Russian change

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Under a Russian exchange was understood in the Weimar Republic, mainly during the period from 1925er economic agreement until the Great Depression such trade bills that of German exporters in Soviet trusts the Soviet State Bank were drawn and because of their long term of 2-4 years, special procedures for " Liquidization ”brought with them.

The common practice was to get a guarantee from the Deutsche Revisions- und Treuhand-Aktiengesellschaft and, after the requested and approved credit, submit the Russian acceptance to the Industriefinanzierungs-Aktiengesellschaft Ost (Ifago), which deposited it with the Reichshauptbank as security that the The manufacturer was allowed to write out a "three-month Reichsmark liquidation change" on them . He now had to renew it seven or fifteen times every quarter. The price was the interest at the Reichsbank rate plus account and Ifagogue fee. The advantage was that the process was also accessible to smaller companies; whoever wanted it cheaper could also submit the bills of exchange to the gold discount bank on more favorable terms.

All of the costs were reflected in the deals in excess prices for the Soviets, who initially accepted them in order to gain access to the international credit market. Following the German model, the Swiss machine industry and the French engine industry soon financed their Russian business, sometimes within the German guarantee framework. Dutch and British banks began to show interest after the Russian commercial bills had become an internationally applicable financial paper. But the discount of 30 percent with which they were traded (otherwise 10 percent for foreign trade bills) revealed the disadvantage for the Soviet economy. The discount also expressed skepticism towards the new state, about whose government Reichsbank President Schacht said it was "financially on the last hole". It was later claimed that the sentence: "Russian bills are cash" was already a household phrase in the twenties, but during this time even Willi Munzenberg, head of the Comintern West Propaganda, had to be told by an employee of the Berlin bank Von Heydt before he dared the rather unusual procedure for a communist of speculating with Russian bills in favor of his company.

literature

  • Manfred Pohl : Business and Politics. German-Russian / Soviet economic relations 1850-1988. v. Hase & Koehler Verlag, Mainz 1988, pp. 81-110

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz Jung : The way down. Notes from a great time , (Neuwied 1961), reprint in Uwe Nettelbeck (ed.): Die Republik , Salzhausen 1979, pp. 344–348.
  2. ↑ Gerald D. Feldman: The Deutsche Bank from the First World War to the Great Depression. 1914-1933. In: Lothar Gall et al: Die Deutsche Bank 1870-1995 , Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1995, p. 250.
  3. ↑ “Totally out of joint”. Deutsche Bank supervisory board chairman Christian on the state and prospects of the Soviet economy , Der Spiegel No. 21/1990, p. 125 [1] .
  4. ^ Babette Gross: Willi Munzenberg. A political biography , Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1967, p. 179.