In addition to the barefaced looting of the conquered countries by the Nazis, which has already been described in this journal, a subtler process is going on under the supervision of the former German Minister of Finance and head of the Reichsbank, Dr. Schacht. The now under the Nazi heel are being made to inflate their currencies in order to provide Germany with money to buy whatever goods she wants, at no expense to herself. From the Nazi point of view, this system has much to recommend it, since the average person in the countries being so defrauded does not see how he is being swindled, and receives payment for his goods in his own currency. What he does not know is that that currency is steadily being made almost worthless; he will learn this only when, at a later stage, the inevitable rise in prices causes a reduction in the standard of living, and when stocks have become depleted. As things are at present, the conquered countries are exporting goods to Germany without receiving anything in payment for these exports except notes which will shortly not be worth the paper they are printed on. In France the process has been accelerated. French banks are being forced to accept the German paper mark at the rate of twenty francs to one Reichsmark. At best, the value of the Reichsmark note is no more than eight francs and it should not be forgotten that Germany is limited in the issue of these notes only by the capacity of the presses on which she prints them. In the meantime, with franes which have been bought at this false value, the Germans in France are buying up goods of every kind and quality; they are taking the products of France's industrial system at a price which is next to nothing, though on paper the price looks fair enough. It is, of course, only the average Frenchman who has been deceived by this manceuvre; already many who have a better comprehension of economics than the man in the street, are converting what money they have into durable goods, which will retain their value even after the Nazis have wrecked the French currency system. The Vichy government is helpless to prevent this exploitation of the French people, which is apparently part of a long prepared plan to make Berlin the financial centre of Europe. By making worthless the currencies of the various states which Hitler hopes eventually to take under his ægis, the Nazis will be able to circulate a currency of their own—a system of exchange which will be operative throughout the continent under their control, but purely artificial and at the mercy of the governor of the Reichsbank.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.