As the mark plummeted, Germany became caught in an ever-deepening downward spiral. On June 24, 1922, the architect of fulfillment, Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau, one of the most attractive political figures in Germany—cultured, rich, scion of a great industrial family—was gunned down in his car by yet another group of crazed reactionaries. Panic set in. Prices rose fortyfold during 1922 and the mark correspondingly fell from 190 to 7,600 to the dollar.
