The destruction in the value of savings particularly hit the middle classes in Germany. Here is where there were some winners from hyperinflation. Particularly anyone with debts who found that they were easily repayable as the value of these debts did not increase either. Company Reg no: VAT reg no Main menu. Subjects Shop Courses Live Jobs board.
View shopping cart. The rush to buy is now practically over as prices on the whole have been raised to meet the new level of exchange. In almost every camera shop, however, the sight of a Japanese eagerly purchasing is still a common feature. But on the whole, as far as Berlin is concerned, it is the Germans themselves who are doing most of the retail buying and laying in stores for fear of a further rise in prices or a total depletion of stocks.
It appeared at a conference in December that the Allied powers finally were realizing that holding Germany to the following year's reparation payments were unrealistic. This led to a surge in the mark:. This consideration sent a wave of confidence crashing dangerously back through the exchanges — confidence that at last the intolerable blight on the financial system would be removed. On December 1, , the mark soared upwards, regaining a quarter of its November value.
By the time it reached to the pound against its November average of 1, the paper-mark prices of many stocks and shares, although still well above the levels of December , had declined by half or more By the end of , workers had lost so much faith in the government that many just stopped voting.
The economic hardships brought about by inflation were evident in everyday prices:. In the eight years since , the price of rye bread had risen by 13 times; of beef by Those were the commodities which had fared best. Sugar, milk at 4. These were only the official prices — real prices were often a third higher — and all these prices were roughly half as much again as in October, only two months before.
When the mark was strong, companies went bankrupt as share prices plummeted. Thus, an inverse correlation was established:. The figures were the most indicative; for in comparing the number of bankruptcies during the various months of the year it could be shown that a falling mark was associated with a decline in bankruptcies, and vice-versa.
The largest number, , was in the spring when the mark stood highest; but after it reached its lowest in November the number was The Frankfurter Zeitung commented: 'It gives some inkling of the awful debacle which may be expected if a rapid and permanent improvement of the mark actually takes place.
Owners of large industrial conglomerates benefitted from the inflation, so they constantly reminded the populace that amid the economic chaos, employment was still very high:.
Hugo Stinnes himself, the richest and most powerful industrialist in Germany, whose empire of over one-sixth of the country's industry had been largely built on the advantageous foundation of an inflationary economy, paraded a social conscience shamelessly.
He justified inflation as the means of guaranteeing full employment, not as something desirable but simply as the only course open to a benevolent government. It was, he maintained, the only way whereby the life of the people could be sustained In the summer of the small businessman saw his enemy in the big businessman, personified by Herr Stinnes, 'the greatest obstacle to currency reform', as Lord D'Abernon described him.
Walter Rathenau was a the German foreign minister, and he was often linked to the unpopular stance that Germany should find a way to pay its reparations. He was not trusted by the right-wingers in government. Rathenau, a Jew like Erzberger, had just undergone, like Erzberger, a vitriolic attack in the Reichstag from the Rightist leader Dr Helfferich. A few hours later, as Rathenau was driven from his home to the Foreign Office, the path of his car was blocked deliberately by another, while two assassins in a third car which had been following riddled him with bullets at close range.
A bomb, thrown into his car for good measure, nearly cut his body in two. It is no exaggeration to say that cultured German men and women of high social standing openly advocate the political murder of Jews as a legitimate weapon of defence. They admit, it is true, that the murder of Rathenau was of doubtful advantage Even in Frankfort, with a prepondering Jewish population, the movement is so strong that Jews of social standing are being asked to resign their appointments on the boards of companies A confidential memorandum prepared for the Chancellor of Germany regarding the incident indicated suspicion that someone behind the scenes was trying to impede the government's ability to print money:.
An extraordinary amount of paper money had been needed in June, causing the Reichsbank to issue 11, milliard marks in new notes.
Owing to strikes, the usual inflow of these notes back into the bank had not happened, so that there were none in reserve In spite of the readiness of the trade unions to go ahead with the new paper, the printers themselves suddenly withdrew their consent. It seemed probable that hidden and illicit leaders were trying to seize the State by the throat. In a strange move, the German government decided to go on holiday, which destroyed confidence and exacerbated the crisis:.
