Kerschagl’s pamphlet is a real-time legal-economic guide to Austria’s spring 1933 Devisen- and gold-clause legislation. Its thesis is that the measures did not simply revalue all gold debts; they created a classified transition from nominal schilling parity to regulated value payment. Fulfilment depends on four tests: whether a promise is “effective” or only a value clause, whether it sounds in foreign valuta or gold schillings, what kind of debt it is, and whether the relevant Stichtag has arrived. The practical starting point is the open break between paper and gold:
Die erste, für den 28. März 1933 festgesetzte Goldparität betrug 127,49 Schilling Papier für 100 Schilling Gold.
English translation: The first gold parity, set for 28 March 1933, amounted to 127.49 paper schillings for 100 gold schillings.
The first section reconstructs the Goldklauselverordnung. Kerschagl’s central move is delimitation: the ordinance governs non-effective foreign-currency obligations and schilling obligations measured by gold, but not obligations to deliver effective foreign money or gold. Those cases remain judicial, even though Supreme Court decisions had tended to convert impossible effective performance into gold-value payment. Hence the statute’s reach turns on interpretation:
Die Entscheidung dieser Frage bleibt den Gerichten überlassen.
English translation: The decision of this question is left to the courts.
Value is then made administrable through official courses. The Börsekammer publishes foreign-currency averages and a daily Goldkurs; customs, Pfandbrief interest, and retrospective Nationalbank tables create further official measures. The Stichtag is the legal switch: trade and service debts are valorized from 30 March 1933 for valuta clauses and from 1 May 1933 for gold clauses, while post-ordinance contracts must use the new knowledge that schilling and gold schilling diverge.
The second section treats the Goldschuldenerleichterungsverordnung, where the compromise is clearest. Pfandbriefe, fundierte Bankschuldverschreibungen, and the covering mortgages keep gold-valued capital in principle, but debtors are protected by extended maturities and reduced interest. Kerschagl reduces the formula to two lines:
Also mithin: bei Hypothekentilgung: gleiche Raten, aber mehr Raten, bei Pfandbriefen: aufgewertetes, aber später zu leistendes Kapital.
English translation: Thus, in short: for the amortization of mortgages, equal installments, but more of them; for mortgage bonds, revalued capital, but payable at a later date.
This is not anti-creditor repudiation but temporal redistribution: full capital valorization is paired with slower amortization, later redemption, and statutory interest cuts. Private gold-clause mortgages outside Pfandbrief cover form a postponed class; their Stichtag may not precede 1 January 1936, and their future interest reduction is simpler. The April supplement closes a loophole: new gold obligations cannot be borrowed in gold value and discharged before the Stichtag at paper par. The official rationale states the point bluntly:
Es konnte der Regierung nicht einfallen, zukünftigen Verabredungen von Goldverpflichtungen ihren Sinn zu nehmen.
English translation: It could not have occurred to the government to deprive future agreements on gold obligations of their meaning.
Sections III and IV provide the pamphlet’s practical core, listing what is and is not yet valorized. Already covered are trade and service claims under their dates, new gold or valuta clauses, customs duties, Pfandbrief-backed mortgages and their securities, certain Vorarlberg and Tyrolean foreign-currency issues, and new private gold mortgages. Not yet covered are older private gold-clause mortgages, claims for which no Stichtag exists, many public securities, insurance contracts, and older non-effective private currency mortgages. Kerschagl’s value lies in turning a vague “gold clause” controversy into a sequence of legal classifications.
The section on open questions is more critical. Kerschagl shows how drafting can reverse policy. Permission to repay extraordinarily with Pfandbriefe may reward only premature repayment, not normal amortization. Kündigungsschutz meant to shield mortgage debtors may let them delay due debts and pressure creditors. Domestic maintenance payments tied to gold appear especially absurd, since maintenance is meant to preserve a standard of living while Austrian prices and salaries had fallen. The feared arbitrage is captured in the phrase:
Goldwert nimmt und Papier zurückgibt.
English translation: takes gold value and gives back paper.
His recurring point is that technical wording is distributive power:
Die Formulierung dieser Bestimmung ist entschieden nicht ganz klar.
English translation: The wording of this provision is decidedly not entirely clear.
The final rate tables are therefore integral, not merely documentary. They supply the numeric medium through which legal promises become payable sums. The pamphlet remains relevant as a compact example of crisis private law: monetary clauses are neither simply enforced nor voided, but administratively priced, temporally staged, and allocated between creditors and debtors by rates, deadlines, interest reductions, and judicial classification.
This work was divided into 8 sections when it entered the library's research corpus—an apparatus for search and citation, not necessarily the author's own table of contents. Each title opens its summary.
Put a question to this work; the Librarian answers from its 8 sections and cites the passage.
Ask the Librarian