Essay Database

Newspaper Article: Hyperinflation Hits Germany The Great War resulted in Germany being plunged into debt, owning a total of 144,000 million marks by 1919. The Treaty of Versailles, also from 1919, did not help this, with Germany owing the Allies a total of 20,000 billion gold marks in reparations, the sum having been finally set in May 1921. In July 1922, the German government asked the Allies to suspend the reparation payments, but they were refused. By December 1922, the national debt …

…to stabilize the situation immediately, and called off passive resistance, ordering the workers in the Ruhr to go back to work. In September 1923, reparation payments were resumed and the French agreed to set up a commission to study the problem of the German economy. Then, in November 1923 the Rentenmark was established by the Finance Minister Hans Luther to replace the old mark, and backed by American gold. Mortgage bonds on industrial and agricultural assets covered.