Posted on 09/28/2010 6:49:01 AM PDT by C19fan
World War One finally ends for Germany on Sunday - 92 years after the guns fell silent and nearly nine million men lay dead - as it pays off the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies. A final payment of 69.9 million euros, or £59.3 million, writes off the crippling debt which was the price for one world war - and laid the foundations for another.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
This crippling debt was the origin of the inflation,
the rise of Hitler and ultimately the cause of WWII in Europe.
Amazing,,,, While it’s nearly impossible to see the German view in WWII, in WWI,,, They were almost the opposite of the villian they were cast as. If i was a modern German, i wouldn’t like paying anyone for anything havving to do with WWI.
Im curious if the USA is paying anything equally ridiculous that we are generally unaware of?
Interesting coincidence....I just happen to buy a 1923 Weimar Republic 5 million mark note on eBay yesterday to collect as an example of past historical instances of hyperinflation. Something I think we’ll unfortunately get to experience first hand with the American dollar in the not too distant future.
The WWI Imperial Germans were not Nazis, but they weren’t angels either.
“Im curious if the USA is paying anything equally ridiculous that we are generally unaware of?”
Obamacare
Stimulous
Welfare
Any benefits to illegal aliens
Endless “research” into inane topics like “chocolate is good” “chocolate is bad”
on and on and on....
I have a collection of hyperinflation notes including Weimar Republic. 5 million was chump change back then, hee hee.
Well, we're still paying for the commies left over after not rolling on through Soviet Russia after wiping out the Nazis.
A wheelbarrow full would get you a loaf of bread, right? Or was that just the regular marks before the hyperinflated note?
BTW, what's the largest 1923 Weimar mark denominated bill you have in your collection?
The unintended consequences of their treatment afterwards is well known.
You mean they paid!? What an old fashioned idea. They should have just walked away.
Wow, amazing,, what a cool thing to actually have. A little piece of history there. You should keeep it in your wallet. Someday, someone will mention the Weimar inflation,, you can pull it out and blow their mind.
What Germany was guilty of was allowing Lenin to return to Russia. 100 million paid for that.
If my memory is right I have a half a trillion Weimar mark note.
Foreign aid? Wars?
The great thing these notes are pretty cheap maybe $1-$2 per note. I use the joke I am a billionaire and whip out the note, hee hee.
The debt was not "crippling" and was quite payable without undue stress on the German economy.
The amount was much less per annum that the German government had been paying to support its military establishment.
Since the Treaty of Versailles had reduced the German military to a small fraction of its previous size, it was basically a matter of shifting expenses to reparation payments from munitions.
The reparations were payable in kind - in coal, timber, iron, etc. - so the program actually boosted employment.
What spurred the hyper-inflation is this: German Chancellor Cuno deliberately failed to deliver timber and coal to France in a timely fashion because his government was frustrated by the cavalier attitude shown by the French toward Germany.
Rather than negotiate with Germany, French Prime Minister Poincare declared this maneuver a full default and invoked the Treaty to send in an occupying French force into Germany's Ruhr region.
French industry had become dependent upon German deliveries and Germany knew this.
Humiliated by the French occupation and the failure of the other powers to convince France to negotiate, the German central bank began to print money for payment of debt rather than send commodities, in a deliberate policy of trying to slow down French industrial production and impair France's economy.
It spiraled out of control from there.
Germany didn’t start the war. Austria Hungary did. What a bunch of crap.
And it was Austrians that drove the creation of the Nazi Party.
As the old joke goes, "Austria-Still trying to convince the world that Beethoven was Austrian, and that Hitler was German."
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