The Weimar Republic and Hyperinflation
Germany's first democracy produces a cultural golden age, but hyperinflation and depression help destroy it.
- The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 — Gerald D. Feldman, Oxford University Press (1993)
- The Coming of the Third Reich — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2003)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
The republic’s constitution, written in the small city of Weimar in 1919, was one of the most democratic of its age, and women voted for the first time that year. Berlin in the 1920s became a world capital of art, film, science and nightlife: the Bauhaus, Brecht, Einstein, Marlene Dietrich.
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
- The Coming of the Third Reich — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2003)
But the republic was attacked from both left and right from the start, with uprisings, putsches and political murders. War debts and reparations fed inflation, and when France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr in January 1923 over missed deliveries, the government printed money to pay striking workers. By November 1923 one US dollar cost about 4.2 trillion marks. Life savings vanished, and the middle classes felt betrayed by the state. A new currency stabilised prices within months.
- The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 — Gerald D. Feldman, Oxford University Press (1993)
After a few better years, the Great Depression struck. Unemployment reached about six million by early 1932. Voters turned to extremes: the Nazis won 37% in July 1932, the largest share they ever won in a free election. Conservative elites, thinking they could control him, persuaded President Hindenburg to appoint Adolf Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933.
- The Coming of the Third Reich — Richard J. Evans, Penguin (2003)
- A History of Germany 1918–2014: The Divided Nation — Mary Fulbrook, Wiley-Blackwell (2015)
Why it matters today
"Weimar" is shorthand in Germany for a democracy that failed. Its lessons are built into the postwar constitution: a strong chancellor, a ban on parties that seek to abolish democracy, and a 5% threshold for parliament. The trauma of 1923 helps explain why many Germans are famously wary of inflation and public debt, and why the Bundesbank and the euro's rules were built around price stability.