A house is worth what?

For those of you up on your world history, in post WW1 Germany, the once proud German people were devastated. During the Weimar Republic, the economy suffered hyper-inflation, in which money became worthless. In order to eat, My great grandfather’s house in Vlotho, Germany was sold for a 50 pound bag of flour, so that the family could eat. My grandmother is the one holding the child on the stone wall.

Vlotho, Germany, 1910 (approx)

1923 is called “The Year of the Wheelbarrow”. People would literally be going to the store to buy bread with wheelbarrows full of money, because the money was next to worthless. Part of the research of the book is on the events in the Weimar Republic in Germany at this time, and how economic and social forces led to the collapse of the German economy. As an example, a German Mark was generally approximate to the US Dollar pre WW1. After the war, and the reparations demanded by the Treaty of Versailles, in 1922 a loaf of bread cost 126 Marks. In 1923, in a state of economic collapse that is called ‘hyperinflation’ that same loaf of bread cost over 6 billion marks. People used paper marks as wallpaper. Hence, the title, ‘the wheelbarrow year.

German children playing with stacks of Reichmarks in 1923