The year was 1919. The Central Powers had just surrendered to the coalition of Allied Powers and as a result were forced to pay reparations as a form of punishment. The Treaty of Versailles dealt with Germany, and was supposed to punish them severely territorially, militarily, and economically. Germany lost tons of land, including economic centers where they had iron and other precious metal mines. Sanctions were also imposed against them restricting the size of their standing army and navy, abolishing their air force, and restricting them from the arms trade. Economically, Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, known as the “War Guilt Clause” stated that Germany had to pay the Allies 132 billion Deutsche marks, equal to $33 billion, a fairly …show more content…
As a result, Allied forces from Belgium and France occupied a portion of western Germany to steal raw goods. Later, in 1923, poor monetary policies led Germany to print more and more money to pay off striking workers, which made the money in people’s bank accounts nearly worthless (London Jewish Cultural Center). One US dollar was equivalent to 4.2 trillion Deutsche marks and people all across the country were forced to take the almost worthless currency to stores in bags and wheelbarrows in hopes of being able to buy a loaf of bread or jug of milk (Hitler Rescued the German Economy Before …show more content…
In his first few years in control, he implemented a number of policies that either actually helped the German economy or at least made it seem like that. While there is no doubt that real work was created, Hitler and his regime played with the unemployment numbers, which were around 6 million when he took power, to make it seem like some sort of economic miracle had happened. He did this by excluding women from the workforce, excluding Jews, and by conscripting unemployed men into the army. By 1939, his “unemployment” number was around 302,000 (The Nazis and the German