From: mpcgram-owner@papermoneyworld.net on behalf of MPCgram [mpcgram@yahoo.com] Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 11:35 PM To: mpcgram@papermoneyworld.net Subject: MPCGram 1489 ------------------------ / MPC Gram News Letter / ----------------------- =========================================== MPC GRAM =========================================== Vol 7, no 1489 Sunday August 6, 2006 Book Review by Ron Waddell Book: Military Government Journal (Normandy to Berlin) By Major General John J Maginnis Editor: Robert A Hart 1971 The University of Massachusetts Press Editors Preface: (excerpt) The Civil Affairs/Military Government function of the United States Army had its formal beginning with the invasion of Normandy in 1944. This journal, opening with that event and closing in the ruined city of Berlin, is a day-to-day record of CA/MG field operations. "To our knowledge it is a unique record of such activity," Gen. Hal C Pattison, chief of military history, Department of the Army, has stated. Nor had I, prior to assuming editorship of the manuscript, encountered any work that provided details of what is was like to rule civilians in recently occupied or conquered nations. I bought this book (used book store) because of the preface written by the editor.  It is one of the more interesting "boring" books I've read, if that makes sense.  It was interesting to see what was happening in these countries after hostilities had moved out of the area, but boring when you consider a day to day account of anything.  I assumed, erroneously, that there had to be many instances where money was an issue and AMC, French francs, German marks and Belgium francs would be discussed.  At least this thought kept me reading.  Wages, commodities, black market, pricing, rationing  were mentioned frequently and it seems money was important, but the specific currency must not have been an issue. McGinnis (the author) was a major in June 1944 and a full colonel when he left Berlin in March 1945. Here are excerpts that had reference to money. June 27, 1944 Carentan, France : Capt. Walker and Col. Harris, finance officer, called on banks to ascertain status of coins. July 5, 1944  Carentan: Capt. Berkeley went to finance officer, 83rd Division, for pay of both U.S. and British personnel. July 19, 1944 Carentan: Capt. Walker called on banks and learned that balances have increased - Societe Generale, 6,300,000 francs; and Credit Lyonnais, 1,600,000 francs. July 24, 1944 Carentan: Civilians were in to pay for supplies - almost half a million francs was taken in. Amounts and prices for supplies were always approved by First Army before any sale could be made, and terms were always cash on delivery of the item being purchased. Sept. 7, 1944 Charleville, France: Banking situation well in hand. All banks and branches have sufficient cash for 30 days. Wage scales normal. No signs of inflation. Oct. 26, 1944 Mons, Belgium: A bright spot showed up in the area of finance. M. Gut, the Belgian finance minister, called in all Belgian money and was issuing new currency in its place. Probably this could have been done only in a small country so soon after its liberation. It made worthless the vast amounts of money that the Germans had taken out of Belgium on their departure, and, since old money could only be exchanged for new at designated banks, it brought to light the war profiteers and those who had been working with the enemy. July 13, 1945 Berlin: Although the Russians were supposed to have cleared out of Schoneberg, Colonel Terakanoff and his staff had not. Captain Bond got a call from the manager of the stadtbank that Russians were breaking into his building. He rushed down to the Kaiser Wilhelm Platz and, sure enough, a detachment of Russians were trying to break open the vault, under the watchful eye of my friend Lt. Col. Terakanoff. Captain Bond ordered him to stop.  The colonel replied that there was money inside that belonged to the Russians and he was not leaving Schoneberg without taking it with him. Further discussion revealed that Col. Terakanoff had placed money in a safe deposit vault and had misplaced the key. He therefore was taking more direct means with an assortment of crowbars, sledge hammers, and blowtorches.  A tank detachment was close by, and in short order four tanks were on their way to the Kaiser Wilhelm Platz. Col. Terakanoff was standing on the steps of the bank, smoking one of those long Russian cigarettes, when the tanks arrived ready for action. He shrugged his shoulders, gathered his men and equipment together, and left for the Soviet sector. An investigation showed that there was over half a million Reich marks in the vault and that it really belonged to the Russians.  That afternoon Col. Terakanoff came to my office. He seemed quite shaken and wanted to know when he could retrieve his money. I told him that we would have to have an investigation and, just as in the Russian army, it would undoubtedly take a week or so to get a decision. He was quite upset and I gathered that he foresaw unpleasant questions from his superiors. My interpreter told me later that Terakanoff and his officers had made a big night of it, go up late in fuzzy condition, and had not been able to find the key to the bank vault. July 15, 1945 Berlin: After General Parks reviewed the stadtbank affair of last Thursday, he ordered that the money be turned over to the Russians.  