The roots of German neoliberalism date back to the Freiburg School, built around Walter Eucken, Franz Böhm, and Leonhard Miksch in the 1920s and 1930s, and Alexander Rüstow and Wilhelm Röpke, two German economists in close personal contact with Eucken. At the level of economic theory, the central aim of these early ordoliberal scholars was to attack the “ruins of the German Historical School,” which manifested in the idea of the foundation of the “Theoretical Club of Ricardians.” Rüstow suggested also inviting Austrian economists such as Hayek, Haberler, Machlup, and Mises into this club.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 621