Money after money was piling up everywhere. But the next day it was worth practically nothing Photo: Ullstein picture
By Oliver Ohmann
A catastrophic year began 100 years ago. In 1923 a gigantic inflation destroyed all savings. The social and political consequences were terrible.
Inflation was already being felt in January 1923. After the First World War, the government had started to print more and more banknotes. The printing press was used without restraint to pay off war debts and Allied reparation claims. With horrific consequences. The mark continued to lose value, and by the end of the year there was no longer a functioning currency.
Children play with old wads of banknotes. To this day you can find millions and billions of bills at the junk dealer Photo: Ullstein picture
Before the war in 1914, a US dollar cost 4.20 marks and a BZ five pfennigs. In January you had to pay 40 marks for a newspaper, the dollar exchange rate had risen to 18,000 marks. More and more banknotes with more and more zeros were printed. Trains full of banknotes rolled through Germany.
In the summer nobody could be sure that at the end of the day the wages would be enough for even one loaf of bread. At the end of November 1923, the peak of hyperinflation: A BZ cost 150 billion marks, a dollar 4.2 trillion!
500 million mark note issued in September 1923 Photo: picture alliance / World History Archive
All savings had long since been destroyed, only material assets and real estate were worth anything. Only a currency reform with the introduction of the “Rentenmark” ended the financial nightmare in December. Now children were playing with old wads of banknotes as if they were building blocks. To this day, the millions and billions of bills circulate at junk dealers.
Historians today agree that the hyperinflation of 1923, like the economic crisis, played a major role in driving the masses of voters into Hitler’s arms from 1930 onwards.