The article outlines key academic milestones of the great economist Hans Wolfgang Singer, who was born in Elberfeld and a student of Joseph A. Schumpeter. Singer emigrated from Germany in 1933 and made a global career as a top official at the United Nations in New York and later as a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex in Brighton. Singer became best known for his contributions to development economics, which even earned him the reputation of being one of its central precursors. This essay will focus primarily on Singer’s fundamental scientific positions on economic theory and policy, which were almost Keynesian in nature, and draw parallels between his thinking and the attempt to establish the Beveridge system during the reconstruction of post-war Germany. Singer’s findings and convictions can also be found in the Keynesian economic policy of the great economic expansion phase, as well as in the attempt to introduce the Beveridge system.