The Downfall of Money: Germany’s Hyperinflation and the Destruction of the Middle Class (55 page)

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Authors: Frederick Taylor

Tags: #Business & Money, #Economics, #Inflation, #Money & Monetary Policy, #Finance, #History, #Europe, #Germany, #Professional & Technical, #Accounting & Finance

 
  
2
   See Winkler,
Weimar 1918-1933
, p. 38f.

 
  
3
   Ibid., p. 34.

 
  
4
   Article ‘Die Revolution in Berlin’ reproduced in Ernst Troeltsch,
Die Fehlgeburt einer Republik: Spektator in Berlin 1918 bis 1922
(Zusammengestellt und mit einem Nachwort versehen von Johann Hinrich Claussen), Frankfurt-on-Main, 1944, p. 5.

 
  
5
   Ebert’s speech to the National Assembly in Weimar, 6 February 1919 in
Verhandlungen der verfassungsgebenden Deutschen Nationalversammlung
, Stenographische Berichte Bd. 326 pp. 2–3 (available online at http://www.reichstagsprotokolle.de).

Chapter 6: Fourteen Points

 

 
  
1
   Text of Armistice reproduced in
Manchester Guardian
, 12 November 1918. Available online (slightly differing from the cited text) at
http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/armisticeterms.htm
.

 
  
2
   For the announcement of this false dawn see
Manchester Guardian
, 16 December 1918, p. 4.

 
  
3
   Feldman,
The Great Disorder
, p. 103.

 
  
4
   Ibid., pp. 99ff. for this and the following.

 
  
5
   Quoted in ibid., p. 101.

 
  
6
   ‘Mangin at Mainz: Plight of Returning Prisoners’, in
Manchester Guardian
,8 January 1919, p. 6.

 
  
7
   Quoted in Robert McCrum, ‘French Economic Policy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919’, in
The Historical Journal
, vol. 21, no. 3 (Sept. 1978), p. 631.

 
  
8
   ‘Hungry German Cities: The Internal Blockade’, in
Manchester Guardian
, 22 January 1919, p. 6.

 
  
9
   ‘Wiesbaden Still a Luxury Town’, in
Manchester Guardian
, 28 January 1919, p. 4.

 
10
   Feldman
, The Great Disorder
, p. 101.

 
11
   Quoted in Monika Woitas, Annette Hartmann (eds),
Strawinskys, ‘Motor Drive’
, Munich, 2009, p. 145.

 
12
   Ernst Engelbrecht and Leo Heller,
Die Kinder der Nacht: Bilder aus dem Verbrecherleben
, Berlin-Neu-Finkenkrug, 1925, chapter

Berliner Schwoof’, p. 140f.

 
13
   See Haffner,
Geschichte eines Deutschen
, p. 39f. and for a different point of view H. W. Koch,
Der deutsche Bürgerkrieg: Eine Geschichte der deutschen und österreichischen Freikorps 1918-1923
, Berlin and Frankfurt-on-Main, 1978, pp. 43ff.

 

Chapter 7: Bloodhounds

 

 
  
1
   For the development of early ‘Free Corps’ units in the autumn of 1918 see Koch,
Der deutsche Bürgerkrieg
, p. 45f.

 
  
2
   Haffner,
Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19
, p. 134. Koch,
Der deutsche Bürgerkrieg
, p. 48, prefers the more nonchalant version of Ebert’s response.

 
  
3
   Winkler,
Weimar 1918-1933
, p. 54f.

 
  
4
   Kessler,
Diaries of a Cosmopolitan
, p. 51.

 
  
5
   Johannes Fischart, ‘Politiker und Publizisten XLII: Karl Liebknecht’, in
Die Weltbühne
Jahrgang XIV Nr. 51, 19 Dezember 1918, p. 573. Johannes Fischart was a pseudonym for the prolific journalist Erich Dombrowski (1889
-
1972).

 
  
6
   Winkler,
Weimar 1918-1933
,
p. 50.

 
  
7
   For a particularly clear and concise account of the January uprising, see Hajo Holborn,
Deutsche Geschichte in der Neuzeit: Das Zeitalter des Imperialismus (1871-1945)
, Munich, 1971, Bd. 3, pp. 309ff. Sequence of events here based on Holborn except where otherwise indicated.

 
  
8
   Kessler,
Diaries of a Cosmopolitan
, p. 55.

 
  
9
   See Haff
ner
, Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19
, p. 139, and Winkler,
Weimar 1918-1933
, p. 56f.

 
10
   Quoted in Haffner,
Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19
, p. 150.

 
11
   See ibid., p. 158.

 

Chapter 8: Diktat

 

 
  
1
   Morgan Philips Price,
Dispatches from the Weimar Republic: Versailles and German Fascism
(ed. Tania Rose), London and Sterling, VA, 1999, p. 31.

 
  
2
   LeMo Kollektives Gedächtnis, ‘Revolution und Wahl 1918/19’, contribution from Henning Wenzel (b. 1910) at
http://www.dhm.de/lemo/forum/kollektives_gedaechtnis/weimar.html

 
  
3
   See Rolf Hosfeld and Hermann Pölking,
Wir Deutschen: 1918 bis 1929, Vom Kriegsende bis zu den goldenen Zwanzigern
, Munich and Zürich, 2009, p. 67.

