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Eye of the Storm
Chapter section from:

Airbridge to Berlin --- The Berlin Crisis of 1948, its Origins and Aftermath
By D.M. Giangreco and Robert E. Griffin
© 1988
(Used with permission)


...The forthcoming currency reform was not a surprise to the German population, but to hinder speculation and black marketing, the exact date of implementation was a secret. Rumors of the impending currency reform and preparations by authorities to set up facilities for the exchange of old currency for new appeared in newspapers throughout May and June 1948...

German authorities were also charged with the preparation of laws within a six month period for the equalization of financial burdens (Lastenausgleichgesetz). Tax reforms were to become effective as speedily as possible following the financial reform.

...As seen from the above, the currency reform was not a simple revaluation, but a comprehensive and complicated set of changes to wages, prices, public and private debt, exchange rates, banking reform, and burden sharing covered by several implementing laws whose full effect took months and years to fully realize. However, the currency reform in the Western zones did not take long to be declared a success. Only a month later, OMGUS stated:
"No event since the capitulation of the German armies has had such an impact upon every sector of German life as did the currency reform in the Western Zones, which became effective on 2O June 1948. Overnight the financial and commercial life of tens of millions of persons was transformed. The foundation, upon which normal ways of life could be reestablished, had been erected.

By the end of July 1948, it was evident that the first phase of currency reform had been successful. Basically the results have been those foretold by proponents of currency reform. The new money has brought out of hiding a relatively large and well assorted supply of goods. Wages and salaries have again acquired genuine purchasing power. Job efficiency has risen and there are indications of increased output in almost all fields of manufacturing."


http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistle...N_A/PAGE_3.HTM