The Downfall of Money
Germany's Hyperinflation and the Destruction of the Middle Class
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A timely narrative account of the biggest financial crisis in modern history and its human consequences by the author of Dresden and The Berlin Wall.
'Excellent … This is a dramatic story, well told' Wall Street Journal
Many theorists believed a hundred years ago, just as they did at the beginning of our twenty-first century, that the world had reached a state of economic perfection, a never before seen condition of beneficial human interdependence that would lead to universal growth and prosperity. And yet the early years of the Weimar Republic in Germany witnessed the most complete and terrifying unravelling of a major country's financial system to have occurred in modern times.
The story of the Weimar Republic's financial crisis has a clear resonance in the second decade of the twenty-first century, when the world is anxious once more about what money is, what it means and how we can judge if its value is true. The Downfall of Money will tell anew the dramatic story of the hyperinflation that saw the once-solid German mark, worth 4.2 to the dollar in 1914, trading at over four trillion by the autumn of 1923. It is a trajectory of events uncomfortably relevant for today's uncertain world.
The Downfall of Money will reveal the real causes of the crisis, what this collapse meant to ordinary people, and also trace its connection to Germany's subsequent catastrophic political history. By drawing on a wide range of sources and making sense for the general reader of the vast amount of specialist research that has become available in recent decades, it will provide a timely, fresh and surprising look at this chilling period in history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British historian Taylor (Dresden) adds to a solid body of work on 20th-century Germany with this chilling account of the human face of hyperinflation in the 1920s Weimar Republic. Many blame the collapse of the German mark on the reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, yet Taylor argues that it was the Second Empire's decision to finance WWI primarily by borrowing that led to the economic catastrophe. Postwar uprisings on the left and right further destabilized the country's fragile, young government and diminished confidence in its already-shaky currency. The mark's value began to tumble, and once the fall gained momentum, "the only way now was down." Prices rose 50% a month. Hyperinflation made Germany a "paradise for anyone who owed money"; citizens at all levels of society discovered that their fiscal prudence had been for naught. The result was a "war of all against all" and a society of "starving billionaires," where a doorman received a million-mark tip, a life's savings bought a subway ticket, and a girl's virginity was something to barter. The government eventually managed to sufficiently stabilize the currency and foster a sense of hope, but the disaster had already fatally weakened the mutual trust essential to democracy. The beneficiary would be Hitler. B&w images throughout.
