The Impact Of Hyperinflation On Weimar Germany

If you enjoy food like bread, then during Weimar Germany’s hyperinflation of 1922, you would have to pay roughly two-to-three billion marks for it (Trueman, 2010). Because of Germany taking all of the blame for WWI, they had to pay approximately thirty-three billion dollars in war reparations, leading to inflation which meant that the German mark was almost worthless. Many pictures show children playing with money, and adults carrying their money in wheelbarrows. This was just one of the many events that had changed and formed the culture of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

When Germany made their prices rise to match the inflation, things got out of control, and prices went up quicker than people could spend their money (Trueman, 2010). The impact hyperinflation had on Germany was astounding. As mentioned earlier, people had to shop with wheelbarrows full of money just to buy everyday items. Bartering among people became very common, which hadn’t been common since the Medieval times. Lastly, restaurants didn’t even print menus because by the time food had arrived, prices had already gone up (Trueman, 2010). I believe that without the new chancellor, Gustav Stresemann, Germany

After everything that had occurred and had been seen, Europeans were mentally affected. “The Mind has indeed been cruelly wounded; its complaint is heard in the hearts of intellectual man; it passes a mournful judgment on itself. It doubts itself profoundly” (Halsall, 1997). The constant fighting, the gore, and the malnutrition had taken such a toll on Europeans who had fought in that war, that they were almost a completely different person upon returning from battle. I believe that if I were constantly tired and hungry, seeing people around me killed one by one, and having to sit in a trench day after day, I would be so mentally exhausted that there is no way that I would ever act or be the same as I was before I had left for