Wild East Joint Venture

A West Berlin businessman seized the opportunity presented by the opening of the Berlin Wall to East Germany and founded a joint venture: East German technicians and businesspeople combined with the entrepreneur and marketing expertise of a West German entrepreneur. The company supplied businesses and institutions in the still-existing GDR with high-quality Western technology. Business flourished- a true economic boom in the East! Thanks to the excellent contacts of the East German employees, the company was able to expand its trade relations with the Comecon countries. Payments were made, as was customary in Comecon, using the transferable ruble. The Western Group of Soviet Forces was convinced that a company so successful in trading computers could also supply the armed forces with urgently needed food supplies. They approached the company for this purpose. This brought the company into contact with organized crime circles seeking to participate in the business. After monetary union, and especially after reunification, all companies that had traded using the transferable ruble- legally speaking, it should be noted- were subjected to scrutiny. Business and private premises are searched, accounts seized, and people are taken into custody. The reason: The foreign trade balance of the former GDR had become unbalanced because GDR companies were released from their state-registered purchase obligations to the other German states, while the state-registered purchase obligations of these states to the GDR remained valid. This error in the Unification Treaty led to a flood of transfer rubles in West Germany, which were ultimately to be converted into Deutsche Marks. Under the guise of “transfer ruble fraud,” laws were retrospectively “amended,” with devastating consequences for the GDR’s export companies, all to rake in millions. An unbelievable, yet true story from the turbulent times of German reunification.