Organised plunder — the mark at 12.50 F

From the start of the occupation, Germany organised a legalised economic plunder. The exchange rate was fixed by authority at a level that strongly overvalued the Reichsmark against the Belgian franc (around 12.5 francs to one mark), making German purchases in Belgium very advantageous. German soldiers and services snapped up goods, stocks and products at knock-down prices, emptying the shops.

For you, it was a commercial and moral dilemma. To sell the Germans what they asked for, at this imposed rate, to keep the business running and avoid trouble — but at the cost of disposing of your stocks to the benefit of the occupier and to the detriment of the local clientele. To hide the goods and plead a stock shortage, at the risk of sanctions. Or to reserve them discreetly for the inhabitants and the black market.

The stakes went beyond trade: this overvaluation of the mark and the massive requisitions methodically impoverished the country to the benefit of the Reich. To resist, on your own scale, was to withhold goods from the plunder; to give in was to take part in it, sometimes unwittingly.