NEW CURRENCY ORDER ISSUED BY RUSSIANS IN BERLIN

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 October 1948, Page 5

NEW CURRENCY ORDER ISSUED BY RUSSIANS IN BERLIN

(Rec. 2.30 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 11. Marshal Sokolovsky has issued a new currency order for “Greater Berlin” according to Moscow radio, quoted by the British United Press. Marshal Sokolovsky ordered all 50 penny coins (threepence under the old British occupation exchange rate to be withdrawn from circulation in the Russian zone and Greater Berlin as from October 13. The radio adds that this new order was made by the Russian authorities following devaluation of the old coinage as the result of importation from Western Germany, for speculation. German bi-zonal authorities, in a new move in the campaign against industrial dismantling, offered to supply the reparations creditors with newly-produced machinery if what they regard as “indispensable peaceful capacity” is spared. The offer was contained in a letter from Dr Hermann Puender, chairman of the Bi-Zonal Executive Council to the Marshall Air administrators, Mr Paul Hoffmann. Puender suggested that the reparations creditors should tell the German authorities what type and amount of machinery they required on the reparations account but should leave the procurement of the machinery to the Germans.