Page 152 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

1947 – DISILLUSION AND DISAPPOINTMENT 125

people did not have confidence in either the political parties or the
institution in Frankfurt to be able to improve the existing economic
conditions. While this general sentiment did not markedly affect the
communal and state legislature elections taking part in Saarland, Bremen
and Wuerttemberg-Baden (both the voter participation and the election
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results remained in line with previous polls) in the second half of 1947,
some newspapers commented on the ‘silent legislative machinery without
life’ and argued that in all likelihood it would be necessary for every
German to determine his own future.
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In fact, nothing remained to be done except for the Germans to take
matters into their own hands. The hot summer after the cold winter had
caused an inadequate harvest, and agricultural yields fell by about a third
even compared to the previous year’s meagre crop. The resultant struggle
for bread and coal was dominated by a so-called ‘Moral der 1000 Kalorien’
(morale of 1,000 calories) and the traditional values collapsed – necessity
knows no law. The black market and the so-called ‘Ruinenkriminialität’ (ruin
crime rate) prospered: in some regions, criminal offences increased by
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more than 400 per cent in comparison with pre-war years. While the
police and justice instituted legal proceedings, many like the archbishop of
Cologne, Cardinal Josef Frings, felt sympathy for the theft of food and the
mass stealing of Allied coal in freight depots vernacularly referred to as
Fringsen. The story of the primate’s condoning of theft firstly expressed
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in his New Year’s Eve homily on 31 December 1946 had spread like
wildfire. Thereupon trains transporting coal were stormed and more than
17,000 people had been arrested for stealing coal within a few months.
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There was just too little of everything and to many the year 1947 appeared
to be the eighth year of the war. Indeed, the shortfall in coal could be
made up in part from imports. Food, too, could be purchased from
America and the British Dominions. But all these imports had to be paid
for in hard currency, usually dollars. In Germany, however, money had
long since ceased to function in any ordinary sense of the word; cigarettes
were one accepted medium of exchange. Firms and individuals resorted to
illegal barter and to complicated compensation deals, often involving
arduously worked out chains of bilateral trade to finally get hold of scarce
commodities. Both the need to have a sufficient supply of commodities at
hand for bartering and the general Flucht in Sachwerte (flight into physical
assets) as the only reliable store of value resulted in a large-scale hoarding
of raw materials and semi-finished products. The official money had not
only lost its value via inflation but also via a spreading reluctance to accept
it as a medium of exchange; confidence in the continued value of the
Reichsmark suffered a further decline after April 1947. In this situation,
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various individuals and organisations put forth petitions but also proposals