FROM THE DESK OF CLIFF BRADSHAW
Let me tell you what I know about Berlin. Several years before I went to Berlin, there was a war from 1914 to 1918. It was a huge war that happened between several countries. Three million people died in Germany and they lost the war. The economy in Berlin in 1919 was in terrible shape. Germany spent a lot of money on this war and as a result, afterwards everyone was poor. What made Germany’s economy worse was the Versailles Treaty. Versailles Treaty is the peace document signed after the war between Germany and the allied countries. At the Versailles Treaty, Germany lost 13% of its territory, including areas accounting for 16% of coal and 48% of iron ore production. Because they lost the war, Germany had a lot of debt, too. This brought inflation in Germany and everyone suffered. Even a few years after the war, Germany was not able to pay back a debt because some of their most productive regions were taken in the Versailles Treaty. Therefore the government started to print more money to pay reparations they owed, which resulted in a rapid decline in the value of German currency. Germany experienced hyperinflation in 1922. The cost of living in Germany rose twelve times between 1914 and 1922. During the hyperinflation, people had to carry their Marks with a wheelbarrow. I have heard that they had to use a whole wheelbarrow to simply buy a loaf of bread at the worst time. There is a famous story that people burned their bills (German Marks) because they were more valuable to use as fuel than as money. Also, children were playing with Marks as they were nearly worthless. Then, in 1929, the Great Depression happened in my country, the United States. The crash on the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929 affected Germany, too. The number of unemployed people increased, wages fell, and the number of bankruptcies increased daily. In 1929, one-fourth of
Figures 1 and 2: carrying Marks in wheelbarrows
people lost their jobs. The Great Depression had an immediate political impact. It undermined the