By German decree of 17 June 1940 and administrative orders issued pursuant thereto the Belgians were required to surrender gold and foreign exchange notes to the Emission Bank, which in turn, delivered the loot to the Reichsbank (ECR-24).
By May 1943, the Reichsbank had acquired in this fashion gold and foreign exchange of the value of 23,400,000 RM. (ECR-149)
Holland
Gold and foreign exchange delivered by the Netherlands Bank to the Reichsbank “on the basis of the direction of the Reichsmarshal” (Goering) amounted to 74,000,000 RM through November 1940. (EC-465)
France
It is believed that the same practice was followed in France, but evidence as to details has not been found in the German documents presently available.
(5) The Nazi conspirators used German Reichsmarks as currency in the Netherlands, for purposes unrelated to the needs of the occupational troops, which currency they caused to be freely exchanged for gulden by the Netherlands Bank. The Nazi conspirators, animated in part by the view that the Netherlands were “akin in blood to the German nation” (3613-PS), sought to promote a “mutual interpenetration of the German and Netherlands economies” through the acquisition by Germans of Dutch participations (EC-468) and Dutch investment in German securities. (ECR-174)
To this end, restrictions on the free transfer of Reichsmark and gulden across the German-Dutch border were removed. Conversations between the Reich Economics and Finance Ministers in October 1940 led to the first step in this direction, the issuance by the Economics Minister of a Circular (Runderlass)—No. 89/40—which produced substantial changes in the foreign exchange control along the German-Dutch borders (EC-468). This provided, inter-alia, that RM 1,000 or its equivalent in gulden could be taken across the German-Dutch border by travelers or in border trade without permit, and permitted Germans to transfer to Holland up to 5,000 RM per person per month for any purpose except purchase of goods without any permission (EC-468).
These relaxations were made effective in Holland by free exchange of Reichsmarks for gulden by the Netherlands Bank, introduced “on the initiative” of the Commissar, and by enforced acceptance of Reichsmark currency by the Dutch business population. (EC-468)
The Reichsmarks thus made available in the Netherlands were mainly used to purchase Dutch securities on the stock exchange (EC-468). Permission to make such purchases was extended to a large number of German banks by the German Ministry of Economics. The transfers were made with “reluctance” by the Dutch, in connection with which the Reich Commissar at the Netherlands Bank observed, “it may be pointed out with some justification that an out-payment of gulden made against a Reichsmark credit, which can only result through the burdening of the Netherlands State credit, represents no genuine transfer” (EC-468).