Food Expenses per week in 1914
and 1921
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Your family consumes 3 loaves of bread a week
Your family consumes 10 pounds of sausage and 5
pounds of beef a week
Your family consumes 4 pounds of butter and 1
pound of sugar a week
Multiply by 4 for 4 weeks in a months
IGNORE THE FOOD EXPENSES TOTAL ON YOUR
SHEET
Goals for today



Define Hyperinflation
Explain the effect of Hyperinflation on the German
People
Discuss how Hyperinflation might lead to the rise of
Hitler
Scenario: You make the Call
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
Due to forces beyond your control the US dollar plummets
in value. It now costs 20 million dollars to buy a loaf of
bread, 5 billion dollars to buy a new iPod and 650
billion dollars to buy a new car. Your life savings of
37,000 dollars is basically worthless, and your job had
to let you go due to the poor economy.
Who would you blame? Why?

What is inflation?

How can inflation be bad?

How can inflation be good?
Hyperinflation Reading Activity
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1. Why was Dr. Havenstein’s solution to the economic
problem so bad?
2. List 5 crazy things that would happen to ordinary
Germans during this time of “Hyperinflation”
3. Who benefited from Hyperinflation?
4. By November 1923 how many marks equaled 1
US dollar? What was the total value of all German
currency worth?
In Germany
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1914: 4 Marks to 1 US Dollar
1921: 60 Marks to 1 US Dollar
Reparation payments:
2
billion in gold plus 26% of all German exports EACH
year
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November 1921: 330 Marks to 1 Dollar
December 1922: 800 Marks to 1 Dollar
January 1923: France occupies Rhineland
HYPERINFLATION!!!!
Date
Marks to 1 US Dollar
Jan. 1923
7,000
July 1923
160,000
Aug. 1923
1,000,000
Nov. 1 1923
1,300,000,000
Nov. 15 1923
1,300,000,000,000
Nov. 16 1923
4,200,000,000,000
Zero Stroke

The zero stroke disorder was supposedly caused by the
dizzying speed of hyperinflation and the calculations required
to conduct commerce under its effect. It has been said that
during the worst period of hyperinflation that in the time it
took to drink a cup of coffee, the price for the cup could
double. The fast pace of hyperinflation caused people to
quickly buy goods when they received their wages. Workers
would demand to be paid at the beginning of the day for
their work and after they were paid, they would be given half
an hour to run off to buy goods before their earnings became
worthless. The requirements to calculate and recalculate
commercial transactions in the billions and trillions made it
practically impossible to do business in paper Marks
Affects of Zero Stroke

With the price of bread running into billions a loaf
the German people have had to get used to
counting in thousands of billions. This, according to
some German physicians, brought on a new nervous
disease known as "zero stroke," or "cipher stroke,"
which may, however, be classed with neuritis as
cipheritis. The persons afflicted with the malady are
perfectly normal, except "for a desire to write
endless rows of ciphers and engage in computations
more involved than the most difficult problems in
logarithms”
In Conclusion…..
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Your country is humiliated, 13% of its land taken away, its
military reduced from arguably the best in the world to a
pitiful defense force, your blamed for an entire world war,
occupied by your enemies, and forced to give away
billions in reparations. The government is unstable,
communists riot for power, your unemployed, and your
children are starving due to lack of food.
Assuming you had to act through legal means…what
would you do?