IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/vrs/sthioe/v42y2024i2p75-94n1004.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reparations, Hyperinflation, Unemployment and the Rise of Adolph Hitler

Author

Listed:
  • Thies Clifford F.

    (Shenandoah University, United States)

Abstract

This paper reviews the history of the period 1918 to 1932 mostly to clarify the connections among the Treaty of Versailles, the German Hyperinflation of the 1920s, and the Great Depression of the 1930s to the rise of Adolph Hitler. In many cases, the paper takes a fresh look at original source material; and, it incorporates much of what has been subsequently written. While there are many lessons to be learned from these events, on the matter of reparations, the lesson is strange. In spite of Germany arguably not paying one pfenning of the demanded reparations, the demand for huge reparation payments contributed to the hyperinflation. More importantly, the re-negotiation of reparation payments enabled, first, Ludendorff and, then, Hitler to make gains in the polls. In the case of Hitler, his rise in the polls came just prior to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Suggested Citation

  • Thies Clifford F., 2024. "Reparations, Hyperinflation, Unemployment and the Rise of Adolph Hitler," Studia Historiae Oeconomicae, Sciendo, vol. 42(2), pages 75-94.
    • Handle: RePEc:vrs:sthioe:v:42:y:2024:i:2:p:75-94:n:1004
    DOI: 10.14746/sho.2024.42.2.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.14746/sho.2024.42.2.004
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.14746/sho.2024.42.2.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2014. "This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 15(2), pages 215-268, November.
    2. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    3. John H. Williams, 1922. "German Foreign Trade and the Reparation Payments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 36(3), pages 482-503.
    4. Graper, Elmer D., 1925. "The Reichstag Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 362-370, May.
    5. English, William B, 1996. "Understanding the Costs of Sovereign Default: American State Debts in the 1840's," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 259-275, March.
    6. White, Eugene N., 2001. "Making the French pay: The costs and consequences of the Napoleonic reparations," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(3), pages 337-365, December.
    7. Bhagwati, Jagdish N & Brecher, Richard A & Hatta, Tatsuo, 1983. "The Generalized Theory of Transfers and Welfare: Bilateral Transfers in a Multilateral World," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 606-618, September.
    8. Carl T. Schmidt, 1934. "German Business Cycles, 1924-1933," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number schm34-1, February.
    9. Eichengreen, Barry, 1996. "Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195101133.
    10. Devereux, Michael B. & Smith, Gregor W., 2007. "Transfer problem dynamics: Macroeconomics of the Franco-Prussian war indemnity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2375-2398, November.
    11. Alessandro Roselli, 2014. "Money and Trade Wars in Interwar Europe," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-32700-0.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Warren E. Weber, 2016. "A Bitcoin Standard: Lessons from the Gold Standard," Staff Working Papers 16-14, Bank of Canada.
    2. van Eeghen, Piet-Hein, 2021. "Funding money-creating banks: Cash funding, balance sheet funding and the moral hazard of currency elasticity," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Reinhart, Carmen & Trebesch, Christoph, 2014. "A Distant Mirror of Debt, Default, and Relief," CEPR Discussion Papers 10195, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Nicholas Crafts & Peter Fearon, 2010. "Lessons from the 1930s Great Depression," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(3), pages 285-317, Autumn.
    5. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 2018. "What Happened: Financial Factors in the Great Recession," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 3-30, Summer.
    6. Claude Diebolt & Antoine Parent & Jamel Trabelsi, 2010. "Expansionary Monetary Policy Under Liquidity Trap: 2009 in Light of 1929. A Counterfactual Analysis," Working Papers 10-07, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC).
    7. Albrecht Ritschl, 2012. "War 2008 das neue 1929? Richtige und falsche Vergleiche zwischen der Großen Depression der 1930er Jahre und der Großen Rezession von 2008," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 13, pages 36-57, May.
    8. Bradley Jones, 2015. "Asset Bubbles: Re-thinking Policy for the Age of Asset Management," IMF Working Papers 2015/027, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Trebesch, Christoph & Reinhart, Carmen & Horn, Sebastian, 2020. "Coping with Disasters: Two Centuries of International Official Lending," CEPR Discussion Papers 14902, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Grossman, Richard, 2016. "Banking Crises," CEPR Discussion Papers 11268, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2014. "A Decade of Debt," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Miguel Fuentes D. & Claudio E. Raddatz & Carmen M. Reinhart (ed.),Capital Mobility and Monetary Policy, edition 1, volume 18, chapter 4, pages 97-135, Central Bank of Chile.
    12. Jenter, Dirk & Aldunate, Felipe & Korteweg, Arthur & Koudijs, Peter, 2021. "Shareholder Liability and Bank Failure," CEPR Discussion Papers 16309, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Carmen M. Reinhart & Christoph Trebesch, 2016. "Sovereign Debt Relief And Its Aftermath," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 215-251, February.
    14. Michael D. Bordo, 2014. "Exiting from Low Interest Rates to Normality: An Historical Perspective," Economics Working Papers 14110, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
    15. Carmen M. Reinhart & Christoph Trebesch, 2016. "The International Monetary Fund: 70 Years of Reinvention," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 3-28, Winter.
    16. Devereux, Michael B. & Smith, Gregor W., 2007. "Transfer problem dynamics: Macroeconomics of the Franco-Prussian war indemnity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2375-2398, November.
    17. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2022. "Financial Intermediation and the Economy," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2022-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    18. Jordà, Òscar & Schularick, Moritz & Taylor, Alan M., 2015. "Betting the house," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(S1), pages 2-18.
    19. Michael Tomz & Mark L.J. Wright, 2013. "Empirical Research on Sovereign Debt and Default," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 247-272, May.
    20. Chwieroth, Jeffrey & Walter, Andrew, 2020. "Great expectations, financialization and bank bailouts in democracies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 102749, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:vrs:sthioe:v:42:y:2024:i:2:p:75-94:n:1004. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciendo.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.