It did not take Col. Terakanoff long to get to the bank and withdraw his 511,000 marks. July 26, 1945 Berlin: With different nations supplying commodities for Berlin consumption, it had been necessary to set up a basis of relative values. There was a table of equivalents, or exchange ratios. For example, a liter of milk equaled so much coal, mutton, or other commodity. Even in the same commodity there were relative values, such as in coal, where Ruhr, Muckenburg, and Silesian coals all had different values. It was in reality a barter table, and it surprised me that it was operating so satisfactorily. August 13, 1945 Berlin: The food rationing system was not working well at all. It was not being enforced and the average civilian who had no money to buy on the black market was living on 600 to 800 calories a day. The rationing schedule had been established but food was not available to maintain it. Even so, we issued 857,838 ration cards in our sector, based on the following schedule; heavy workers, 2,482 calories; manual workers, 1,993 calories; employees, 1,601 calories; children 1,385 calories; and all others, 1,248 calories. August 24, 1945 Berlin: The black market might be anywhere - on a corner, in a park, in some ruins, in a home, or between two persons meeting on the street. The fundamental motivation being hunger, food was the commodity in greatest demand, with the probable exception of cigarettes. Money in large amounts was fed into the black market by military personnel, especially by Russian soldiers. There were untold millions of military marks in circulation in Berlin - the U.S. had printed a total of some six billion marks for ourselves, the British, and the French; and God only knew how much the Russians had printed on plates that we had turned over to them. This money was used to purchase food at many, many times its value under the rationing system, an obvious disadvantage for people who lacked money. Also there was an extensive amount of bartering or swapping. It was a common sight to see notes fastened to walls, trees, or fences, offering something for something else (a pair of shoes for serviceable bicycle tires, for example). It was believed that organized bartering might assist in reducing some of the black market activity, so an order was published today for the oberbugermeister to proceed with the establishment of barter markets throughout Berlin. Nov. 5, 1945 Berlin: We were living in a cigarette economy. Black marketers sold them at a reported fifteen hundred marks per carton; U.S. personnel sold them to black marketers; and everyone used them for trading. The mark supposedly had a value of about ten cents, but actually it had almost no purchasing power. The use of cigarettes for money was not always a black market operation, for almost everyone used them at one time or another. For example, I wanted some wooden boxes in which to store some of my things and had a German carpenter make them for me. He asked me to pay him with cigarettes; he made it quite clear that he did not want German marks. Almost all tipping was done in the form of cigarettes. One of the best jobs in Berlin was to be a janitor in one of the army buildings because each night one could collect all the stubs and use them to make "new" cigarettes. I often wondered at what point a cigarette was actually smoked. Since it was a fairly fragile item, it was evident that, sooner or later, it was going to have to stop being money and start being a cigarette if its value was not to be lost completely. ***************************************************** Championship Question Corner Question: What was the purpose of supplemental currencies? Give at least two examples. Question 145, difficulty 3. Yesterday's Question: For what country did Edmund Dulac design notes during World War II. Bonus point--where did he live when he did the work (what country)? Difficulty 3. [What question (number) are we on?] Comments from the field: Bill Myers wrote: Question 144: Corsica & Free France notes (Caisse Centrale de la France Libre & Caisse Centrale de la France d'Outre-Mer). After WWII he designed the English/Marianne issues for France. He did this work from London, England. Yesterday's answer to the question about the vignette on the Free French local issues for New Caledonia was given by bill Myers as "a mine." However, I am not sure that is entirely correct. Pick describes the vignette as showing "ship near crane at left, factory at right". My belief is the vignette shows a port scene for the loading of nickel concentrate (New Caledonia has extensive lateritic nickel ore reserves which have for some time been mined for export and I assume these are concentrated before export for smelting and/or refining). The scene on the left, I suspect, shows loading on to a ship while the scene on the right, I believe, most likely shows the stockpile of nickel ore concentrate at the port waiting to be loaded, although it could be the mill treating ore to producing concentrate (particularly if it was located near the port). Gramme A [Gram, I think that you are spot on.