Paper and Iron

by Niall Ferguson

Few economic events have had a more profound or enduring impact than the German hyperinflation of 1923, still remembered popularly as a root cause of Hitler's rise to power. Yet in recent years many historians have argued that inflationary policies were, on balance, advantageous to post-1918 Germany, both boosting growth and helping to reduce reparations. The scholarly consensus is that there was no viable alternative to inflation. In Paper and iron Niall Ferguson takes a different view. Focusing on the influential Hamburg business community, he exposes the flaws in the contemporary justifications for inflationary policies. The inflation, he argues, did severe damage to the German economy by eroding the foundations of bourgeois society and discrediting Weimar's welfare state. Above all, it did nothing whatever to reduce reparations. Alternative policies might in fact have stabilised the German currency in 1920. To explain why such policies were not adopted, the author points to long-te