The event took place today at 11 a.m. in the Central Museum building. The collection of military banknotes was carried out for 15 years. Among the exhibits were occupation coins that Nazi Germany put into circulation in Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia and several other countries.
Prokopyev noted in his speech that the study of the issue of war money began with the declassification of the “red folder” of the People’s Commissar for Finance in Wartime, Arseny Zverev. From there they obtained information about how the Germans acted in the occupied territories, that is, how and what currency they introduced. “The question is to carry out some kind of monetary substitute in those territories that the Nazis captured,” explains Prokopyev, “to displace the money that was there (in use) and replace it with this substitute.”
This substitute was called military money. During the war, some countries issued such currency in the territory of others to finance their future conquests and cover the costs of the occupation of various territories.
Photo: Mikhail Medvedev
The value of the substitute or occupation currency, according to Prokopyev, was not backed by anything. Therefore, with the help of it, countries could, without any obstacles, seize any resources of the captured country for their own needs, most often military.
The list of known substitute currencies includes notes of the Imperial Credit Banks, karbowanets of the Reichskommissariat “Ukraine”, zlotys of the Polish Issuing Bank, rubles of the Imperial Japanese Government, Japanese occupation guilders, as well as war money of the Third Reich, which was distributed both in the occupied territories and in concentration camps, in ghetto areas and in prisoner of war camps.
The Germans also, for security reasons, created separate banknotes for the local population and separately for officers and other members of the Nazi army.
Prokopyev believes that the purpose of transferring the collection of military banknotes to the Museum of the Armed Forces is to strengthen the coverage of the theme of the betrayal of fascism and Nazism, which is expressed in the creation of a substitute currency. He stressed that the transfer of the collection acquired special importance in view of denazification and the implementation of the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine.
After the solemn part, Prokopyev gave a lecture on military money: how it was used during the Second World War, who used it and for what purpose. The rector also pointed out the banknotes produced in other countries: the United States, England, Italy, Japan and others. At the end of his lecture he donated to the museum objects from the special workshop of the Financial University, which makes clothing and other products for soldiers stationed in the Northern Military District area.
Photo: Mikhail Medvedev
