DEGRIGES

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The DEGRIGES (German-Greek goods equalization company mbH) was a trading company that held a monopoly on Greece's foreign trade from October 1942 during the occupation in World War II . This affected the zones of occupation of the three Axis powers , Italy, Bulgaria and Germany.

history

prehistory

During the German occupation, the Bank of Greece was initially used to withdraw property and assets from the country, as well as to collect the occupation costs. These were the relatively highest in one of the areas occupied by the German Reich .

The first measure in the movement of goods was to change the exchange rate from 1:50 to 1:60 in clearing transactions and to include it in the export of Greek goods to Germany. With each export, the bank was obliged to transfer the value of the goods in favor of the importer to an escrow account in Berlin and at the same time to pay the producer of the goods. The bank was thus forced to grant German traders temporary credit. Since both prices were fixed at the pre-war level and payment was not made in the event of late delivery (which was often the case during the war), the importers made an extreme profit at the expense of the producers. After goods were confiscated by the occupation authorities, local producers switched from an export-oriented economy to a subsistence economy , so that hardly any material assets could be withdrawn. At the same time, the occupying powers withdrew large quantities of raw materials such as iron ore , copper or resins from Greece, which resulted in the so-called Great Famine . Furthermore, for the purpose of deducting material assets, the banknotes in circulation were extremely increased, so that the currency was devalued by hyperinflation .

history

After no more significant withdrawal of goods could take place, the German-Greek goods equalization company mbH (DEGRIGES) was founded on October 1, 1942, based in Berlin. The initiative went back to the Reich Ministry of Economics, with the participation of the Reich Groups for Trade and Industry and the Economic Group for Wholesale and Export Trade. The formally private enterprise had a state monopoly on foreign trade. It was a foundation of the German private sector, but was equipped with the state foreign trade monopoly. The Greek collaboration government sent Konstantinos Logothetopoulos as a negotiating partner .

Otto Braun, who had previously worked for the Transdanubia import and export company, was appointed director. There was a branch in Berlin , which was headed by Fred Goecker, Vice-President of the German Chamber of Commerce in Greece, and an office in Thessaloniki. Correspondents were deployed in Patras and Volos . On October 15, 1942, the former mayor of Vienna and then the shop steward of the IG paint company Hermann Neubacher was appointed "Special Representative of the Reich for Economic and Financial Issues in Greece" , to whom the company was directly subordinate. DEGRIGES began its activities on November 28, 1942, and a few days later in December 1942 the Bank of Greece was forced by the German Reich to give up its foreign currency reserves in the form of a forced loan , the amount of which at the end of the war was 476 million Reichsmarks . On December 8, 1944, DEGRIGES was dissolved.

Task and effect

In accordance with the statutes, surcharges were levied on all Greek export goods, 4/7 of these were used to make Greek goods cheaper for German importers and 3/7 of these were used to benefit the established occupation costs.

The price of goods exported from Greece to Germany was drastically reduced and the price of German goods to Greece increased sharply. This brought extreme advantages to the German economy both in terms of imports and exports to Greece, which were known as “smuggling profits”. Mathematically, it was possible to convert 71 million Reichsmark debts in 1942, which were reached due to the confiscation of all of the goods produced in Greece, despite deduction of occupation costs, to 20 million Reichsmark debts for Greece.

The focus shifted increasingly to the supply of raw materials, which became more and more important as the war progressed. Production machines had also already been brought to Germany so that finished goods were no longer produced.

Between May 1941 and November 1944, around 28,000 tons of pure chromium were transported from Greece, which covered a quarter of the total demand of the German war economy in the Second World War .

The success of the Degriges led to the proposal to found similar companies in other countries, including the allied Croatia . In the spring of 1944 the German-Albanian goods equalization office was founded. On the other hand, it says in contemporary German sources: “The successes of the Degriges are probably not unsatisfactory. But they are bought at the price of monopolizing foreign trade ”. Rainer Eckert wrote in 1992: "The German-Greek goods equalization company represented one of the most highly developed forms of state-regulated foreign trade relations to date".

literature

  • Martin Seckendorf : A unique raid. The Wehrmacht in Greece 1941 - 1944. In: Wehrmacht Model? Wehrmacht crimes, right-wing extremism and the Bundeswehr. Ed. Christian Gerlach , Reinhard Kühnl and Johannes Klotz. Papyrossa, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3894381620 , pp. 96-124
  • German-Greek business news: Communications from the German Chamber of Commerce in Greece = ΓΕΡΜΑΝΟ-ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΙΚΑ ΝΕΑ: ΑΝΑΚΟΙΝΩΣΕΙΣ ΤΟΥ ΓΕΡΜΑΝΙΚΟΥ ΕΜΠΟΡΙΚΟΥ ΕΠΙΜΕΛΗΤΗΡΙΟΥ ΕΝ ΕΛΛΑΔΙ . Athens 1.1943 - 2.1944.

swell

  1. ↑ p. 366
  2. ↑ Klara van Eyll, Ulrike Duda, Society for Company History: German Economic Archives: Stocks of Companies, p. 220, 1991
  3. ↑ Heinz A. Richter, Komnēnos Pyromaglou: Greece between revolution and counterrevolution (1936-1946), p. 198
  4. ↑ Susanne Heim: History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism, p. 219, partly available at: [1]
  5. ^ Statement of the German Federal Government of February 11, 2010 (PDF; 113 kB)
  6. ↑ Ulrike Duda: Inventories of companies, entrepreneurs, chambers and associations, p. 220 1992.
  7. ^ Martin Seckendorf: On the economic policy of the German occupiers in Greece 1941–1944. Exploitation that resulted in disaster. ( Memento of the original from November 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Revised version of a speech from December 3, 2005 at a symposium of the Athens University of Economics on the compensation of Greek victims of German occupation policy on the website of the Berlin Society for Fascism and World War Research eV ( Memento of the original from June 25, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / server1.info @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / server1.info
  8. ↑ Martin Seckendorf: as before, online see previous note - see also the bibliography here
  9. ↑ Holm Sundhaussen: Economic History of Croatia in the National Socialist Greater Region, p. 221.
  10. ↑ Wolfgang Schumann: Griff nach Südeuropa, p. 61. 1973.
  11. ↑ Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, Volume 58, Issue 1, p. 42. University of Kiel. Institute for the World Economy - 1943
  12. ^ Rainer Eckert: From "Fall Marita" to "Economic Special Action" The German occupation policy in Greece from April 6, 1941 to the turn of the war in February / March 1943 p. 133, 1992.
  13. ↑ The source can be read online, the title or author can be entered in a search engine