In 1914 a dollar cost 4.20 marks in Berlin. On 20 November 1923 it cost 4.2 trillion

01Berlin, 1914–1921

From 4.20 marks to 65 was only the beginning

In July 1914, the month the war began, a US dollar cost 4.20 marks on the Berlin exchange. By January 1921 it cost 64.91. Bad, but a long way from what came next.

On 20 November 1923 the official Berlin quotation was 4,200,000,000,000 marks: exactly a trillion times the rate of 1914. The Statistisches Reichsamt, Germany’s statistical office, published the whole series in 1925, month by month and day by day. Every rate in this story comes from its tables.

03Berlin, November 1923

A tram ride cost 10 pfennigs in 1913. From 22 November 1923 it cost 150 billion marks

The Reichsamt printed the Berlin tram company’s single fare for every change: 10 pfennigs in 1913, 1 mark from 3 March 1921, 1.5 billion marks from 27 October 1923.

Then, in November, the fare went up ten times in three weeks. Converted at the dollar rate, the final 150 billion was 15 gold pfennigs, against 10 in 1913. In gold the fare had risen by half. In paper marks it had risen 1.5 trillion times.

Firms went from paying wages weekly to paying them daily, and then to paying them in the lunch break.

So the Bundestag’s research service sums it up. Some workers fetched their pay with handcarts at the factory gates. Bread shows the race they were running: the Reichsamt’s average price for a kilo of rye bread in Berlin went from 29 pfennigs in 1913 to 201 billion marks in November 1923, and late that month it was 428 billion.

The economist Bresciani-Turroni counted about 100 private presses “in Berlin and the provinces” printing notes for the Reichsbank, and 1,000 women and girls in the dispatch departments doing nothing but counting the notes in the packets.

By 30 November 1923 the Reichsbank had 400 quintillion marks of notes in circulation. At one trillion paper marks to the gold mark, all of it was worth about 400 million gold marks.

The Reichsbank’s notice of 25 October 1923

Published in the daily papers; quoted by Bresciani-Turroni. The Reichsbank hoped to raise its daily output to half of that by the end of the week.

05Berlin, November 1923

Twelve zeros off, in eight days

On the morning of 12 November 1923 the finance minister, Hans Luther, called in the banker Hjalmar Schacht and asked him to become currency commissioner. The new money was Luther’s: a transitional currency backed by a charge on land, an idea he took from Karl Helfferich’s plan.

The Rentenbank began issuing the Rentenmark on 15 November 1923, at one Rentenmark to one trillion paper marks. On 20 November 1923 the Berlin dollar rate was fixed at 4.2 trillion, and the same day the Reichsbank’s president since 1908, Rudolf Havenstein, died.

“The depreciation of money in Germany, which came to an end with the introduction of the Rentenmark on 20 November 1923…” (translated)

So the Statistisches Reichsamt opened its tables in 1925. The law of 30 August 1924 wrote the rate into the new Reichsmark: one for a trillion. The old paper notes ceased to be legal tender on 5 June 1925, though Reichsbank branches still exchanged them for some weeks after.