Hyperinflation In 20th Century Germany

Throughout history, the men that took charge and demanded change were the ones who proved to be most successful and powerful. In 20th century Germany, Adolf Hitler proved to be this man. He used the anger of the German people towards the Weimar Government for signing the Treaty of Versailles to his advantage. Hitler also exploited the economic struggles of Germany and the hardships of the German people during 1920s and 30s. Finally, Hitler spread the Nazi message to a weakened and shattered German population to get the people to vote for his fascist ideals. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in 20th century Germany because they were able to manipulate the weaknesses of the Weimar Government. The German people blamed the Weimar Government …show more content…
When Germany missed a reparation payment of telephone poles to France, their precious mining land was taken from them. In effect, 30% of the German working population was unemployed. The high unemployment rates were mostly due to the loss of Saar and the dramatic reduction of the German military. Without any mining land left in their possession, the Weimar Government had to print excess money in order to pay their reparations. In 1914, the German Mark compared to the US dollar was approximately 4:1. This changed to 4,000,000,000,000:1 in 1923 after all of the new currency they had to make. At the end of 1923, the German mark was essentially worthless. People had to spend all of their money and life savings on food, water, and the necessities to survive. The Weimar Government could not fix this problem on their own, so they looked for outside forces to help. An american man had an idea to fix the German financial struggles and called it the Dawes Plan. The Dawes Plan stated that the US would loan Germany a substantial amount of money to kick start Germany’s economy and then the Germans would pay back the USA with interest. This plan worked and for a while the German mark was worth more than it had before World War I. Unfortunately, when the great depression hit, the US was no longer able to send money to Germany, holding them farther back from re-industrialization. This frightened the German people because once again the Weimar Government could not support the working people. At this point, extreme ideologies looked really good to the Germans. The Nazi party had 44% of the power in the Reichstag post Great Depression as opposed to 6.5% before the Great Depression. Clearly, after the Hyperinflation of the 20’s and Great Depression of the 30’s, the German people were fed up