Food Expenses per week in 1914 and 1921  Your family consumes 3 loaves of bread a week  Your family consumes 10 pounds of sausage and 5 pounds of beef a week  Your family consumes 4 pounds of butter and 1 pound of sugar a week  Multiply by 4 for 4 weeks in a months  IGNORE THE FOOD EXPENSES TOTAL ON YOUR SHEET

Goals for today  Define Hyperinflation  Explain the effect of Hyperinflation on the German People  Discuss how Hyperinflation might lead to the rise of Hitler

Scenario: You make the Call  Due to forces beyond your control the US dollar plummets in value. It now costs 20 million dollars to buy a loaf of bread, 5 billion dollars to buy a new iPod and 650 billion dollars to buy a new car. Your life savings of 37,000 dollars is basically worthless, and your job had to let you go due to the poor economy.  Who would you blame? Why?

 What is inflation?  How can inflation be bad?  How can inflation be good?

Hyperinflation Reading Activity  1. Why was Dr. Havenstein’s solution to the economic problem so bad?  2. List 5 crazy things that would happen to ordinary Germans during this time of “Hyperinflation”  3. Who benefited from Hyperinflation?  4. By November 1923 how many marks equaled 1 US dollar? What was the total value of all German currency worth?

In Germany  1914: 4 Marks to 1 US Dollar  1921: 60 Marks to 1 US Dollar  Reparation payments:  2 billion in gold plus 26% of all German exports EACH year

 November 1921: 330 Marks to 1 Dollar  December 1922: 800 Marks to 1 Dollar  January 1923: France occupies Rhineland

HYPERINFLATION!!!! DateMarks to 1 US Dollar Jan ,000 July ,000 Aug ,000,000 Nov ,300,000,000 Nov ,300,000,000,000 Nov ,200,000,000,000

Zero Stroke  The zero stroke disorder was supposedly caused by the dizzying speed of hyperinflation and the calculations required to conduct commerce under its effect. It has been said that during the worst period of hyperinflation that in the time it took to drink a cup of coffee, the price for the cup could double. The fast pace of hyperinflation caused people to quickly buy goods when they received their wages. Workers would demand to be paid at the beginning of the day for their work and after they were paid, they would be given half an hour to run off to buy goods before their earnings became worthless. The requirements to calculate and recalculate commercial transactions in the billions and trillions made it practically impossible to do business in paper Marks

Affects of Zero Stroke  With the price of bread running into billions a loaf the German people have had to get used to counting in thousands of billions. This, according to some German physicians, brought on a new nervous disease known as "zero stroke," or "cipher stroke," which may, however, be classed with neuritis as cipheritis. The persons afflicted with the malady are perfectly normal, except "for a desire to write endless rows of ciphers and engage in computations more involved than the most difficult problems in logarithms”

In Conclusion…..  Your country is humiliated, 13% of its land taken away, its military reduced from arguably the best in the world to a pitiful defense force, your blamed for an entire world war, occupied by your enemies, and forced to give away billions in reparations. The government is unstable, communists riot for power, your unemployed, and your children are starving due to lack of food.  Assuming you had to act through legal means…what would you do?