WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.862 [music playing, guns blasting] 2 00:00:04.950 --> 00:00:09.593 World War I lasted from 1914 until 1918. 3 00:00:10.100 --> 00:00:12.470 In the end, much of Europe was in ruin. 4 00:00:12.470 --> 00:00:15.548 The Allies had triumphed and Germany had been defeated… 5 00:00:15.548 --> 00:00:18.308 and it was time for payback. 6 00:00:18.308 --> 00:00:20.867 The Allies, though America objected, 7 00:00:20.867 --> 00:00:23.922 presented the German government with a bill for it - 8 00:00:23.922 --> 00:00:26.803 132 billion gold marks. 9 00:00:26.803 --> 00:00:29.122 That’s BILLION, with a B! 10 00:00:29.122 --> 00:00:31.868 It was twice Germany’s annual income! 11 00:00:32.674 --> 00:00:36.184 Desperate, facing a bill they didn’t have the money to pay, 12 00:00:36.184 --> 00:00:37.807 the Germans did just what 13 00:00:37.807 --> 00:00:41.118 America’s Continental Congress did in 1777. 14 00:00:41.348 --> 00:00:44.812 They fired up the printing press and pumped out the paper. 15 00:00:44.812 --> 00:00:47.017 [music playing] 16 00:00:47.017 --> 00:00:51.169 At the end of the war, $1 would buy roughly 4 marks. 17 00:00:51.169 --> 00:00:55.502 Five years later, $1 would buy 4.2 trillion marks! 18 00:00:55.502 --> 00:00:57.502 That’s TRILLION, with a T! 19 00:00:57.917 --> 00:01:00.487 Ordinary citizens suffered the most. 20 00:01:00.487 --> 00:01:03.754 Germany’s birth-rate fell and the death-rate rose. 21 00:01:03.754 --> 00:01:06.743 Infant mortality climbed by 21%, 22 00:01:06.743 --> 00:01:10.855 and on the black market cigarettes became the new money. 23 00:01:10.855 --> 00:01:13.228 The government’s money was so worthless - 24 00:01:13.228 --> 00:01:16.089 a whole wheelbarrow of it couldn’t buy a loaf of bread. 25 00:01:16.089 --> 00:01:19.057 You might as well use it for wallpaper or for kindling… 26 00:01:19.057 --> 00:01:22.815 By 1930 all that crazy out-of-control printing of money 27 00:01:22.815 --> 00:01:25.417 had destroyed the economy of Germany.