Wilhelm Ropke

German economist, the main spiritual father of the German social market economy, theorising and collaborating to organise the post-World War II economic re-awakening of the then destroyed German economy. Röpke and co.'s economic influence is widely considered largely responsible for promoting Germany's post-World War II Economic "Miracle", so called. Röpke was also an historian.

Serving in the Germany army during World War I, he was shocked by the sheer brutality of war, and it had a profound effect on his life. A drive to understand the causes and crisis of World War I led Röpke to pursue the study of economics and sociology. He studied economics at the University of Marburg, receiving the Dr.rer.pol in 1921 and the Habilitation in 1922. The following year he married Eva Finke, and they raised three children. His first academic position was at Jena in 1924. Two years later, at the Vienna Convention of the German Association for Sociology, he met Ludwig von Mises. Röpke moved to Graz in 1928, and became a full professor at his alma mater in Marburg in 1929.

His uncompromising opposition to fascism earned him the honor of being one of the first professors to be forced out of his job. Röpke left Marburg for Frankfurt, and in early 1933, soon after giving a public address highly critical of the Nazis, he and his family left his homeland. Röpke then accepted an offer to become professor of economics at the University of Istanbul.

Röpke taught at Istanbul from 1933 to 1937, when he accepted a position at the Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. There he joined Ludwig von Mises, who had been a part of the Institute's faculty since 1934. Although Mises left Geneva for the United States in 1940 following the beginning of World War II, Röpke chose to stay, and remained at the Institute until his death. To restore the broadest possible understanding of freedom, Röpke, along with Mises and F.A.