The Downfall of Money: Germanys Hyperinflation and the Destruction of the Middle Class Read Online Free PDF
Author: Frederick Taylor
dynamited and flooded. The local civilian population of around 125,000 was forcibly evacuated. The area was sown with mines and public buildings booby-trapped.
It is not so surprising that estimates of the total monetary cost to France of the fighting and occupation ran to between 35 billion pre-war gold francs ($7 billion) and 55 billion gold francs ($11 billion). 11
In Belgium the country’s population and its industries suffered even worse abuse. Factories were subjected to massive requisitions or, if seen as post-war competition for German industries, closed or allowed to decay. Many were totally demolished. Machinery was commandeered and sent to Germany. The country lost 6 per cent of its housing stock and two-thirds of its railway tracks. One hundred and twenty thousand Belgian workers, many robbed of their employment by factory and mine closures, were deported to Germany and used as forced labour. 12
All this happened with the approval not just of the Kaiser and his commanders, but of many German politicians and industrialists. As early as September 1914, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg had circulated a discussion paper written by an aide that envisaged outright annexation of extensive areas of Belgium and north-eastern France, turning the remains of Belgium into a vassal state and effectively crushing France as a military and economic threat to Germany once and for all. It was effectively a ‘shopping list’ of maximum demands rather than a formal policy document, but nevertheless showed the extent of ambition within German elite circles.
It is hard to see the paper as anything other than a blueprint for a German Europe:
The general aim of the war is security for the German Reich in west and east for all imaginable time. For this purpose France must be so weakened as to make her revival as a great power impossible for all time. Russia must be thrust back as far as possible from Germany’s eastern frontier and her domination over the non-Russian vassal peoples broken.
France.
The military to decide whether we should demand ceding of Belfort and western slopes of the Vosges, razing of fortresses and ceding of coastal strip from Dunkirk to Boulogne.
The ore-field of Briey, which is necessary for the supply of ore for our industry, to be ceded in any case. Further, a war indemnity, to be paid in instalments; it must be high enough to prevent France from spending any considerable sums on armaments in the next 15-20 years.
Furthermore: a commercial treaty which makes France economically dependent on Germany, secures the French market for our exports and makes it possible to exclude British commerce from France. This treaty must secure for us financial and industrial freedom of movement in France in such fashion that German enterprises can no longer receive different treatment from French.
Belgium.
Liège and Verviers to be attached to Prussia, a frontier strip of the province of Luxemburg to Luxemburg.
Question whether Antwerp, with a corridor to Liège, should also be annexed remains open.
At any rate Belgium, even if allowed to continue to exist as a state, must be reduced to a vassal state, must allow us to occupy any militarily important ports, must place her coast at our disposal in military respects, must become economically a German province. Given such a solution, which offers the advantages of annexation without its inescapable domestic political disadvantages, French Flanders with Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne, where most of the population is Flemish, can without danger be attached to this unaltered Belgium. The competent quarters will have to judge the military value of this position against England.
Luxemburg.
Will become a German federal state and will receive a strip of the present Belgian province of Luxemburg and perhaps the corner of Longwy.
We must create a central European economic association through common customs treaties, to include France, Belgium,
It is not so surprising that estimates of the total monetary cost to France of the fighting and occupation ran to between 35 billion pre-war gold francs ($7 billion) and 55 billion gold francs ($11 billion). 11
In Belgium the country’s population and its industries suffered even worse abuse. Factories were subjected to massive requisitions or, if seen as post-war competition for German industries, closed or allowed to decay. Many were totally demolished. Machinery was commandeered and sent to Germany. The country lost 6 per cent of its housing stock and two-thirds of its railway tracks. One hundred and twenty thousand Belgian workers, many robbed of their employment by factory and mine closures, were deported to Germany and used as forced labour. 12
All this happened with the approval not just of the Kaiser and his commanders, but of many German politicians and industrialists. As early as September 1914, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg had circulated a discussion paper written by an aide that envisaged outright annexation of extensive areas of Belgium and north-eastern France, turning the remains of Belgium into a vassal state and effectively crushing France as a military and economic threat to Germany once and for all. It was effectively a ‘shopping list’ of maximum demands rather than a formal policy document, but nevertheless showed the extent of ambition within German elite circles.
It is hard to see the paper as anything other than a blueprint for a German Europe:
The general aim of the war is security for the German Reich in west and east for all imaginable time. For this purpose France must be so weakened as to make her revival as a great power impossible for all time. Russia must be thrust back as far as possible from Germany’s eastern frontier and her domination over the non-Russian vassal peoples broken.
France.
The military to decide whether we should demand ceding of Belfort and western slopes of the Vosges, razing of fortresses and ceding of coastal strip from Dunkirk to Boulogne.
The ore-field of Briey, which is necessary for the supply of ore for our industry, to be ceded in any case. Further, a war indemnity, to be paid in instalments; it must be high enough to prevent France from spending any considerable sums on armaments in the next 15-20 years.
Furthermore: a commercial treaty which makes France economically dependent on Germany, secures the French market for our exports and makes it possible to exclude British commerce from France. This treaty must secure for us financial and industrial freedom of movement in France in such fashion that German enterprises can no longer receive different treatment from French.
Belgium.
Liège and Verviers to be attached to Prussia, a frontier strip of the province of Luxemburg to Luxemburg.
Question whether Antwerp, with a corridor to Liège, should also be annexed remains open.
At any rate Belgium, even if allowed to continue to exist as a state, must be reduced to a vassal state, must allow us to occupy any militarily important ports, must place her coast at our disposal in military respects, must become economically a German province. Given such a solution, which offers the advantages of annexation without its inescapable domestic political disadvantages, French Flanders with Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne, where most of the population is Flemish, can without danger be attached to this unaltered Belgium. The competent quarters will have to judge the military value of this position against England.
Luxemburg.
Will become a German federal state and will receive a strip of the present Belgian province of Luxemburg and perhaps the corner of Longwy.
We must create a central European economic association through common customs treaties, to include France, Belgium,
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