By the fall of 1922, Germany could no longer afford to make the reparations payments, and the mark was practically worthless. It was decided that the reparations would then be paid in goods, such as coal, and toward that end, in January 1923, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr. Workers in the Ruhr subsequently went on strike; the government responded by printing more money to pay them for their passive resistance. By November 1923, the value of the mark against the U.S. dollar was 4,210,500,000,000 to 1. In this environment of economic catastrophe, political destabilization and
...more
Hyperinflation
