Skip to content
Teaching the Holocaust and other Genocides

Document 5: Hyperinflation (1923)

Browse Modules

Home
Berlin Woman Burning Marks for Fuel
A Berlin woman starts the morning fire with marks "not worth the paper they are printed on."
Berlin Bank Vault
 A man in a Berlin bank is surrounded by a massive   wall of money which is stacked nearly floor to ceiling.

CTSNY_GraphicSeparator_full_2917x200.png

Billion Mark Note
One billion mark note from the Weimar Republic, issued by the Reichsbank in Berlin in 1923

In 1918, a loaf of bread cost just over half a mark. By 1922, the cost had risen to 163 marks for a loaf of bread. By November of 1923, a loaf of bread cost 201,000,000,000 marks. Millions of people faced starvation as a result of the hyperinflation. People such as pensioners who were living on fixed incomes found that prices rose so much faster than their earnings. Even if they could afford to buy food they could not afford the gas to cook it. Faced with the same turbulence as the rest of German society, the Jews maintained a remarkable stability, economic resiliency and a strong social structure. They stood out from the rest, a fact that made it all the easier to justify attacking them.

Sources

Brooman, J., (1985). Weimar Germany 1918–1933. Addison Wesley Longman Limited.