'General Clay's Marks'

(The following appeared in the July 26, 1948 edition of Pravda and is translated from the Russian.)

From Pravda's special correspondent in Berlin

Exactly a week ago, the high commander of the American occupied troops, General Clay, and the high commander of English troops, General Robertson, announced in writing to Soviet Union Marshal Sokolsky that separate monetary reform will not be extended to Western sectors of Berlin.

Today on the streets of the Western sectors of the German capital, it was easy to learn the value of their official declarations.

The English and American occupation authorities are circulating a new currency, fabricated in the United States. Germans already nicknamed them "General Clay's Marks." It became known recently that four days before Clay and Robertson's declaration, "General Clay's Marks" were secretly brought into Berlin in bags on planes.

Already, the divisive actions by the authorities of the Western occupation zones have made life extraordinarily painful in Berlin. I drove through empty streets of the Western regions of the German capital. Everywhere, stores, pharmacies, shops were closed. From conversations with inhabitants of the city I was able to deduce what kind of measures were taken to attempt to tie them to "General Clay's Marks." All the inhabitants of the Western sectors are obliged to have stamps in their passports certifying receipt of those Marks. The occupying authorities warned that people who do not have stamps in their passports in the following month will not get their ration cards.

But this is not all; the governments of the Western countries are seeking, in all possible ways, to prohibit the process of exchanging the old currency bills to the new money from the Soviet zone and the Greater Berlin region. This exchange is being carried out in defense of the interests of the German inhabitants, who lose out as a result of the flow of worthless money from Western Germany.

In the Soviet sector of occupied Berlin, about 1,300 exchange points are open, which could be used by all city dwellers without exception. However, Western sector police were ordered to destroy all posters that announced the terms of exchanging the old currency bills for the new ones -- Reichsmarks and Rentmarks with specially glued coupons -- and that displayed the location of exchange points in the Soviet sector of occupied Berlin. Policemen carefully tore those posters off the walls and arrested the employees of the advertising company that was appointed to display them.

It has come to such a point that on Thursday, English patrols tried to stop pedestrians who were walking to the exchange points.

In order to intimidate inhabitants of the Western sectors of Berlin and at the same time prevent them from obtaining the new currency of the Soviet zone, American occupational authorities send their armored cars to the city streets. ...

The desire of the rulers of the Western countries to cause financial and economic chaos in the capital of Germany is met by serious anger from Berlin's working people.

Just recently, delegations from Berlin's major factories appeared at City Council, urging the introduction in Berlin of the currency that is already available in the Soviet zone. Delegates sneaked into the council's meeting room, handed out more than 40 resolutions of protest against the introduction of "General Clay's Marks" in the Western sectors of Berlin, and demanded that the council should declare single currency reform for all Berlin.

Near the council building, a spontaneous demonstration arose in which thousands of Berlin's workers took part. Delegates of factories and businesses waited until late evening for the council's statement. It is hard to report how deeply they were angered when they learned that factions of Social Democrat and bourgeois parties, bowing to Western occupying countries, passed a decision demanding that the occupying authorities admit as official currency in Berlin not only the new money of the Soviet occupation zone but also "General Clay's Marks."

Today on Potsdamerstrasse in the American sector, I had a chance to see how police, fulfilling the requests of American authorities, violently treated those who act in defense of single currency reform, in defense of the unity of Germany. I saw how they dispersed a group of pedestrians who took the liberty to say a few uncomplimentary words about the separate reform undertaken in the Western occupation zones. This is how the German policemen, who hurried in an American car to "the scene of crime," acted:

They twisted the hands of people they arrested, beat them and threw them into the car. Among the arrested was a young girl, nearly a teen-ager, a newspaper salesman, and even a cameraman who came to photograph the incredible scene of intimidation of innocent people.

The news about tough treatment of working people is coming from the Western zones of occupied Germany. For example in Nuermberg, at the City Council, a crowd of 2,000 assembled and waited a few hours for a currency exchange. Police started to disperse the crowd. The operation was commanded by the police chief of Nuremberg. A few wounded people in critical condition were taken to a hospital.

The facts are telling that the currency separation, carried out by order of the rulers of the Western countries, has sharpen the already difficult situation in Bizonia. Bavarian state parliament member Max Drexel had to admit that as a result of the separate reform, the number of unemployed in Western Germany rose to 6 million or 7 million. In Hamburg, businesses laid off more than 2,000 people during first three days after the introduction of the separate currency reform. Within the next month, further layoffs of about 20,000 people are expected.

In Nuermberg, the "Konrad" factory, which manufactured carbon electrodes, is closed. Here, and in other major cities of Western Germany, construction work has ceased, home-building has ceased -- the city councilors do not have the financial means to pay the workers. To minimize the catastrophic size of unemployment, the Bavarian labor minister has directed that working hours be cut in half.

The situation of Western Germany's inhabitants remains hopeless. Some time ago, the press in the Western occupation zones reported the arrival of a load of textile goods from the U.S.A. as an unusual "American blessing." Soon, some details became clear. Those goods were destined to western Africa, but it turned out to be of poor quality and did not find any buyers.

Then brave American entrepreneurs redirected those goods from African colonies to a European one -- Bizonia. So, after the separate currency reform, textiles rejected by modest Africans appeared in Bizonia.

Western German economists foresee an increase in economic tensions. This is already clear because prices started to climb just after currency reform. In Munich, for example, the price of butter and cigarettes doubled in four days. Similar news is coming from Frankfurt. Not only are prices of mass consumption goods rising. Also of concern is the price of coal: it may rise, and if it does, it will be a significant increase. Prices for briquettes will rise by 35 percent, and prices for brown coal by 50 percent.

It should also be mentioned that economic chaos, which had sharpened in Bizonia after the introduction of separate reform, hit hardest for mid-sized and small businesses, which lack capital. As a result of separate currency reform, their owners had to close or sell to bigger industrialists, which is putting the concentration of capital in the hands of big German monopolists in the West. Simultaneously acting through covert agents, American concerns are even more actively purchasing factories and businesses they find interesting.

This is the role played by "General Clay's Marks" in Western Germany. American monopolists would like to use the same weapon in the region of Greater Berlin, which also appeared to be part of the Soviet occupation zone in terms of economics. The democratic society of Berlin is expressing its belief that, regardless of all the maneuvers of those who would divide Berlin, in the end the currency of Berlin will be the money of the Soviet zone.