During the war years Germany left the gold standard, accumulated a large stock of domestic and foreign debts, began the practice of money printing to finance its ever-growing fiscal deficits, and experienced its first bout of currency depreciation and inflation. Based on their experience of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Germans had expected the war to be short, and they assumed it would ultimately be paid for by large indemnities levied on the defeated Allied powers. Instead it turned out to be an extremely long and expensive affair that was financed primarily through domestic debt, and
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