Document 26-4: Hyperinflation in Germany (1923)

Postwar Economic Crisis in Germany

Hyperinflation in Germany (1923)

The French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 set off a chain of events that had cataclysmic consequences for the German economy. In response to the occupation, the German government ordered the people of the Ruhr to stop working. As the cost of supporting the striking workers and their employers mounted, the government began printing money to meet its obligations. The result was runaway inflation that obliterated the value of the German mark. This German cartoon from 1923 dramatized the impact of inflation on German families. In it, a mother holds up her starving child above a rising sea of bank notes, crying out for bread as she struggles to keep herself from being drowned in the accumulating piles of worthless money.

image

Universal History Archive / UIG / The Bridgeman Art Library.

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