 
  
4
   Ibid., p. 49f.

 
  
5
   See Emil Julius Gumbel’s list of political murders in Germany between 1918 and 1922, published in 1922 as
Vier Jahre politischer Mord
and available online at
http://www.deutsche-revolution.de/revolution-1918-102.html
. Gumbel (1891
-
1966) was a Bavarian statistician and political writer, himself subjected to death threats and forced to emigrate after the Nazi seizure of power to the USA.

 
  
6
   From Josef Hofmiller, ‘
Revolutionstagebuch
’, in
Josef Hofmillers Schriften,
Bd. 2, p. 226, available through the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek digital collection at
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0001/bsb00016411/images/index.html?id=00016411&fip=193.174.98.30&no=&seite=226
. The man’s name is misspelled as ‘Reichardt’ throughout, but has been corrected in the quoted text.

 
  
7
   Kessler,
Diaries of a Cosmopolitan
,
p. 85.

 
  
8
   George Grosz, trans. Arnold J. Pomerans,
A Small Yes and a Big No!
, London and New York, 1982, p. 93.

 
  
9
   ‘Revolution und Inflation: Hermann Zander geb. 1897 erzählt’, at the website Kollektives Gedächtnis,
http://www.kollektives-gedaechtnis.de
/.

 
10
   Margaret MacMillan,
Peacemakers: Six Months that Changed the World
, London, 2002, p. 471. For the ‘life-raft’ observation and for the following quote from Ellis Dresel.

 
11
   See Marc Trachtenberg, ‘Versailles after Sixty Years’, in
Journal of Contemporary History
, vol. 17, no. 3 (July 1982)
passim
for the argument and p. 491 for the quotation.

 
12
   Ibid., p. 474.

 
13
   Ibid., pp. 474
-
6.

 
14
   David Lloyd George,
The Truth about the Peace Treaties
, London, 1938, vol. 1, p. 684.

 
15
   
LeMo
Kollektives
Gedächtnis,
Aufzeichnung aus dem Tagebuch des jüdischen Fabrikanten Oskar Münsterberg (1865-1920) aus Berlin
(DHM-Bestand), online at
http://www.dhm.de/lemo/forum/kollektives_gedaechtnis/weimar.html

 
16
   Text of Versailles Treaty available at
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/partviii.asp
.

 
17
   Quoted in MacMillan,
Peacemakers
, p. 478.

 
18
   Ibid., p. 479.

 
19
   See Antony Lentin, ‘Treaty of Versailles: Was Germany Guilty?’, in
History Today
, vol. 62, issue 1, 2012. 

 
20
   Hosfeld and Pölking,
Wir Deutschen: 1918 bis 1929
, p. 71.

 
21
   Quoted in H. A. Winkler,
Der Lange Weg Nach Westen: Deutsche Geschichte vom Ende des Alten Reiches bis zum Untergang der Weimarer Republik
, Munich, 2002, p. 399.

 
22
   MacMillan,
Peacemakers
, p. 480.

 
23
   Winkler,
Weimar 1918-1933
, p. 93.

 
24
   Ibid., p. 95.

 
25
   MacMillan,
Peacemakers
, pp. 484ff. And for the following.

 
26
   Quoted from article ‘Die Aufnahme der Friedensbedingungen’, in Troeltsch,
Die Fehlgeburt einer Republik
, p. 44.

 
27
   Kessler,
Diaries of a Cosmopolitan
, p. 103.

 
28
   Feldman,
The Great Disorder
, p. 160. And for the following quote.

 

Chapter 9: social Peace at Any Price?

 

 
  
1
   Details of Stinnes’s biography available in an English translation of an article in the
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
, 22 November 1920, by Johannes Fischart (see n5, Chapter 7, for his comments about Liebknecht in
Die Weltbühne
), reproduced under the title ‘Hugo Stinnes: An Industrial Ludendorff’, in the American magazine
The Living Age
, 15 January 1921. Retrievable at
http://www.unz.org/Pub/LivingAge-1921jan15-00148
. Also for this quotation and following biographical details.

 
  
2
   See Feldman,
The Great Disorder
, p. 106f.

 
  
3
   Quoted in Bessel,
Germany After the First World War
, p. 143.

 
  
4
   See Winkler,
Weimar 1918-1933
, p. 45f.

 
  
5
   Feldman,
The Great Disorder
, p. 109, quoting Fritz Tänzler, Director of the Federation of German Employer Organisations (
Vereinigung Deutscher Arbeitgeberverbände
),
addressing his colleagues on 18 December 1918.

 
  
6
   See Feldman,
The Great Disorder
, p. 107f for a summary of the discussion between Legien and Walther Rathenau of AEG, 11 November 1918, in which Rathenau, as an employer, questioned whether such an agreement was wise from the unions’ point of view.

 
  
7
   See Bessel,
Germany After the First World War
, pp. 144ff.

 
  
8
   Feldman,
The Great Disorder
, p. 119.

 
  
9
   Ibid., p. 117f.

 
10
   Ibid., p. 121.

 
11
   Text of Weimar Constitution available online (in German) at
http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/dokumente/verfassung/index.html
. (Translation by the author.)

 
12
   Ibid., p. 127.

 
13
   Eric D. Weitz,
Weimar Germany
:
Promise and Tragedy
, Princeton, NJ, and Oxford, 2009, Paderborn, 1978, p. 21f.

 
14
   See F.-W. Henning,
Das Industrialisierte Deutschland 1914 bis 1976
, p. 54.

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