Fast Thawers

Preceded by European legends of fabulous wealth and lavish living, a big black-haired Briton and a little, grey-haired German arrived in Manhattan last week to do business in frozen German credits. Lieut.-Colonel Francis Norris and Siegfried Wreszynski established headquarters at Manhattan's swank Savoy-Plaza Hotel. "We don't take all the business that comes to us," they declared to reporters. "Perhaps $5,000,000 would be too small. It is just as much trouble to handle $5,000,000 as $100,000,000." They had, they boasted, liquidated a total of $300,000,000 for foreign holders of credits impounded by the German Government.

"There is no mystery whatever," said Colonel Norris, who was once secretary to Britain's onetime Postmaster-General Sir Charles Hobhouse, and they deprecated tall tales of the swath they had cut across the Continent. "You see we have only five rooms at the Savoy-Plaza and we should have more with all the business we do," piped Siegfried Wreszynski. "And the telephone is proving a nuisance," said the Colonel. "People arrive in their offices in London, Brussels and Amsterdam at 10:30, and they call us up at the Savoy-Plaza. They don't realize it is 6 a. m. here. We had to refuse calls . . . to get sleep. The business we've stirred up in the last two years abroad follows us here, you see."

These two fast thawers of frozen credit politely refused to reveal their method of transferring marks out of Germany. All big banks with German connections know how to wangle marks into dollars, francs or pounds but the process (quite legal) is a deep trade secret and each bank has its own system. Highly involved, it usually entails purchasing marks at a big discount from holders of frozen credits, then selling the marks to people who are forced to buy or travel in Germany. But Messrs. Wreszynski & Norris will pay more for their marks than legitimate bankers, sometimes 2%, sometimes 10% they say, depending on the individual deal. Last week Manhattan banks which furnish a thawing service regarded the high-powered gentlemen at the Savoy-Plaza with astonishment. As for talk of a $300,000,000 turnover, the bankers laughed.

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