Hermann Schwarzwald, Geld für Deutschland und Österreich (1914)

This confidential wartime memorandum, printed in Vienna in October 1914, is a policy brief for the statesmen of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Its scope is war finance, monetary reform, and geopolitical leverage. Schwarzwald begins with the claim that Britain’s control of sea routes and finance gives the Entente a structural advantage, while the Central Powers are relying too heavily on domestic borrowing and note issue. Money is treated as a strategic resource.

Die Erschließung einer leistungsfähigen ausländischen Kreditquelle wäre also für Deutschland-Österreich von größter Wichtigkeit: sogar sehr beträchtliche momentane Opfer wären dafür gern zu bringen.

English translation: The opening up of a productive foreign source of credit would therefore be of the greatest importance for Germany-Austria: even very considerable momentary sacrifices would gladly be made for it.

The only plausible neutral source of major credit is the United States. Schwarzwald does not rely on sympathy or neutrality, but on organized interest: American mining, banking, and press power can be tied to the Central Powers if it is offered a durable profit. The key commodity is silver, especially the American and Mexican silver controlled by large smelting, copper, and finance groups.

Das Mittel dazu ist die dauernde Freigabe unbeschränkten monetären Gebrauchs des Silbers.

English translation: The means to that end is the permanent authorization of the unrestricted monetary use of silver.

The central thesis is that Germany and Austria-Hungary can obtain American loans by restoring silver’s monetary function. This is not a one-time purchase of silver, but a promise of permanent demand through free coinage. Silver becomes credit bait, war-finance instrument, and anti-British geopolitical weapon.

Schwarzwald’s main conceptual move is to separate this plan from bimetallism. He rejects any legal fixing of a gold-silver ratio and instead proposes silver weight-money: coins marked by grams of silver, circulating by market value beside the existing Mark and Crown systems.

Vorläufig muß genügen, daß von keiner Rückkehr zum Bimetallismus die Rede sein soll, zu jener Art Doppelwährung, die heute mit Recht als theoretisch wie praktisch längst widerlegter Irrtum, ja Widersinn gilt.

English translation: For the time being it must suffice that there is to be no talk of a return to bimetallism, to that kind of double standard which today is rightly regarded as an error—indeed an absurdity—long since refuted both theoretically and practically.

The mechanism preserves current gold obligations while allowing parties to contract freely in silver. The state certifies weight and fineness, publishes rates, and facilitates minting; it does not dictate equivalence.

Die in Gold bestehende oder auf Gold sich beziehende Mark- und Kronenwährung bleibt also vollkommen intakt.

English translation: The mark and crown currencies, consisting in gold or referring to gold, thus remain entirely intact.

Much of the memorandum supplies historical legitimation. Coin names are treated as relics of fiscal manipulation and seigniorage; weight money is presented as older, clearer, and more honest. Hamburg’s silver bank money, Chinese silver by weight, parallel currencies, and writers from Turgot to Dühring serve to frame the proposal as a return to monetary truth. The practical plan includes gram-denominated silver coins, preferably pure; free minting; withdrawal of small token coins and small notes; separate gold and silver budgets; and silver banks organized with American capital.

The reform is also a strategy of de-Londonization. Schwarzwald attacks the London silver market and imagines a continental market—first perhaps Rotterdam, later Hamburg—that would connect American supply to Central European demand.

Ein kontinentaler Silbermarkt macht Produzenten und Käufer vom unverschämten englischen Ausbeutungsmonopol unabhängig.

English translation: A continental silver market makes producers and buyers independent of the shameless English monopoly of exploitation.

Domestically, silver is assigned mainly to small circulation: retail trade, wages, small taxes, postal and railway payments, savings, and minor credit. Gold remains more natural for large capital transactions. Internationally, silver weight-money is imagined as a world coin: intelligible by scale, useful in China and Asia, attractive to weaker states trapped by gold loans and paper currencies, and capable of making Germany a central clearing power.

Die Wiederaufnahme des Silbers erweitert mit einem Schlage die Barausstattung der Welt.

English translation: The reintroduction of silver at one stroke expands the world's stock of hard money.

The later sections answer fears of silver instability, paper depreciation, and inflation. Schwarzwald argues that silver’s instability came from demonetization; free monetary demand would stabilize it. Inflation belongs to uncovered paper or false bimetallism, not to full-weight metal circulating without legal overvaluation. His suspicion of fiat promises is explicit.

Es ist unmöglich, Zetteln, die kein Metall hinter sich haben, einen Wert bloß dadurch zu sichern, daß man ihnen das Zirkulationsmonopol gibt.

English translation: It is impossible to secure a value for notes that have no metal behind them merely by granting them a monopoly of circulation.

The memorandum closes by summarizing expected benefits: American loans, influence in the United States, weakened London finance, easier war indemnities, stronger reserves, cheaper credit, and a broader metallic base for postwar recovery. Its relevance lies in its fusion of emergency war finance with a larger anti-British monetary order. Schwarzwald treats currency reform as geopolitical action and urges immediate executive will over academic hesitation.