Throughout the growing history of Germany they continued to fight battle after battle and struggle after struggle to get to where they are today. In particular, from 1914- 1923 Germany went through a period of complete devastation. After World War I Germany was left to pay 132 billion marks in gold with six percent interest as reparation payments for ‘losing’ the war as if the war itself was not already costly enough (209). As Germany refused these payments, France moved in to forcefully take the money by occupying the Ruhr district and taking Germany’s coal straight from the mines (210). This was the beginning of a disaster. Without the coal coming from their own soil, Germany had to buy from abroad costing them a lot of money they did not have. This ran up a huge debt in the government which in turn the government printed more money. With the printing of more money, inflation sky-rocketed (210). In the United States we understand inflation and can relate when we look at our struggling economy, but we have never seen inflation as Germany had it at this time. People would convert their wages immediately into goods because in only a couple hours later that same amount of money would buy you almost nothing. For example, if you wanted to exchange one U.S. dollar with German marks, the equivalent would be somewhere around 240 million marks per one U.S. dollar. The situation was so bad for the people of Germany that they went back to the old ways of bartering (210). I cannot imagine living in this time of struggle and would have absolutely no idea what to do in this situation. German’s view of themselves and others most likely changed a lot during this time. Before they were strong and fought for what they wanted, but now the people were just waiting for anyone to stand up and pull them out of this deep hole they dug themselves into. Their view of Britain and France was most likely filled with hatred and disgust, but at the same time they couldn’t do anything about it. They went from being so powerful and confident in their growing country to unsure and dependent. In August of 1923, Gustav Stresemann became chancellor and took the first step to repairing broken Germany with capitulation (210). Unfortunately, Germany was beginning to separate. Rhinelanders wanted to secede and Saxony and Thuringia were forming their own government systems and armies. People were beginning to think of anything to save themselves from this economic downfall. Luckily, Stresemann sent in the army and stopped this separation and helped to keep the country together (211). General von Seeckt also took charge when he saw Germany headed for rock bottom. He knew his first step was to stabilize the mark by prohibiting the printing of more bank notes. This would help to stop the increasing rate of inflation. He introduced to the country the Rentenmark and the Rentenbank, which had no negative history behind it like the previous mark. The people established trust in this new currency knowing it could only help them (211). After a stabilizing the mark, things really started to look brighter in the future for Germany. Britain and France had new governments in power that were more caring toward German’s wants and needs and all together it looked as if this period of hardship was coming to an end (212). I think Bernhard Harms, an economist at University of Kiel, said it very well when he said, “If we cannot achieve heaven on earth, at least we can reach for the stars.” (213). This shows us that although Germany and all other countries may never be perfect and there will always be areas of hardship and struggle, there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel and we should keep pushing on. Germany was beginning to give up and lose sight of what they truly wanted as individual states were separating and forming governments of their own. If they would have separated and given up, Germany could be a completely different place than it is today.
One dollar was worth millions of marks during this time of inflation.