to England and lived in London. Heinrich changed his name to Henry. Siddy and her family, including son Peter, also lived in Berlin, but emigrated at a very late stage.

Emigration: Gerhart and Werner Emigrate

My brother Gerhart, aged 15, was sent to England in 1937 and attended school there—The Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe—until late 1938. I, Werner, aged 10, was sent in April 1938 to a preparatory (“Prep”) school in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, where I too stayed until late 1938. All this was arranged by Aunt Elli. I think that generous British donors would have paid our school fees.

Both Gerhart and I stayed for a short time with Elli and Henry in London before being taken to our schools. I am sure that Elli would also have persuaded my parents that there was no alternative to all four of us getting out of Germany.

Of course, visas had to be obtained. Britain had special refugee visas for children. Crucial for the whole family eventually were the visas for Australia. I believe we also owe these to Aunt Elli. I am sure these were much easier to obtain from London than from a provincial German city. At an international conference at Evian in Switzerland, various countries had agreed to take a limited number of German (and Austrian) Jewish refugees. Australia had agreed to a quota of 5000 for the first year. I wonder how we four managed to get into this lucky group when there must have been about 600,000 Jews from Germany and Austria wanting desperately to get out of a country that for many years they thought they belonged to. One thing I do know: we owe the quota to some sympathetic Australian politicians. And we also owe a great deal to the British, who provided special visas for child refugees.

Kristallnacht: Father Taken to Buchenwald

Kristallnacht happened on 9 November 1938. (Roughly translated, this means “Night of Broken Glass”.) This was a historic night of infamy. For a full explanation and description see chapter 4 of Ascher, A Community Under Siege. It was an explosion of Nazi hate against Jews all over Germany, including Breslau. Nationally, the Nazis arrested about 30,000 males, and my father was one of them. They were sent to concentration camps—Dachau, Buchenwald, or Sachsenhausen. My father was sent to Buchenwald. About 1400 synagogues were set on fire in Germany, including Breslau’s New Synagogue. Jewish-owned shops had their windows broken. There was massive looting. Jewish assets were seized. One victim of Buchenwald has reported “the sadism of the guards, their delight in humiliating the prisoners” (Ascher, p. 185).

My father was simply picked up in the street, and he disappeared. My mother had to go to the Gestapo many times to find out where he was. All this was happening while Gerhart and I were in school in England and knew nothing about it. Reflecting on this, it seems to me that these events would have been reported in British newspapers, and probably our school headmasters ensured that we did not know about them.

The policy of the Nazis at that time was that they wanted Jews to emigrate as fast as possible to make Germany Judenrein (completely free of Jews). Many prisoners in the concentration camps did die, but killing was not yet systematic. Thus, they were willing to release a prisoner if there was proof that he and his family had visas to go abroad. It was fortunate that the process of getting a visa to go to Australia had been initiated by my parents before Kristallnacht, of course with the crucial help of Aunt Elli. The effort was motivated not only by the fact that my father had lost his job in 1937 but also by the gradual realisation of the deteriorating situation of Jews in Germany.

Buchenwald was the concentration camp very close to Weimar. My father was there for 16 days. He never described his experience to me or Gerhart, and we did not ask. He was let out from Buchenwald once my mother was able to show the Gestapo that she had a visa for him and herself to go to Australia.

My Father Comes Back from Buchenwald

What happened next? Only recently, in December 2016, I found out from a memoir that my mother had written what happened when my father returned to Breslau from Buchenwald. Apparently, he was “in a terrible state” and was warned by the Gestapo that they will want him back again unless he went abroad straight away. So, immediately he flew to England without my mother, staying, I assume, with Henry and Elli. But my mother had yet to get a passport and could not leave with him. After a few weeks, she got her passport and followed him to England, whether flying or by train and ship, I do not know. So, now, we two boys and our parents were in England.

On 16 December 1938, we were all in Southampton, off to Australia on a Rotterdamsche...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. The Early Years
• Part II. Being an Academic Economist
• Back Matter