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→Transfer of Occupation Currency Plates: fx
Shortly after the [[Teheran conference]], Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) requested that a common currency be prepared for the occupation of Germany. It was decided that the U.S. would print the Allied Marks (AM). <ref>Vladimir Petrov, ''Money and Conquest: Allied Occupation Currencies in World War II'', Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967, pgs. 110 - 112.</ref>
Shortly after the [[Teheran conference]], Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) requested that a common currency be prepared for the occupation of Germany. It was decided that the U.S. would print the Allied Marks (AM). <ref>Vladimir Petrov, ''Money and Conquest: Allied Occupation Currencies in World War II'', Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967, pgs. 110 - 112.</ref>
Moscow printed up enough AM marks to provide their entire army six years of back pay. Black market activity thrived. A GI could buy a package of cigarettes for eight cents and resell them to a Russian soldier for 100 AM marks or $10. A 5-cent candy bar sold for $5. K-rations brought $20 and a pound of coffee $25. G.I.s sold watches for the equivalent of $500 to $2500 each. By one estimate, more than 33,000 GIs sent home an average of $12,000 from Berlin. Only when the U.S. Army reached an overdraft of $271,000,000 did Congress act. <ref>''From Major Jordan's Diaries'', George Racey Jordan, with Richard L. Stokes, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1952, pg. 230.</ref><ref>Schecter and Schecter, Sacred Secrets, pp. 122-123.
Moscow printed up enough AM marks to provide their entire army six years of back pay. Black market activity thrived. A GI could buy a package of cigarettes for eight cents and resell them to a Russian soldier for 100 AM marks or $10. A 5-cent candy bar sold for $5. K-rations brought $20 and a pound of coffee $25. G.I.s sold watches for the equivalent of $500 to $2500 each. By one estimate, more than 33,000 GIs sent home an average of $12,000 from Berlin. Only when the U.S. Army reached an overdraft of $271,000,000 did Congress act. <ref>''From Major Jordan's Diaries'', George Racey Jordan, with Richard L. Stokes, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1952, pg. 230.</ref><ref>Schecter and Schecter, Sacred Secrets, pp. 122-123.</ref>
==Post war==
==Post war==