A gentlemen's agreement?

[Lucidor]

I got into a friendly dispute with a friend the other day... It boiled down to rules of war and all that. I distinctly remembered hearing something about the major forces of WW2 somehow agreing not to forge either currency of rationing cards to ruin the economy of the other country, but I wasn't really sure where...

She asked a professor of economics, and he hadn't heard of it, so I'm just asking. Am I delusional? Where did I get that idea from? Is it all just something I dream hearing about?

 

[unmerged(6964)]

I don't believe so. For a start, the British government had learned what "gentleman's agreements" with Germany were worth in the diplomacy leading up to the war.


Second of all, I seem to remember that Bomber Command dumped large quantities of copied ration books into German cities during the war.

 

[unmerged(1057)]

Not only that..they forged everything from stamps to currency..

 

[Arkestra]

Didn't the dastardly hun also try to drop forged bank notes over the UK during the war?

 

[Lucidor]

Hmmm, I guess I'll just have to concede defeat, then...

 

[HJ Tulp]

Originally posted by Lucidor
Hmmm, I guess I'll just have to concede defeat, then...

Depends on how cute she is
AFAIK there were no gentleman agreements in WWII. It was a world war. Not a dispute

 

[Lucidor]

Originally posted by HJ Tulp
Depends on how cute she is
AFAIK there were no gentleman agreements in WWII. It was a world war. Not a dispute

She IS cute... And has fiery red hair... I'll even let her punish me for being wrong if she wants...

 

[unmerged(7748)]

If I remember a History Channel documentary correctly, the nazis forced concentration camp Jews to forge British currency. They intended to flood the Brits with counterfeit currency in order to collapse their economy. In the end, the Germans ended up using the money to buy some supplies before the end.

 

[Aetius]

They did have gentlemen's agreements e.g. not bombing university towns, e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, Goettingen, Heidelberg.

But project Berhard, the currency forging thing, pretty much shows that economic warfare was ok. And it wasn't restricted to jews, convicted forgers were the ones made to do it. I read somewhere that the biggest problem was the superior quality of the forged bills compared to the regular UK currency.

 

[Winkelried]

Originally posted by Aetius
They did have gentlemen's agreements e.g. not bombing university towns, e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, Goettingen, Heidelberg.

And not using chemical weapons. But that might just be fear of retaliation.

 

[Apollon]

Originally posted by Winkelried
And not using chemical weapons. But that might just be fear of retaliation.

it would be also impractical, at least on the field. fronts were very fluent in ww2, and you could fall easily fall victim to your own chemical cloud, if you didn't want to wait several hours before you come out of your hole. the idea would be quite contrary to the blitzkrieg ideal.

 

[Lucidor]

Originally posted by Winkelried
And not using chemical weapons. But that might just be fear of retaliation.

Wasn't there some anthrax testing on an island that the British did and made sure the photos leaked to the Germans?

 

[SykoNurse]

i heard that story too. problem was said to be the mass production of the anthrax. britain couldnt get it done in large proportions. when the americans readied the project war in europe was almost over and they didnt use it anymore. that test island in the irish sea ist still contaminated though

 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Originally posted by Aetius
I read somewhere that the biggest problem was the superior quality of the forged bills compared to the regular UK currency.

lol, the forgery being better than the original, how many times do you see that.

 

[unmerged(15579)]

Not often. If Britain had used any kind of gas on the Germans, Winnie could expect a green cloud over London the next day. I read somewhere the Germans had a huge stockpile of chemical weapons.

 

[unmerged(9531)]

germany had almost as gas as france and england united. But Hitler believe that english stocks were really huge, so he didn't use gas because he was afraid of retaliation.
and churchill reacted exactly like the madman adolf.