Weimar hyperinflation

Date

1922 to 1923 (peak November 1923)

Category

Economy & trade

Region

Central Europe (Germany)

Era

Modern

Significance

Burdened by war debt and the reparations imposed at Versailles, and after the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923 prompted the government to print money to fund passive resistance, Germany experienced one of history's most extreme hyperinflations.

The mark, which had traded at roughly four to the US dollar before the war, collapsed to about 4.2 trillion to the dollar by 20 November 1923. Prices doubled within hours, wages were paid twice daily, and savings, pensions, and fixed incomes were annihilated, devastating the German middle class. Stabilisation came in mid-November 1923 when the Reichsbank ceased monetising government debt and issued a new currency, the Rentenmark. The episode bred lasting distrust of the Weimar Republic and a deep aversion to inflation in German political culture, and is widely cited as a factor in the later appeal of extremist movements.

Empires active in 1922 to 1923 (peak November 1923)

• Empire of Japan
  1868 CE to 1947 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE to 1962 CE
• Soviet Union
  1922 CE to 1991 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE to 1997 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE to 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE to 1999 CE

Related economy & trade events

• Wall Street Crash and onset of the Great Depression
  24 to 29 October 1929
• Soviet First Five-Year Plan and forced collectivisation
  1928 to 1933
• Cárdenas Nationalises Mexico's Oil
  1938
• Bretton Woods Conference creates the IMF and World Bank
  1 to 22 July 1944
• The Panic of 1873 and the Long Depression
  1873 to 1896
• The Australian gold rushes begin
  1851

Essential reading

• Haber-Bosch Process Industrialises Synthetic Nitrogen Fertiliser
  September 1913
• 1931 Central China Floods
  June to August 1931
• The Dust Bowl
  1930 to 1940 (peak 1934 to 1936)
• Cárdenas Nationalises Mexico's Oil
  1938

Further reading

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

The wider story

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Peter Frankopan

Best-selling world history told through the trade routes that moved goods, faiths and ideas.

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