Back Mefo-Wechsel German Bonos Mefo Spanish Mefo-vekseli Finnish Bon MEFO French Mefo-váltó Hungarian Surat Mefo ID Metallurgische Forschungsgesellschaft Italian メフォ手形 Japanese 메포 어음 Korean Mefo Dutch
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A Mefo bill (sometimes written as MEFO bill) was a six-month promissory note, drawn upon the dummy company Metallurgische Forschungsgesellschaft (Metallurgical Research Corporation), devised by the German Central Bank President, Hjalmar Schacht, in 1934. These bills could be discounted by any German bank at any time, and these banks, in turn, could rediscount the bills at the Reichsbank at any time within the last three months of their earliest maturity.[1] They therefore acted as a highly liquid means of payment to finance the Nazi German government's programme of rearmament, allowing them to rearm under the Versailles Treaty.
Mefo bills followed the scheme for which the Öffa bills were the blueprint.
As Germany was rearming against the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the Nazi government needed a form of money that did not leave a paper trail and allowed them to spend past the treaty terms on military rearmament.[2] It is assumed that billions of MEFO bills were issued throughout the regime's time in power, though the records are not precise.[3]
- ^ "Avalon Project : Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression - Volume 2 Chapter XVI Part 12". avalon.law.yale.edu. p. (C)(1)(A). Retrieved 2024-04-12.
- ^ William L., Shirer (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 260.
- ^ Tooze, J. Adam (2007). The wages of destruction: the making and breaking of the Nazi economy (1st ed.). New York: Viking. pp. 54–64. ISBN 978-0-670-03826-8. OCLC 71266549.