What caused hyperinflation in Germany in 1923?
Hyperinflation
Die Hyperinflation
1923. Germany had paid for the war largely with borrowed and printed money, and afterwards owed reparations to the Allies.
Where: Germany
What happened
Germany had paid for the war largely with borrowed and printed money, and afterwards owed reparations to the Allies. When France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr in January 1923 over missed deliveries, the government paid the striking workers there by printing still more. Prices rose by the hour; wages were paid daily and spent at once. In November 1923 one US dollar cost 4.2 trillion marks. Savers and pensioners lost everything, while debtors, owners of property and the state itself saw their debts melt away. The Rentenmark, introduced on 15 November 1923, ended the inflation, but the memory is often said to have made Germans wary of inflation ever since.
Say it
Im November 1923 kostete ein Brot Milliarden Mark.
In November 1923 a loaf of bread cost billions of marks.