Currency Conclave 1948

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Coordinates: 51 ° 23 ′ 34 "  N , 9 ° 32 ′ 44.5"  E

House Poznan

The 1948 Currency Conclave was a secret and private gathering of economists to prepare for the 1948 currency reform . It lasted 49 days and took place in the Posen house on the site of the then air force base and the later Fritz-Erler barracks in Rothwesten .

State after the end of the war

Shortly after the end of the war, the Allied occupying powers saw the desolate economic and monetary condition of the occupation zones . The cause lay on the one hand in the war-related destruction of the production facilities and the inability to provide raw materials, but on the other hand in the dismantling of the production facilities and means of transport as a war replacement service and the removal of goods from the production facilities - in some cases without financial compensation. The money and commodity problems of the pre-war and war times in the territory of the German Empire continued seamlessly into the post-war period and tended to get worse. The range of goods was scarce and everyday necessities were hardly available. On the other hand, there was a high volume of money, which was increased by the issue of Allied military money. Since the beginning of the Second World War , the money supply has increased by a factor of ten. Since a large part of the money was not available for purchases of goods due to the forced management of the manufacturing industry, the price freeze and the rationing of goods through the voucher procedure, but also through the foreign exchange economy, a considerable part of the demand outside of official trade was covered by offering goods on the black market and were traded. The urban population in particular covered their daily needs through barter transactions, especially with rural farms. The term hamster trains from the post-war period describes this phenomenon.

There was no longer any trust in the currency, while at the same time the black market with its excessive prices and bartering withdrew goods from the official market, which were already hard to come by. For example, a kilogram of butter on the official market was priced at 3.21 Reichsmarks , but since demand far exceeded supply, the same amount of butter on the black market was priced at 200–250 Reichsmarks. So money had lost its function as a general medium of exchange. Without a stable currency with purchasing power and without eliminating the excess money , there could be no recovery in production. At the time, this was the unanimous opinion of the financial experts of the four occupying powers, but also of the German experts and institutions. How this should be achieved was, however, controversial.

Before the currency conclave

According to the Potsdam Agreement, a currency reform was the responsibility of the Allies. The United States of America sought currency reform as early as 1946, while the Soviet Union continued to postpone it. At the beginning of March 1948 the Americans therefore decided to carry out a currency reform in the three western zones - knowing full well that this step would mean an economic and political division of Germany. As early as 1946, the Americans had plans from Professors Gerhard Colm , Joseph Dodge and Raymond W. Goldsmith (CDG plan). The Homberg Plan, which was worked out by the special office for money and credit , the successor to the former Reichsbank, was seen as a serious alternative . This special unit was set up in 1947 by the Economic Council of the Bizone (US and British economic zone) and consisted exclusively of economic experts. Ludwig Erhard headed this body until the end of 1948 .

The aim of both plans was to reduce the amount of money in circulation enough to avoid inflation , which would have prevented currency reform from succeeding. However, the approaches were different:

  • The CDG plan provided for a relatively generous supply of new money to the population. However, the bank balances should be canceled, as this would have an inflationary effect.
  • The Homburg Plan saw a risk of inflation in the high initial supply of the population with new money. According to this plan, the low income groups should be given preferential funding and thus the owners of money and property should be given a particularly equal share in the costs of the war. The initial pension should be socially graded and kept scarce, but the bank balances should include a fixed, later disbursement rate and load balancing.

After the decision to implement a unilateral currency reform had been made, this decision had to be kept secret in order to prevent the Soviet Union from pre-empting a reform itself, as the money that had become worthless in the Soviet zone would have remained valid currency in the western zones.

During the currency conclave, the question of whether a currency reform should take place was not raised, only the modalities of the reform were clarified. From 1947 onwards, the printing of the new banknotes began in America without the participation of the German side. In February to April 1948, the new banknotes in 23,000 boxes, the contents of which were disguised as door knobs, were brought from the USA to Bremerhaven in the vaults of the former Reichsbank. At first, coins were not minted because the transport capacity was not available due to their weight.

Currency conclave

Plaque on the Poznan house in memory of the currency conclave

On April 21, 1948, a conclave of eleven financial experts, mostly from the special office for money and credit, was assembled in a former air base in Rothwesten near Kassel to plan the currency reform in the form of implementing regulations and logistics. Those involved were practically interned in the Poznan house there ; the building was fenced in and guarded by American military police within the fencing, which did not allow uncontrolled access to the building. Members of the conclave were:

German side American side
Karl Bernhard Edward A. Tenenbaum
Walter Dudek Emory D. Stoker
Hans Möller L. Cook
Otto Ernst Pfleiderer M. Le Fort
Wilhelmine thirty
Walter Bussmann
Heinrich Hartlieb
Victor Wrede
Wolfgang Budczies
Erwin Hielscher
Rudolf Windlinger

The members of the currency conclave were interned in the Poznan house , the building was fenced in and guarded by the military police, who refused entry to the conclave. Service personnel such as typists, cleaning women, a cook and even a hairdresser were also interned in the building.

In the 49-day conclave, the first 20 days were marked by meetings with the military governments. The main work on the Allied side was done by Eduard Tenenbaum, who was only 27 at the time, who often commuted between Rothwesten and Berlin, the seat of the British and French military governments, and Frankfurt, the seat of the American military government. The German participants in the conclave, however, were completely isolated and their only interlocutor was Col. Emory D. Stoker.

As a result of the currency conclave, the military governments of the three Western occupying powers enacted the three "Laws for the Reorganization of the Monetary System" (June 18 and 26, 1948) and the currency exchange was announced on June 18 over the radio for Sunday, June 20 and also issued. From June 21st, only the new currency, the " Deutsche Mark ", was still valid.

literature

  • Alfons Kössinger: The currency reform 1948 and the conclave of Rothwesten. In: Hessischer Gebirgsbote: Journal of the Hessisch-Waldeckischer Gebirgs- und Heimatverein in the State Association of Hesse of the Association of German Mountain and Hiking Clubs eV 102 (2001), no. 2, pp. 63-66.

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