In the late summer of 1940 as German troops completed their occupation of France, Dr Walther Funk, president of the Reichsbank, proposed a new economic order for the postwar world, based on the primacy of the Reichsmark. John Maynard Keynes, in his role as an economic adviser to the Treasury, was asked to prepare a statement “exposing the fallacious character of the German proposals”.

Keynes did so, but typically turned a challenge into an opportunity, proposing an international currency union. Four years later his ideas were formally adopted at Bretton Woods, leading to the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the other institutions that have overseen more than half a century of sustained growth.