sandstone we still have, but we are in bitter need of granite, the caviar of sorrow.
Heinrich Kroll has been removed from the scene. Wilke, the coffinmaker, has done us this service. We gave him two bottles of schnaps and he invited Heinrich to a game of skat with free drinks before dinner. Heinrich was taken in; he can never resist getting something for nothing, and on such occasions he drinks as fast as he can; moreover, like every nationalist, he considers himself a very clearheaded drinker. In reality he can't stand anything at all, and drink overtakes him suddenly. One moment he is ready to drive the Social Democratic party out of the Reichstag single-handed and the next he is snoring openmouthed, not even to be aroused by the command On your feet, forward march! This is particularly true when he has been drinking on an empty stomach, as we have arranged for him to do. Now he is innocently sleeping in Wilke's workshop in an oak coffin, comfortably bedded down on wood shavings. In our concern about waking him, we did not carry him back to his own bed. Wilke is now in the ground-floor studio of our sculptor, Kurt Bach, playing dominoes with him, a game both love because it gives them so much time for thought. They are engaged in drinking up the bottle and a quarter of schnaps left over from Heinrich's defeat and claimed by Wilke as an honorarium.
The shipment of granite we want to extract from Riesenfeld is something we cannot, of course, pay for in advance. We never have that much money at one time and it would be madness to try to accumulate it in the bank—it would melt away like snow in June. Therefore we want to give Riesenfeld a promissory note payable in three months. That means we want to pay practically nothing.
Naturally, Riesenfeld must not lose on the transaction. That shark in the ocean of human tears needs to make a profit like every honest businessman. And so on the day he receives the note from us he must take it to his bank or ours and have it discounted. The bank ascertains that both Riesenfeld and we are good for its face value, deducts a few per cent for discounting the note, and pays out the money. We pay back to Riesenfeld the amount of the bank's commission. Thus, he receives full payment for the shipment just as though we had paid in advance. Nor does the bank lose. It immediately sends the note to the Reichsbank, which in turn pays just as the bank paid Riesenfeld. And there in the Reichsbank it remains until, on the expiration date, it is presented for payment. What it will be worth then is easy to imagine.
We have only known about all this since 1922. Before then we tried to transact business in the same way as Hein-rich Kroll and almost went broke doing it. We had sold out almost our entire inventory and, to our amazement, had nothing to show for it except a worthless bank account and a few suitcases full of currency not even good enough to paper our walls with. We tried at first to sell and then buy again as quickly as possible—but the inflation easily overtook us. The lag before we got paid was too long; while we waited, the value of money fell so fast that even our most profitable sale turned into a loss. Only after we began to pay with promissory notes could we maintain our position. Even so, we are making no real profit now, but at least we can live. Since every enterprise in Germany is financed in this fashion, the Reichsbank naturally has to keep on printing unsecured currency and so the mark falls faster and faster. The government apparently doesn't care; all it loses in this way is the national debt. Those who are ruined are the people who cannot pay with notes, the people who have property they are forced to sell, small shopkeepers, day laborers, people with small incomes who see their private savings and their bank accounts melting away, and government officials and employees who have to survive on salaries that no longer allow them to buy so much as a new pair of shoes. The
Heinrich Kroll has been removed from the scene. Wilke, the coffinmaker, has done us this service. We gave him two bottles of schnaps and he invited Heinrich to a game of skat with free drinks before dinner. Heinrich was taken in; he can never resist getting something for nothing, and on such occasions he drinks as fast as he can; moreover, like every nationalist, he considers himself a very clearheaded drinker. In reality he can't stand anything at all, and drink overtakes him suddenly. One moment he is ready to drive the Social Democratic party out of the Reichstag single-handed and the next he is snoring openmouthed, not even to be aroused by the command On your feet, forward march! This is particularly true when he has been drinking on an empty stomach, as we have arranged for him to do. Now he is innocently sleeping in Wilke's workshop in an oak coffin, comfortably bedded down on wood shavings. In our concern about waking him, we did not carry him back to his own bed. Wilke is now in the ground-floor studio of our sculptor, Kurt Bach, playing dominoes with him, a game both love because it gives them so much time for thought. They are engaged in drinking up the bottle and a quarter of schnaps left over from Heinrich's defeat and claimed by Wilke as an honorarium.
The shipment of granite we want to extract from Riesenfeld is something we cannot, of course, pay for in advance. We never have that much money at one time and it would be madness to try to accumulate it in the bank—it would melt away like snow in June. Therefore we want to give Riesenfeld a promissory note payable in three months. That means we want to pay practically nothing.
Naturally, Riesenfeld must not lose on the transaction. That shark in the ocean of human tears needs to make a profit like every honest businessman. And so on the day he receives the note from us he must take it to his bank or ours and have it discounted. The bank ascertains that both Riesenfeld and we are good for its face value, deducts a few per cent for discounting the note, and pays out the money. We pay back to Riesenfeld the amount of the bank's commission. Thus, he receives full payment for the shipment just as though we had paid in advance. Nor does the bank lose. It immediately sends the note to the Reichsbank, which in turn pays just as the bank paid Riesenfeld. And there in the Reichsbank it remains until, on the expiration date, it is presented for payment. What it will be worth then is easy to imagine.
We have only known about all this since 1922. Before then we tried to transact business in the same way as Hein-rich Kroll and almost went broke doing it. We had sold out almost our entire inventory and, to our amazement, had nothing to show for it except a worthless bank account and a few suitcases full of currency not even good enough to paper our walls with. We tried at first to sell and then buy again as quickly as possible—but the inflation easily overtook us. The lag before we got paid was too long; while we waited, the value of money fell so fast that even our most profitable sale turned into a loss. Only after we began to pay with promissory notes could we maintain our position. Even so, we are making no real profit now, but at least we can live. Since every enterprise in Germany is financed in this fashion, the Reichsbank naturally has to keep on printing unsecured currency and so the mark falls faster and faster. The government apparently doesn't care; all it loses in this way is the national debt. Those who are ruined are the people who cannot pay with notes, the people who have property they are forced to sell, small shopkeepers, day laborers, people with small incomes who see their private savings and their bank accounts melting away, and government officials and employees who have to survive on salaries that no longer allow them to buy so much as a new pair of shoes. The
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