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Podcast: Book Friends Forever
Episode: When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson read by John Curless
Description: The classic history of the political and economic devastation wrought by runaway inflation in Weimar Germany—“brilliant” (Guardian)
In 1923, with its currency effectively worthless (the exchange rate in December of that year was one dollar to 4,200,000,000,000 marks), the German republic was all but reduced to a barter economy. Expensive cigars, artworks, and jewels were routinely exchanged for staples such as bread; a cinema ticket could be bought for a lump of coal; and a bottle of paraffin for a silk shirt. People watched helplessly as their life savings disappeared and their loved ones starved. Germany’s finances descended into chaos, with sev...