War Loan

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A Kriegsanleihe (or war credit ) is a bond , from a state to finance a war emitted is. It is for this purpose that it differs from the pure government bond .

Ring for the draftsman of the Austrian War Loan; Inscription "Pro Patria 1914" ( lat. "For the fatherland ")
8. Austrian War Loan, 1918

history

3. Austrian War Loan 1915

War bonds have been around since the Middle Ages , albeit under a different name .

Liberty Bond poster in the USA by Winsor McCay , First World War

In Switzerland these were published in 1848. In 1936 Switzerland issued a defense loan with the aim of being as well armed as possible in an expected war.

First World War

The First World War was mainly financed by Germany , Austria-Hungary and Russia through war bonds. While the US provided its funds through the budget ( US $ 13 billion  ) and lent the population through four Liberty Bonds (US $ 17 billion), England raised taxes but also issued bonds issued by the Parliamentary War Savings Committee applied. Both England and France also received loans from the USA to finance the war.

Advertisement for the purchase of war bonds in the German Reich, 1917
Newspaper advertisement from October 1918 for the last German war loan - one month before the end of the war

A total of nine war bonds were issued in Germany between 1914 and 1918, bringing in 98 billion  marks and covering around 60% of German war costs . A share of 3 billion marks went to the German insurance industry .

In German history, the decision of the SPD in 1914 that made it possible to finance the First World War is generally referred to as the war loan . The decision was highly controversial because the party had still demonstrated against the war in July 1914, but the Reichstag faction was now setting the opposite course. As a result of this so-called Burgfriedenspolitik , the German labor movement was ultimately split .

After the beginning of the First World War, Walter Ulbricht (1893–1973) wrote and published numerous leaflets calling for the end of the First World War as a member of the left wing of the SPD under the leadership of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg . At a functionaries meeting of the SPD "Groß-Leipzig" in December 1914, Ulbricht demanded that the SPD members of the Reichstag should vote against further war credits in the future. He was personally attacked for his attitude and the application was rejected.

German war bonds and treasury notes in World War I (in millions of marks)
War Loan Nominal amount of the subscription Treasury bills outstanding balance
I. September 1914 4,460 2,632 +1,832
II. March 1915 9,060 7.209 +1,851
III. September 1915 12.101 9,691 +2,410
IV. March 1916 10,712 10,388 +324
V. September 1916 10,652 12,766 −2,114
VI. March 1917 13,122 14,855 −1,733
VII. September 1917 12,626 27.204 −14,578
VIII. March 1918 15.001 38,971 −23,970
IX. September 1918 10,443 49,414 −38,971

The long-term bonds of the German Reich could not be canceled until October 1, 1924. Despite the First World War that Germany had lost, the state was able to repay the bonds without difficulty due to the hyperinflationary depreciation of the mark from 1914 to 1923 . The subscribers to the war bonds received practically no value back, and the money they had lent to the state was lost.

Second World War

During the National Socialist era , the government refrained from issuing national war bonds that would have sparked bad memories among the population. Rather, short-term savings balances were loaned without the knowledge and consent of the savers with the help of the credit institutions , which became the state's credit collection points and invested the money with it on a long-term basis. This capital cycle was based on the fact that "the income recipients carry the legally unusable amounts of income to the bank and the credit institutions pass this money on to the finance minister in exchange for treasury bills." The "silent" conversion of savings and pension reserves into long-term debt securities was supplemented by the " Iron saving ”and flanked by wage and price controls (see also silent war financing ).

In 1945 the state was indebted to the German banks with RM 110 billion  ; the savings banks accounted for RM 54 billion and the insurance companies RM 25 billion.

German war financing was also supported by horrific occupation costs that the occupied countries had to pay. In the end, Czech financial institutions had invested more than 70% of their deposits in German war bonds.

In contrast to Germany, Great Britain issued long-term war bonds. At the end of 1941 £ 4.6 billion  (the equivalent of RM 61 billion) had been drawn, of which £ 1.7 billion had been raised by small savers. Taxes and duties rose there by 336% in World War II .

War bonds were also sold in the United States. The United States Office of War Information toured the United States from 1943 and collected $ 130 million for war bonds with four paintings by Norman Rockwell , which he created after a congressional speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on The Four Freedoms . These only covered a fraction of the expenses. The lending and leasing law alone obliged the USA to provide military aid to the Allies before the war began.

Distribution of war bonds

War bonds or war credits are usually accompanied by extensive propaganda in order to win the home front directly in support of the war. In order to find as many investors as possible , they usually appeal to their patriotism with the argument that the sale of the bond was decisive for the war. No product was advertised like the subscription of war bonds. For this purpose, graphic designers in all countries developed the essential elements of modern advertising psychology. This included the use of pictures of children, their effectiveness was already known.

Investors also speculate on the interest that the state wants to finance through reparation payments in the event of a victory . If a war is lost - but also if a war is won - there is a risk that the loan will not be repaid. The invested capital is lost as a result. As a result, every war is also an example of such losses but also gains.

In addition to advertising for war bonds, administrative measures are often taken to promote the sale of war bonds:

On August 1st, 1914, at the beginning of the First World War , the stock exchanges in Germany and many other countries were closed. While shares were traded again in the following years, trading in Reich bonds was only resumed on September 1, 1919. Investors could not buy bonds on the secondary market, only on the primary market . No falling prices for government bonds could be published. From the spring of 1917, new issues of shares and bonds were made dependent on the approval of the Reichsbank . This further reduced the investment opportunities in investments other than war bonds.

literature

Web links

Commons : War bonds  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: War Loan  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: war credit  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. a b Arno Surminski: The insurance industry in the First World War . In: Journal of Insurance . No. 15-16 , 2014, pp. 455 .
  2. Ottokar Luban : The struggle of the Berlin SPD base in the first year of the war against the war credit approval . In: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Book II / 2014, pp. 53–65. on the protests in July 1914: Jörn Wegner: The anti-war protests of the German workers on the eve of the world war and their disarmament by the SPD leadership . ibid, pp. 39-52.
  3. ^ Mario Frank: Walter Ulbricht . Siedler, Berlin 2001, p. 54 f.
  4. ^ Taken from: Konrad Roesler: The financial policy of the German Empire in the First World War . Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1967, p. 79 (Table 5).
  5. Mass media and fundraising campaigns: from the 17th century to the present . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-20209-5 , p. 85 ( books.google.de ).
  6. The financial source of the war. In: ard.de . February 19, 2014, accessed July 22, 2017 .
  7. ^ Quote from Otto Donner , Göring's financial policy spokesman in 1944, based on Götz Aly : Hitler's People's State. Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 3-10-000420-5 , p. 329.
  8. Götz Aly : Hitler's People's State. P. 330.
  9. Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State. P. 329.
  10. Götz Aly: Hitler's People's State. P. 321.
  11. Hartmut Kiehling: The loss of function of the German financial markets in World War I and inflation 1914 to 1923 . P. 18–20 kiehling.com ( Memento from August 5, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF)