On Fri, 27 Feb 2009, Carrol Cox wrote:
> In 1945 they used cigarettes. A pack would exchange until it fell apart
> and the cigarettes never would get smoked. I believe GIs paid $1 a
> carton in the PX (1.50 in 1951) but the would be better than outside the
> base.
Yes, Lucky Strikes. Old Germans -- and even middle aged who learned about them from their parents -- are still nostalgic about them despite their taste. But this post-war phenomenon wasn't a hedge against hyper-inflation. It was a response to a lack of currency -- a return to a barter economy during the occupation when the old currency was dead and no single new one had yet taken its place.
For similar reasons in prisons today, people use cans of jack mackeral:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122290720439096481.html
My uncle Eric was a macher on the WWII black market. Aunt Ina said he bought her a fur coat for a carton of Luckies, and they got a car for 10. Berliners were unbelievably fucking poor in the few months after the war. They were literally living under rocks, or rather slabs of broken concrete.
Michael