The "golden twenties were also the years of the hyperinflation in Germany, especially between 1921 and 1924, and more dramatically the year 1923, when prices rose ridiculously rapidly from day to day and even from hour to hour.
I knew a gentleman who lived these years in Cologne. He told me of a day when he was sent to the hairdresser with a bundle of notes to pay for his haircut. But the shop was just closing. So he came back in the afternoon to learn that his bundle wasn't enough any more. The cut, which cost ten millions of marks before noon, now demanded twelve millions. And at the moment of closing the shop, the price had reached fourteen millions.
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Museum of the city of Baden-Baden
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The inflation issue is excellently explained in the novel "Der schwarze obelisk", my favorite by Erich Maria Remarque.
ReplyDeleteThank you, I knew Remarque of course but not that novel.
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