Amonn’s study reconstructs the making of Czechoslovak money from the currency separation of February 1919 to the stabilization debates of 1924. It is a technical but argumentative account, built from note circulation, giro balances, Lombard credit, discount operations, foreign-exchange holdings, and the proceeds of the wealth levy. Its central revision is directed against the simple label “deflation”: Amonn argues that Czechoslovak policy was less a consistent contraction of money than an attempt to stabilize the crown, regulate its external value, and transform an inherited wartime paper system into something approximating a central-bank currency.
Die tschechoslowakische Währung trat zu Ende Februar 1919 ins Leben.
English translation: The Czechoslovak currency came into existence at the end of February 1919.
The opening problem is institutional. The successor state inherited a currency supplied by the Austro-Hungarian Bank, but that bank’s wartime role had already blurred the distinction between banknotes and state paper. Amonn therefore treats currency separation not merely as a national act but as a monetary reconstruction. Formally, the new notes were state notes administered through the Bank Office of the Finance Ministry; materially, however, they were supposed to behave like bank money, issued according to banking principles rather than fiscal convenience.
Die neue Währung stellt sich hiernach formell als eine „Staatsnoten“währung, materiell aber als eine Banknotenwährung dar.
English translation: Formally, the new currency presents itself as a "state-note" currency, but materially as a banknote currency.
Much of the study then tests whether this institutional intention was realized. Amonn follows the stamping and blocking of old Austro-Hungarian notes, the partial retention of balances, and the later release or conversion of blocked sums. His conclusion is that the first restriction of purchasing media was less decisive than it appeared. The Czechoslovak money supply soon rose again, and the Bank Office was not constrained by a strict metallic cover or by an absolute ceiling on issue. Its practical limits depended instead on the kinds of assets it accepted and on the purposes for which it created means of payment.
This leads to Amonn’s key analytical distinction between elastic and non-elastic money. Notes issued through the discounting of genuine commercial bills expand and contract with trade; money created through Lombard advances, foreign-exchange purchases, or metal acquisitions does not have the same automatic relation to the circulation needs of the economy. The mere size of circulation is therefore not enough to identify policy as inflationary or deflationary.
In unmittelbarem Zusammenhang mit dem Geschäftsverkehr der Volkswirtschaft und sich diesem automatisch anpassend befindet sich nur jener Zahlungsmittelbestand, der in der Eskomptierung von Geschäfts- (Waren-) Wechseln seinen Ursprung hat.
English translation: Only that stock of means of payment which originates in the discounting of commercial (goods) bills stands in immediate connection with the business transactions of the economy and adapts itself automatically to them.
On this basis Amonn reinterprets the apparent postwar expansion. Lombard lending partly restored liquidity removed during the currency separation and supported reconstruction. Later, foreign-exchange policy became crucial: purchases of devises and precious metals increased the domestic payment supply, while interventions to support the crown withdrew it. The appreciation of the crown in 1922 reflected political stabilization, trade movements, and speculative capital flows, but it also burdened exporters and producers. Stabilizing the exchange rate at the higher level required reserve losses and pressure on domestic costs.
Amonn’s judgment is therefore cautious and balance-sheet oriented. Czechoslovak policy had produced restrictive effects at moments, especially through exchange intervention, but its general direction was not a deliberate shrinking of the money stock for its own sake.
Was die Zahlungsmittelmenge anbelangt, war sie bisher viel eher auf Stabilität gerichtet als auf Restriktion.
English translation: As regards the quantity of means of payment, it has hitherto been directed far more toward stability than toward restriction.
The final question is whether stabilization should be accepted at the current value of the crown or whether further restriction should raise it before a final settlement. Amonn emphasizes that no definitive parity had yet been fixed. The wealth levy could serve either to extinguish paper money or to build real cover while leaving circulation broadly stable. The study’s enduring value lies in this refusal to equate appreciation, contraction, and deflation. For Amonn, monetary policy must be read through the origin, elasticity, and balance-sheet counterpart of each issue of money.
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