--Ed.] ========================================== Editorial ========================================== The ski celebration note (ebay 110017871739) seems to be doing very well. I have never been involved in a Dutch auction before. At first the rules seemd at least confusing, possibly crazy. Now that I have experienced it some, I understand it much better and even kind of like it. It is sort of like an auction within an auction. Remember Monday is the big birthday and also the end of the auction. Remember too that the money goes to the scholarship fund. I had not thought of it before, but we need to have a plan for distrubuting the notes by serial number. As I see it, the high bidder should get first choice (for all that s/he buys) then move down the line. ========================================= Mail Call =========================================== Dear Gram, A friend thought you might be interesting in the following www.money.org Web page: http://www.money.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NumismaticEvents/SummerSeminar/default.htm Dan Dear Dan, You are correct. Thanks for sharing it. The main text is reproduced below. This is something of an amazing turn of events. This may not be the perfect or even ideal solution (though I do not know what is), it is nonetheless impressive that a definate action has been taken. Thank you Dan, thank you ANA. *Due to the timing of the Memphis Paper Money Show, Session I classes will begin on Monday. An additional hour of class time will be added each day, Monday through Thursday. There will be activities on Sunday (including the Library Book Sale) and participants will have the option of arriving on either Saturday or Sunday. Join us June 24 through July 6, 2007 for the ANA’s 39th Annual Summer Seminar, the highlight of the numismatic year, held on the Colorado College campus in beautiful Colorado Springs. ========================================== Calendar =========================================== 2006 The London Paper Money Fair has moved to: Victory Services Club, 63 Seymour Street, off Edgware Road, Marble Arch London and the dates are: Nov 26. see: www.britishnotes.co.uk or www.londonpapermoneyfair.co.uk 16-20 August ANA convention, Denver (mini Fest at IBNS meeting?) September 14th-16th, Long Beach, mini fest to be annuonced The World Paper Money Fair, organised by the London chapter of the IBNS will be September 30/October 1 at the new venue: Hotel Russell, Russell Square, Bloomsbury, London.  see: www.ibnslondon.org.uk Oct/Nov Pcda St Louis 2007 MPCFest: TBA Memphis 21-23 June. ANA Summer semnar Session I: June 24-29, 2007* Session II: June 30-July 6, 2007 ANA Convention, Milwaukee. ========================================== for dealer Hot Contact list, ANA MPC museum holdings and other static information please click this link: http://www.papermoneyworld.net/Gramattichments.htm ========================================= POST / BASE EXCHANGE(PX/BX/NEX) Dump your dupes! Your classified advertisement for items for sale, purchase or trade will be run here for free. Send your ads to the gram. This service is for everyone, most humble dealer or most advanced collector. The point is to make the gram more interesting. In all cases confirm your order via email first. WANTED SECTION: Collectors may submit lists of items wanted for their collections for listing here. Dealers and collectors who have these items, are then encouraged to list them for sale in the above section as a reply. Wanted listings will run for a period of 1 month. ============================================= MPC Gram Staff: Publisher, editor: Fred Schwan fred@papermoneyworld.net; Subscription Manager:Doug Bell- doug@papermoneyworld.net Tuesday Columnist : JoeBoling- JoeBoling@aol.com Friday Columnist: Warner Talso: wtalso@aol.com Fest Auctioneer: Larry "Ski"Smulczenski - skitex@cox.net, Critic:Harold Kroll - HARBONS@aol.com Scholarship Coordinator: Marcus Turner- marucs@papermoneyworld.net; Webmaster and Technical Advisors:Doug Bell "Wiz" - doug@papermoneyworld.net Russ Walsh - russ.walsh@gte.net Fact Checker: Warner Talso -Calendar Coordinator: John and Nancy Wilson -The Boss: Judy Schwan MPC Gram is published by BNR Press and papermoneyworld.com as a free service to the community of military money collectors. Your suggestions, criticisms, complaints, editorial contributions, letters, and even praise are very welcome. The entire contents including linked illustrations are copyright protected by the publishers. In the case of contributors, the copyright is protected on behalf of the creators. Please send all correspondence regarding the gram to MPCgram@yahoo.com. Thank you very much for your participation. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com mpc gram mail list To subscribe to a list, send a mail message to "imailsrv@papermoneyworld.net" at this address with the following in the body of the message: subscribe mpcgram your_full_name To unsubscribe from a list, send a mail message to "imailsrv@papermoneyworld.net" at this address with the following in the body of the message: unsubscribe mpcgram if you have any problems please report then to doug@papermoneyworld.net