When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse

When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse
by Adam Fergusson

ISBN: 0718302141

Book Description: William Kimber & Co., Limited, London, 1975. Hardcover. 1st Edition. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. Hardcover, Black cloth boards with gilt title to spine, First Edition, 1975.

Book Condition: Very Good, corners bumped, spine slightly cocked (1/32"), extremely light shelfwear, small 1/32" blemish to dedication page, otherwise endpapers and pages are clean and bright, no marks.

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good, covers rubbed and some very light soil, light wear to edges, price intact, no rips or tears.

Contents: Prologue, 1. Gold for Iron, 2. Joyless Streets, 3. The Bill Presented, 4. Delirium of Millards, 5. The Slide to Hyperinflation, 6. Summer of '22 7. The Hapsburg Inheritance, 8. Autumn Paper-chase, 9. Ruhrkmapf, 10. Summer of '23, 11. Havenstein, 12. The Bottom of the Abyss, 13. Schacht, 14. Unemployment breaks out, 15. The Wounds are Bared, Epilogue, Bibliography, Index.

Summary: When Money Dies is the classic history of what happens when a nation's currency depreciates beyond recovery. In 1923, with its currency effectively worthless (the exchange rate in December of that year was one dollar to 4,200,000,000,000 marks), the German republic was all but reduced to a barter economy. Expensive cigars, artworks, and jewels were routinely exchanged for staples such as bread; a cinema ticket could be bought for a lump of coal; and a bottle of paraffin for a silk shirt. People watched helplessly as their life savings disappeared and their loved ones starved. Germany's finances descended into chaos, with severe social unrest in its wake. Money may no longer be physically printed and distributed in the voluminous quantities of 1923. However, quantitative easing, that modern euphemism for surreptitious deficit financing in an electronic era, can no less become an assault on monetary discipline.

Whatever the reason for a country's deficit necessity or profligacy, unwillingness to tax or blindness to expenditure it is beguiling to suppose that if the day of reckoning is postponed economic recovery will come in time to prevent higher unemployment or deeper recession. What if it does not? Germany in 1923 provides a vivid, compelling, sobering moral tale. (This book was later titled When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinflation in Weimar Germany) 256 pages, Scarce First Edition in Very Good Condition with Very Good Dust Jacket, Highly Collectible.


STATUS: Sold 6 May 2011 to Collector in Dallas, TX.