With most of Germany’s closest trade competitors having gained a major competitive advantage through devaluation, the volume of German exports fell between 1931 and 1932 by a further 30 per cent. The hard-won trade surplus of 2.8 billion Reichsmarks in 1931 was slashed within a year to no more than a few hundred million Reichsmarks, and even this precarious balance could only be maintained by further savage reductions in imports.
