Immediately following WWII, a Black Market cigarette bonanza started in Berlin, Germany. Cigarettes became the unofficial currency. Even cigarette butts had value. There were three reasons for this phenomenon:
Berliners and the Black Market Cigarette Bonanza
Following WWII, the four victorious powers, the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union occupied Berlin. Housing, medicines, and heating materials were in short supply. Food was rationed. The population’s bank savings had been confiscated in the first few months after the war. The occupation currency had become nearly worthless, and there was hardly any cash in circulation. Berliners depended heavily on barter for their necessities, as long as one still had, or could acquire, something to exchange. Along with bartering, almost anything could be bought on the black market for a price despite shortages. Cigarettes became the unofficial currency.
U.S. Servicemen and the Black Market Cigarette Bonanza
The black market flourished when the American troops arrived in Berlin in July 1945. Two large black markets opened in the Tiergarten and the Alexanderplatz. Both locations were located in the British Sector, where I grew up. Although chocolate, liquor, and small food items were also traded, cigarettes became the commodity of choice. There was a good reason for that.
Profitability of Cigarettes on the Black Market
Unlike their Soviet counterparts, U.S. servicemen were allowed to convert their pay into American dollars at the official rate of ten to one. They were free to send that money home, but they could do far better by first participating in the Black Market. It worked like this: After purchasing a carton of American cigarettes for fifty cents at the PX, U.S. servicemen could sell them on the black market at the going rate of 1,500 German Occupation Marks. After exchanging the occupation currency into US dollars at the official rate of 10:1, they were able to pocket $150. Servicemen caught on quickly, and soon half of all business transactions in Berlin took place on the black market. The black market was so lucrative that soldiers sent thousands of dollars home, most of it derived from these illegal earnings. In July 1945, the U.S. army’s finance office in Berlin disbursed one million dollars in pay; soldiers sent home some three million dollars. (Walter Rundell, Jr., Black Market Money: The Collapse of U.S. Military Currency Control in World War II (1964), pp. 46–47.)
Black Market Cigarette Bonanza immediately following WWII in Berlin, Germany. www.walled-in-berlin.com
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Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
