THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

they finally accepted the new currency when Hebecker arranged for
vital foodstuffs to become available in Swanenkirchen which could
be purchased with Wara.
The 'Wara' is a compound term in German meaning 'commodity
money'. The Wara was a piece of paper fully backed by the coal
inventory, and - to cover the storage costs - it also had a small
monthly stamp fee. This fee was a form of demurrage tax, which
ensured that the money would not be hoarded, but would circulate
within the community.
It not only saved Dr Hebecker's coal mine and the whole town of
Schwanenkirchen, but it started circulating in wider and wider areas.
It became a centrepiece of the 'Freiwirtschaft' ('Free Economy')
movement, whose theoretical underpinnings came from Silvio
Gesell's work. Over 2,000 corporations throughout Germany started
to use this alternative currency. Although, by definition, it would not
become inflationary (given that its value was tied to the value of
coal), it was considered much too successful by the central bank. It
exerted pressure on the Ministry of Finance, which decreed in
October 1931 that the Wara was illegal.
The next thing that transpired was that Hebecker's mine had to
close, and the men went back into unemployment. As it had become
impossible for people to help themselves on a local level, there only
remained one option: a strong centralised solution. In the Bierhallen of
Bavaria, an obscure Austrian immigrant began attracting increasingly
interested audiences for his fiery speeches.
His name was Adolf Hitler.
The graph shows the direct correlation between the level of
unemployment and the percentage of seats captured by National
Socialism in Germany in the successive elections between 1924 and