At what might otherwise have been the height of the immediate crisis at the end of July , the Reparations Commission decided to take its summer holidays, effectively postponing any settlement of the exchange turmoil until mid-August; and [French prime minister] M.
Poincare, bent as ever it was believed on Germany's destruction, sent a Note to Berlin accusing the government of wilful default on its debts, and threatening 'retortion'. The effect on the financial situation was calamitous. The rise in prices intensified the demand for currency, both by the State and by other employers The panic spread to the working classes when they realised that their wages were simply not available.
The disadvantaged middle class was the class that maintained communication with the outside world, so foreigners' view of the domestic situation in Germany was especially downbeat:.
Since these were fixed according to the average rate paid to [a chauffeur's] class of worker, [the chauffeur] was not suffering unduly except in so far as wage rises, a monthly occurrence by this time, always lagged a little behind price rises which took place weekly, if not daily.
This was the case for the vast mass of artisans and workmen, but of course It was from this latter group Inflation was soaring by Autumn of , and the working class began to lose their edge:.
Already, however, a new element had joined the economic crisis. For the first time the wages paid for labour began to lag behind the rise in prices, noticeably and seriously, in spite of everything the monopoly of the unions could do about it. President Ebert, pleading Basic staples were becoming increasingly out of reach as the mark plunged and German consumers lost an extraordinary amount of purchasing power:. A litre of milk, which had cost 7 marks in April and 16 in August, by mid-September cost 26 marks.
Beer had climbed from 5. A single egg, 3. Overall, were killed and approximately , expelled from the area. The immediate consequences of the occupation were not good for the Weimar government — they decided to print more money to pay the workers in the region, contributing to hyperinflation.
A general strike when all the workers in the country stopped work was called, and political instability was rife. Hyperinflation Germany was already suffering from high levels of inflation due to the effects of the war and the increasing government debt.
In order to pay the striking workers the government simply printed more money. This flood of money led to hyperinflation as the more money was printed, the more prices rose.
Prices ran out of control, for example a loaf of bread, which cost marks in January , had risen to , million marks in November The flight from currency that had begun with the buying of diamonds, gold, country houses, and antiques now extended to minor and almost useless items -- bric-a-brac, soap, hairpins.
The law-abiding country crumbled into petty thievery. Copper pipes and brass armatures weren't safe. Gasoline was siphoned from cars. People bought things they didn't need and used them to barter -- a pair of shoes for a shirt, some crockery for coffee.
Berlin had a "witches' Sabbath" atmosphere. Prostitutes of both sexes roamed the streets. Cocaine was the fashionable drug. In the cabarets the newly rich and their foreign friends could dance and spend money. Other reports noted that not all the young people had a bad time.
Their parents had taught them to work and save, and that was clearly wrong, so they could spend money, enjoy themselves, and flout the old. The publisher Leopold Ullstein wrote: "People just didn't understand what was happening.
All the economic theory they had been taught didn't provide for the phenomenon. There was a feeling of utter dependence on anonymous powers -- almost as a primitive people believed in magic -- that somebody must be in the know, and that this small group of 'somebodies' must be a conspiracy.
By November , with one dollar equal to one trillion Marks, the breakdown was complete. The currency had lost meaning. What happened immediately afterward is as fascinating as the Great Inflation itself.
The tornado of the Mark inflation was succeeded by the "miracle of the Rentenmark. The Rentenmark was not Schacht's idea, but he executed it, and as the Reichsbank president, he got the credit for it.
For decades afterward he was able to maintain a reputation for financial wizardry. He became the architect of the financial prosperity brought by the Nazi party. Obviously, though the currency was worthless, Germany was still a rich country -- with mines, farms, factories, forests.
The backing for the Rentenmark was mortgages on the land and bonds on the factories, but that backing was a fiction; the factories and land couldn't be turned into cash or used abroad. Nine zeros were struck from the currency; that is, one Rentenmark was equal to one billion old Marks. The Germans wanted desperately to believe in the Rentenmark, and so they did.
0コメント