A Small Nation in the Turmoil of the Second World War PDF Download

Author: Herman van der Wee
Publisher: Leuven University Press
ISBN: 9058677591
Category : Banks and banking
Languages : en
Pages : 495

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This monograph presents an in-depth analysis of Belgium's monetary and financial history during the Second World War. Exploring Belgium's financial and business links with Germany, France, The Netherlands, Great Britain, the United States, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the study focuses on the roles played by the Central Bank and private bankers in Brussels, by the Belgian government in exile in London, and by the Belgian minister plenipotentiary in New York. Among the subjects arising are: German attempts to plunder Belgium and Belgian resistance strategies; the peripeteia of the Belgian gold reserve; the role of the Belgian Congo; Belgium's participation in the discussions leading up to the Bretton Woods conference; and the negotiations for creating a Customs Union, blueprint for the 1958 Treaty of Rome. The final part of the book analyzes the famous monetary reform devised by Belgian Minister of Finance Camille Gutt at the liberation of the country in September 1944.

Author: Herman van der Wee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Banks and banking
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Author: Marcel Boldorf
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317506499
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Nazi Germany and Japan occupied huge areas at least for some period during World War II, and those territories became integral parts of their war economies. The book focuses on the policies of World War II aggressors in occupied countries. The unbalanced economic and financial relations were defined by administrative control, the implementation of institutions and a variety of military exploitation strategies. Plundering, looting and requisitions were frequent aggressive acts, but beyond these interventions by force, specific institutions were created to gain control over the occupied economies as a whole. An appropriate institutional setting was also crucial to give incentives to the companies in the occupied countries to produce munitions for the aggressors. The book explains the main fields of war exploitation (organisation and control, war financing and workforce recruitment). It substantiates these aspects in case studies of occupied countries and gives examples of the business policy of multinational companies under war conditions. The book also provides an account of differences and similarities of the two occupation systems. Economies under Occupation will interest researchers specialising in the history of economic thought as well as in economic theory and philosophy. It will also engage readers concerned with regional European and Japanese studies and imperial histories.

Author: Gregg Huff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108916082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 555

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From December 1941, Japan, as part of its plan to build an East Asian empire and secure oil supplies essential for war in the Pacific, swiftly took control of Southeast Asia. Japanese occupation had a devastating economic impact on the region. Japan imposed country and later regional autarky on Southeast Asia, dictated that the region finance its own occupation, and sent almost no consumer goods. GDP fell by half everywhere in Southeast Asia except Thailand. Famine and forced labour accounted for most of the 4.4 million Southeast Asian civilian deaths under Japanese occupation. In this ground-breaking new study, Gregg Huff provides the first comprehensive account of the economies and societies of Southeast Asia during the 1941-1945 Japanese occupation. Drawing on materials from 25 archives over three continents, his economic, social and historical analysis presents a new understanding of Southeast Asian history and development before, during and after the Pacific War.

Author: Norman Ridley
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1399052624
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
War is a costly business and in 1939, Germany was almost broke with its economy overheating and heading for runaway inflation. Hitler needed hard foreign currency to pay for his war machine and the only way he could get this was by selling gold that he looted from the national banks of Austria, Czechoslovakia and all the countries that were occupied after September 1939. Another source of gold was the theft of personal gold especially from the Jews, most grotesquely, the haul of dental gold which came out of the concentration camps. No neutral country would accept Reichsmarks so the gold had to be laundered through Swiss banks. The story of Swiss complicity in German war crimes is still a subject of controversy, and lawsuits. There are also questions about the parts played by other countries, particularly Portugal, in laundering stolen gold for the Nazis. The Vatican’s dealings with Hitler have often been seen as ambiguous and this book investigates the Holy See’s role in helping ship Nazi gold to South America, and how that gold might have been used to re-create the German Reich. After the war a commission was set up to recover as much gold as possible and restore it to those from whom it was stolen. This, of course, was beset by huge problems especially with regards to gold that was looted from Holocaust victims. Enormous quantities of gold and other treasures were hidden in a mine at Merkers in Thuringia which was found by the US 3rd Army in 1945, but much gold remains unaccounted for, and attempts are still ongoing to uncover supposed hidden caches, the most recent in Poland where four tons are believed to have been found by the Silesian Bridge Foundation in May of 2022. The whereabouts and disposal of the remaining stolen gold has led to numerous investigations and countless conspiracy theories. In Hitler’s Gold the author analyzes these and uncovers many of the mysteries surrounding this continuing search for the missing millions.

Author: Jonas Scherner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108679145
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 477

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During World War II, Germany occupied much of continental Europe. Although the social and political history of this occupation has been studied extensively, the economics of the unprecedented transfer of resources has received surprisingly little attention. Allies, neutrals, and conquered nations under German hegemony were a vital source of supplies for Hitler's war machine. Without the war material, consumer goods and labor they provided, Germany would not have been able to wage a prolonged multi-front war. All of these countries suffered enormous losses, but each had a distinct experience that depended on Germany's wartime needs, whether they were allied, occupied or neutral, and their place in Nazi racial ideology. Paying for Hitler's War is a comparative economic study which explores these different experiences through case studies of twelve nations spanning the European continent.

Author: Jean F Crombois
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317323645
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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As a businessman, financier, diplomat, minister, and first Managing Director of the IMF, Camille Gutt (1884–1971) was involved in all the important financial negotiations between the 1920s and the 1950s. Using Gutt’s personal archives as his starting point, Crombois examines the rise and fall of financial diplomacy as a largely private enterprise.

Author: Øyvind Eitrheim
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110715040X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 655

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Book Description
Historical narrative integrated with graphs based on a unique dataset chronicle the last 200 years of monetary history in Norway.

Author: Kenneth Mouré
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009207679
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
Kenneth Mouré shows how the black market in Vichy France developed not only to serve German exploitation, but also as an essential strategy for survival for commerce and consumers. His analysis explains how and why the black market became so prevalent and powerful in France and remained necessary after Liberation. Marché Noir draws on diverse French archives as well as diaries, memoirs and contemporary fiction, to highlight the importance of the black market in everyday life. Vichy's economic controls set the context for adaptations – by commerce facing economic and political constraints, and by consumers needing essential goods. Vichy collaboration in this realm seriously damaged the regime's legitimacy. Marché Noir offers new insights into the dynamics of black markets in wartime, and how illicit trade in France served not only to exploit consumer needs and increase German power, but also to aid communities in their strategies for survival.

Author: Harold James
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317317653
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
With contributions from world-renowned figures such as Niall Ferguson and Adair Turner, this volume investigates how financial institutions and markets have undergone or reacted to past pressures, and the regulatory responses that emerged as a result.