Monetary and banking policy in Reich-annexed Polish territories and the General Government

Abstract

The implementation of Germany’s monetary policy in the annexed territories consisted in replacing the Polish złoty with the Reichsmark as the only means of payment. In the case of the General Government, banknotes in Polish złoty from the Bank of Poland were replaced in 1940 by bills popularly known as the Kraków złoty, dispensed by the occupiers’ Bank of Issue in Poland. In the territories annexed to the Third Reich, all Polish credit and savings institutions were subject to confiscation and receivership exercised by the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost in Berlin (Main Trustee Office for the East). Liquidation work involved both assets and liabilities. The Germans, fully aware of the central role of credit institutions in economic life, started measures to revive and rationalize the Polish credit apparatus in the General Government at the beginning of the occupation. This task was entrusted to the Banking Authority. Its efforts were primarily aimed at influencing credit institutions in such a way as to best serve the German wartime economy.