[2] With Alfred Müller-Armack and Alexander Rüstow (sociological neoliberalism) and Walter Eucken and Franz Böhm (ordoliberalism) he elucidated the ideas, which then were introduced formally by Germany's post-World War II Minister for Economics Ludwig Erhard, operating under Konrad Adenauer's Chancellorship.

[5] Röpke's opposition to the German National Socialist regime led him (with his family) in 1933 to emigrate to Istanbul, Turkey, where he taught until 1937, before accepting a position at the Geneva Graduate Institute,[6] where he lived until his death, in 1966.

[8] Despite this, the post-World War II economic liberation enabling Germany to once again lead Europe, which Röpke and his allies (Walter Eucken, Franz Böhm, Alfred Müller-Armack and Alexander Rüstow) were the intellectual muscle behind, occurred by implementing policy divergent to that advocated by Ludwig von Mises.

[9] Unlike many mainstream Austrian School economists, Röpke and the ordoliberals conceded that the market economy can be more disruptive and inhumane unless intervention is permitted a role to play.

[10] In spite of this, however, Röpke remained a political decentralist and rejected Keynesian economics, deriding it as "a typically intellectual construction that forgets the social reality behind the integral calculus".

[8][11][12] For Röpke, rights and moral habits (Sitte) were key elements which the Central Bank and State (opposed to the Market-Economy) needed to subtly help organise.

[13] Taking a position opposed to many Western governments, Röpke also supported the 1965 unilateral declaration of independence of Rhodesia, the racially-segregated southern African territory, from the British Empire.

Production consequently collapsed and prominent businessmen once again became unwilling to accept the (relatively) worthless currency, triggering widespread shortages and the mainstreaming of a grey-market barter economy.